A day away from the city.

On Saturday, a small group of us decided to head up to see the sights in the Valparaiso area. It was my first experience on the famous Chilean bus system and , I have to say, I was very impressed. The buses were awesome and cheap too! It only cost about $8 to get all the way to Valpo, which is about 2 hours away, and back. Once we got there, we signed up for a tour of the area that cost $20 but would take us to each of the cities in the area (Renaca, Vina Del Mar & Valparaiso) and a few of the main turist spots. Not a bad deal.



It's a well populated area but it felt much different than Santiago, which is great. The beaches were really pretty and reminded me a lot of some of the beaches above San Diego. We stopped to eat at a seafood restaurant by the beach and ordered some kind of lunch special. Most of you probably know that I don't really eat too much seafood so choosing to follow the crowd and order the fish l was taking a bit of a risk (I know, pathetic). It was SO good. I don't remember what the name of the fish was but it was delicious. I could have eaten 3 lunches by myself without blinking. We drove around the beaches for a bit and stopped at a few scenic spots. I asked our tour guide what the name of one of the places was and she rattled off some Spanish phrase that sounded like it had a good story and said "En Ingles?". I said yes and she said "Ocean picture place". Pretty inspiring, huh?

We got to go Pablo Neruda's house in Valparaiso. It was really cool to be able to walk through the gardens and see the view of the city from all the benches he had throughout. It was my favorite part of the tour. I wish we could have gone inside but we didn't really have enough time to do it justice so I just peeked inside some windows. Maybe I'll get to go back once this thing is over.



It was great to get away from the city and the large groups of people constantly hanging around the hostel to see what else Chile has to offer. I'm looking forward to a few more quick trips in the south around Chile and Argentina during the months to come.