Know why the aisles in theaters are called "Vomitoriums?" Here's a hint: it's a Roman/wine thing.

First, I have one more small issue to clear up: when Chileans say "como estai?" it is not actually a bastardized version of the vosotros conjugation (which is used exclusively in Spain). It is actually a bastardized version of the vos conjugation, which means it actually isn't a conjugation form that is new to me (just one I've never, ever used, because they don't use it in Bolivia or Peru. Spanish has a lot of regional differences). It's just a seriously strange version that is only used in very informal situation, like with siblings or close friends. Or so according to a Chilean friend of mine.

Chile is fun. I've been going out a lot, which is actually kind of hard work, since the bars close so late I don't get my hangover until 5 or 6pm the next day - about when it's starting to get dark. I've been mistaken for a local several times (until I open my mouth), which might have something to do with my new jeans: it's pretty much impossible to find jeans here with anything shorter than a 36" inseam (WHY? Chileans aren't tall...), so maybe 2 out of 3 people (myself included) have either rolled up jeans or baggy-at-the-bottom jeans. I just need to pick up a fanny pack, and I'm practically Chileno.

I've gotten settled into my apartment, and found some Spanish classes that I think will be pretty good. I have private classes, which used to terrify me, but my Spanish is far enough along now that I don't tense up to the point where I forget how to say "where's the bathroom?" until I pee my pants. Also, there's a scary old elevator in the building with no safety mechanism if you were to get stuck in the door, and the thing closes like a bear trap. Which is pretty cool. The other day a guy tried to hold the door for me and almost got his arm taken off for his trouble. One of the three elevators has a guy running it; his job is to sit on a stool and move the lever between "run" and "stop" all day. Que fome. The building is right near the military port, so there's lots of sailors wandering around, and I noticed I don't giggle at them the way I did at the Bolivian sailors (remember that Bolivia has no coast, although they do have a "navy" base on a river bordering Argentina that is maybe 45 feet across and looked about 6 feet deep), although Chile does have a national holiday celebrating a naval battle they lost, which is pretty funny too (and ironically called "Navy Day." The Battle of Iquique was against Peru, in the War of the Pacific, and features other ironies, like the captain of the Chilean ship ordering a boarding, but the order was only heard by two Chilean sailors, who were quickly riddled with bullets as they stormed the Peruvian ship. There's a large memorial in Valparaiso commemorating the martyrs). The classes are in Valpo, so it's actually a 45 minute commute each way (at least if there's traffic), which kind of sucks, but whatever. Actually, the commute would be shorter if the micro companies hadn't decided to half the number of buses running a couple of days ago. See, Valparaiso especially is pretty hilly, so the taxis charge a lot. Most people don't have cars (this being someplace that isn't the United States, plus there's a lot of students - a demographic known world-wide for its chronic shortage of liquid capital), so everyone pretty much HAS to take the micros. I guess the micro companies know this, and through some sort of collusion - tacit or otherwise - have decided to cut their costs and increase the crappiness of the transit system by halving the number of buses. Either way, it takes a long time to get a micro now, and they're always really full. This is a good example of private enterprise going awry, because even though there are at least three micro companies, it didn't seem hard for them to reach this new business decision (and I think assuming the collusion was tacit would be pretty generous to the companies). Supposedly there are "talks" underway between the companies and the city, whatever that means. I don't know what kind of regulatory body is here, or how much teeth it might have, but I do know that public transit authorities would never pull this kind of shit (why would they? Last I checked, there were no stock-options for Whatcom Transit Authority employees). In the meantime, I'm walking even more than I used to, since it takes about as much time for me to walk the 15 blocks to the central plaza as it does for me to wait for a micro to pick me up and wind its way through traffic. Plus it's giving me Buns of Steel.

I went to the supermarket today for the first time - not the Lider Express (yes, the name is Spanglish, which is all the rage here), which is on the end of the mall nearest my building, but to the Lider Supermercado proper, which is through the mall (actually the nicest mall I think I have been in), across the skybridge, and into the other part of the mall across the street. This Lider is a whole different ballgame. While the Express is the size of a smallish supermarket in the States, and a fairly adequate place to pick up what you need, Lider proper is a supermarket on steroids. It's probably the size of a Wal-Mart, and has - ready? - 90 aisles (and I think as many checkout stands). There's two rows of them, so it's not so long as you might think, and the aisles are maybe 3/4 the size of aisles back home, but it's still pretty fucking big. There are no baskets here, only carts: Lider is designed for serious grocery shopping. Maybe not "Alaska bush family on monthly Costco run" serious, but pretty serious nonetheless. There are special moving sidewalk-type escalators that move people and their burgeoning carts up to the parking garage, and they even sell entire shopping carts full of a multitude of products that is basically an instant kitchen, filled with items from pudding to dog food to paper towels (a modest $89,000 investment, or US$180. Does that include the cart?)

I love the supermarket, and wandered up and down most of the aisles, just to look, while I rocked out to the sweet 80's music coming through the intercom system (that song from the sex scene in "Top Gun" was on ("Take My Breath Away"), plus "Don't You (Forget About Me), from the Breakfast Club. Good stuff). Mostly there wasn't anything particularly interesting or exotic (although there is an entire aisle devoted to canned seafood products - i.e. an entire aisle devoted to products that have always kind of given me the willies), but I don't shop with a list, so what am I supposed to do? (I'm the dream of supermarket managers - the impulse shopper) I bought some produce, and if I haven't mentioned it, none of the supermarkets here have scales at the checkout - you have to pick your produce out and bag it up, and then have it weighed and stickered with prices. This is annoying for two reasons: one, it creates one more line to wait in; two, it means you have to bag all your produce, which I normally don't do at home (I get enough bags at checkout). There have been times when I was going to buy two of something but decided to buy one so I didn't have to bag it, although I couldn't resist today when they had Asian pears priced at $1.25 a kilo (two pears, $.75 cents. Friggin sweet). Avocados are a good deal too, at a little under $2 a kilo (2.2 pound, to us Yankees - a word they use here, which is a big insult in Chile, but kind of endearing in Argentina. Regionalism again). But you have to buy a whole kilo, so I have a lot of avocado to go through, which is fine since it's awesome on everything from sandwiches to cereal to ice cream (speaking of which, they have Dryer's/Eddy's ice cream here - $10 a half-gallon. I'm guessing not manufactured locally).

Chile is a big food exporter, so there's lots of stuff pretty cheap, like seafood (and I'm guessing the Asian pears). I picked up some salmon, which was farmed by a company called Aqua Star - and I loathe buying farmed salmon, but I didn't really have a choice. To go with my fish, I wanted to buy some wine, which was harder than it sounds. Buying wine is always sort of a pain, just because of the overwhelming options and similarities (I had a boss who had a program on his palm pilot that could write wine descriptions that sounded straight off the bottle. It was called "Bullshit Wine Description." I usually let price influence my decision greatly). This normal complication was compounded by the wine section itself being the size of a small grocery store, plus the fact that I had never even heard of many of the grapes in question. True to form, I eventually settled on some mid-shelf reds that were buy two get one free (who can't use free wine?).

One other item I had been hoping to pick up was quinoa, which I figured should be at least fairly common, since Chile is also an Andean country. But I was wrong. Quinoa at Lider is tucked away in a small corner of an aisle with exotic-type foods (Aisle 87, the guy told me after consulting his extensive product location chart), and comes in little, 250 gram packs (about one serving) and costs a small ransom. It grows out of the sand in one of the poorest countries on the planet, but then again maybe Bolivia isn't interested in selling quinoa to Chile (you know, the whole Bolivia-hates-Chile-with-the-fire-of-a-thousand-suns thing). At any rate, I bought rice instead, which was about 1/10 the cost (they have two grades of rice here, Grade 1 and Grade 2. What the Hell is grade 2 rice? I bought grade 1).

When I got home, my dyed-flesh, high-in-PCB salmon was worth it; my dinner tonight left me satiated in a way I don't think I've been since I've been down here (excluding the possibility of the steak I had in Argentina). Of course much of that had to do with the wine, I think.

Just a small correction

Due to grievances from outside actors, I would like to make the following correction: Jason's knowledge of Chilenas greeting habits was made solely from third-person observation, not from direct experience. Under no circumstance would a Chilean woman ever actually kiss Jason, or probably even talk to him. Less you get the impression that Jason is some sort of sick sex pervert that likes to kiss cute girls. I apologize for any confusion caused. Thank you.

Just a few tid-bits

To what I am sure is the relief of all of you, I have figured out a simple way to convert Chilean pesos to US dollars (actually, the epiphany occurred just after my last post, which means I didn't have to go too long being totally flabbergasted by "apples: $1,690 per kilo"): take the Chilean price, double it, knock off three zeros. Round down a little if it was a large amount, since there's 515 pesos to the dollar and not 500. Easy peasy. In fact, I wish the conversion was bigger now, because I like the absurd idea of having to knock off like 12 zeros instead of just three.

I've settled into my apartment somewhat (besides not having any hand towels, and not being able to find them. I spent an excruciating amount of time in the mall trying to find small towels, which I didn't see at the market when I looked. I think I actually hate mall service, where someone immediately pounces on you hoping for a big fat gringo sales commission, especially when I have to muddle through my Spanish when the clerks ask me questions. Actually, yesterday my voice was gone, so I could whisper "no puedo hablar," and that backed them off pretty quick. I should just say that all the time), and I am narrowing down my choices of Spanish schools, and I went for a walk today and found out there is a gym half a block from my house, which is cool since I'd like to work out some while I'm here.

On my walk I finally strolled down the beach boardwalk that is two blocks from my building, which was pretty awesome. I guess it's been a fairly warm fall/winter here so far, because the sun was out and you barely needed a jacket. I had a heavy jacket and alternated between wearing it until I got hot and not wearing it until I got cold. Apparently the water here is too cold for swimming year round (Antarctic current and all that), but still I imagine the beaches are more crowded in the summer. Nevertheless, there were quite a few people out enjoying the weather; vendors selling candy apples and little kites made of old Styrofoam; guys making elaborate octopuses and sharks out of sand for spare change. I've never really lived in a beach town before, and I have to say it seems pretty nice. Especially when it's not super hot, cause I'm not really into that (although I do keep my speedo line waxed at all times, in case of Beach Emergency). But the rolling waves and endless horizon; lazy haze; and little silhouettes of ships, sitting motionless far in the distance as if cut from black construction paper - I find it all really relaxing.

I had another thought today about why I like staying in one place and just hanging out so much more than running around on an itinerary or something: I saw a big bus of tourists stopped at the beach today, and it looked like they had maybe 15 minutes to check it out. As I watched them all try and furiously document how much fun they were having with their cameras and camcorders, it occurred to me that on expeditions such as the one I was watching the traveller is forced enjoy things in a way that end up taking most of the enjoyment out of the experience. I mean, I guess if I only had 15 minutes to enjoy the beach of Vina del Mar, and had spent a lot of money and took a long bus ride to get to it, I'd feel like I had better enjoy it - now or never! I guess I feel like the imperative to enjoy steals any actual enjoyment to be had. I have to say I felt a little smug, walking slowly down the boardwalk with no place to go in particular, loving what I saw but knowing that I'll be able to talk that walk many more times if I want to.

As I said in my last post, my time here is pretty much going to be Spanish, exercise, and drinking. The first two I haven't gotten rolling yet, but the drinking part has started with gusto. Jason and I close out the clubs (5am) pretty much every time we go out, which is looking like is going to be 3 or 4 times a week (Thursday through Saturday are all good nights, plus there's a good Tuesday bar and I think a good Wednesday bar...). The clubs here are fun because it's a college town, so there's a big scene; Chilenos are friendly so it's a low-pressure environment to dance and have fun and socialize; and Jason decided long before I arrived that Chilenas say hello by making out. Jason also figured out before I got here that a lot of times the most interesting part of the night is the micro ("mee-crow," or city bus) ride home after everything closes: cram 60 drunk 20-somethings into a bus with 20 seats, add some loud music, and watch the fun unfold! Witness the mystery of the empty seat! (That is until you notice that the seat next to it is occupied by Partied Out Chileno that might puke). Marvel at the way the drunks are able to not topple over as the micro screams around corners at 50mph! (Probably something to do with being packed in so tight). Wonder at the insanity as someone on the bus makes a rude remark to the transvestites on the street, and one throws a wine bottle at the bus and the other pulls a hidden shank the size of her forearm and threatens to come at the bus! (true story). Yes, the micros are great fun.

Anyways, I am on a quest for hand towels (one for the bathroom, one for the kitchen. In complementary, tropical colors I'm thinking). So I will sign off.

Confratulations, devinmalone!

Or so exclaimed the headline from one of the latest batches of spam to hit my inbox.

I moved into an apartment yesterday. It's on the top floor of an eight story building; two blocks from the beach with a view of the sea (but those of you reading this up north don't get excited - it's winter here), and at night I can faintly hear the surf crashing onto the beach. It's also two blocks from the mall so I can shop to my hearts content (How COOL will it be to say I've bought Gucci in Chile?!? Seriously though, there's a supermarket in the mall, which is nice), and it's four blocks from Jason's house. There's a well-equipped kitchen, laundry machine, large living/dining area, two beds and two baths (although one bath you practically have to get into the shower to close the door). Across the street is an Oregon pine-furniture store (who knew the US still had a marketable durable-good export?).

Since I have a spare room with two beds, I listed myself as available to host on Couchsurfing, so we'll see if anything comes of that, although it's low season in Chile and I'm kind of far from the center of Valpo, which is really the touristy bit of this area. My apartment, like all Chilean apartments, is cold pretty much all the time. It's not super cold here, but imagine a brisk fall day that makes you want to bundle up, and then imagine that none of the buildings are heated and you put up with that weather 24/7. I have a plug-in electric heater, but am nervous about how much that will bump my utility bills by the end of the month, so I pretty much do the Mr. Rogers thing: come home, take off my "outside" sweater, and put on my "inside" sweater. If only I had some slippers for my tile floor!

The apartment search was actually tedious and frustrating, and I'm glad it's over. It's tough to find a furnished apartment that someone will rent for a month, even in a little vacation beach town like Vina del Mar. I looked at a lot of places, a lot of which were crap (which would be understandable perhaps if they weren't also expensive, like $500 a month for crap. Who wants to pay $500 for crap?), and I spent a lot of time thinking about how awesome payphones are in America. In fact, everything about our telephone system pretty much kicks ass to anything I've encountered down here. I mean, stuff here works fine, it's just so annoying to use and expensive. Examples: 1) I got a cell phone here, which has really different ways of dialing land lines and other cells (actually not so in Bolivia. Score one Bolivia). So I couldn't figure out how to call anyone for the first few days. 2) Using your cell to call during the day is like $45 a minute, and your other two options are to use a payphone or a home phone. If you use a payphone, you have to have 100 pesos (a little under a quarter) to talk for 35 seconds. So you have to continually feed coins in, and the phone only accepts 100 peso coins, and no one gives change here. So when you run out before your conversation is over (which has happened EVERY time I've tried to do this), the phone hangs up on you and you beat the receiver against the machine in hopes that it might spit a bunch of money out in response to your anger. After I got sick of that, I went to buy a prepaid phone card. I started in the supermarket, where they told me to go to some other store, which I couldn't find. So I basically spent an hour wandering through the city, trying to explain to people what I was trying to buy and them not really understanding. In Bolivia, there is a call center with rows of phone booths on every corner (score two Bolivia. In fact, the same problem exists for me with internet places here, because in Chile people are wealthier and tend to have PCs in their houses, whereas in Bolivia you can't walk two blocks without passing a dozen internet places. Score THREE Bolivia). And then, once you get your phone card that you spend $10 on, you get home and find out that lasts about three minutes if you want to call cells. Fantastic. I don't know why phone calls are so cheap and easy in the States, but they are.

So more or less, my plan is to live in Vina for a month, and try and set up interviews with CEPAL. In the meantime, the activities will revolve around Learn Spanish, Swim/Gym, Party. Busy schedule, I know. But I'm actually looking forward to a little routine for a while. And going out, which is great fun here because it's a little college town so there's lots of bars and clubs. And I will add this: Chilenas tend to wear their big brothers' pants, but also manage to look pretty hot in them. Actually, people aren't really very fashion conscious here (compared to, say, Argentina), which I think is pretty cool (and it might explain why fanny packs and dreadlock mullets are so popular). Generally, people don't seem to focus so much on what you look like; neither your body nor what you're wearing (I've definately seen model-attractive Chilenas with Chilenos that look like they spend their Saturdays role-playing as Elven wizards). On the other hand, they are really classist here: one of the worst things you can say about a thing or person is that it's ordinario - "ordinary," which doesn't sound so bad in English, but here it's closer to "white trash." Fortunately, as a foreigner I'm more or less outside of that, so I don't have to explain the fact that I'm relatively wealthy but wear socks with holes and old worn jeans (and that I don't cut my hair, and that I wear big clunky hiking boots, and that I haven't showered in 10 weeks and...)

Chilenos are so friendly, too. I've had so many encounters where I come away with the thought "wow, that person was really nice!" It's a stark contrast to when I got to Bolivia, where I got the distinct impression that people had it in for me. Like my doorman today, who asked me if I needed anything when I came downstairs, and then very patiently explained to me (because my Spanish sucks) about the trash system in the building, and not only that no, toilet paper can't go in the toilet, but he added some suggestions about what I should do with it instead (OK, that part basically boiled down to "put it in a plastic bag," but he gave such a lengthy, whole-hearted explanation that I was still impressed).

Hm. I can't think of anything else to write right now. Usually I have a little list of notes. This one was freelanced. So if it sucked maybe that's why. Anyways, goodbye to you, dear reader, of which there are five of you that I'm aware of (although I did finally add a blog counter to the new site, so I can know which of you really like me and which don't).

Chile: It's more than just long and skinny

Actually, just like the Chilean countryside, there's not a lot to distinguish Chilean cities from American cities. The cars are pretty new and the buses are pretty modern (instead of 50 year old Japanese imports, complete with kanji on the side); the parks and plazas are well tended, and there are lots of contemporary shopping centers, supermarkets and skyscrapers. Santiago has a clean, simple-to-use metro and a skyline of modern buildings that I think actually outdoes many American cities (I think because they're newer, so the architects have abandoned the "let's build another big glass box" mentality of the 80's or the "how about a yellow concrete box, and we'll cut it up with smaller boxes. If we're lucky, it will look as ugly as possible" mentality of the 70's). I think the biggest differences are apparent once you get inside private homes - they tend to be small, and they lack all the little niceties found in America, like light fixtures (instead a hanging wire with bulb attached is more common) or any sort of climate control.But while I found this in Bolivia, the apartments and homes here seem as if they were constructed by people who actually have had training in construction, or maybe they just actually gave a fuck (or had a boss who did). The paint jobs aren't so slap-dash, and there aren't places in the stairwells where anyone over 5'5" is certain to hit their head if they're not careful. Another thing is that many of the faucets here have the option for cold or HOT water, which by this point has become a delightful luxury for activities like hand washing and dish cleaning. Oh, and I haven't seen any breaker boxes inside showers yet (or been electrocuted in one). And when you walk through a Chilean city, the cars actually stop at crosswalks, and even will wave you through - quite a contrast to the mutual disrespect shown between cars and pedestrians in Bolivia.

One small annoyance is the light switches. Sometimes they're inside the room, sometimes they're outside. I'd say it's about 50-50. Which means about half the time I wander into a room and grope around for the switch before I realize my mistake and leave the room, hit the light, and then re-enter. Another thing that is a bit of an annoyance is the money: unlike in Peru and Argentina, where you get 3 pesos to the dollar, or in Bolivia, where it's 8 to 1, in Chile you get 515 pesos for a dollar. So when you go in the grocery store, avocados might be marked "$1,299/kilo," or shoes might cost $18,000 (they use the $ sign for everything). It takes a lot longer for me to do the conversion in my head, and it's a lot harder to keep track of how much I've spent (OK, I spent $4,200 on lunch, and three metro rides are $130 each, and $280 for the bus...). But I imagine I can get used to these things. And it's not like there weren't annoying things in the other countries I've been; in Bolivia the B/1 coin was virtually identical to one of the two types of B/2 coin. I mean, at some point there must have been a meeting to make a decision about what the coins were going to be like. Actually, I imagine that meeting going like this: "we need to design a new B/2 coin. So let's take the old design for the B/1 coin, erase the 1, write in a 2, and use the money we were budgeted for a trip to the Bahamas."

Another thing about Chile is that there are prices on everything, and you don't really bargain much. And the taxis are metered, which I really like (that's the easiest place to get messed with when you have to fix a price yourself, which also makes it the most tiring). Chile is much more expensive than Bolivia; things seem to cost three to five times as much in Chile, some things 10 times as much. It's kind of like living in the United States, if everything you saw for sale made you think "hmm, that's a pretty good deal I guess." But it really is a lot easier to go through the day without having to bicker and haggle over every little thing.

There are other similarities between Chile and Bolivia: Chile has people on the streets with blankets laid out, filled with strangely random goods for sale - although this seems much less common than in Bolivia; and in restaurants there are the same three choices of soda as in Bolivia (Coke, Sprite, or Fanta). And just like in Peru and Bolivia, I wear a large dollar sign on my head. I was waiting in the Santiago bus station, and I saw a guy walking through the crowd, past several waiting Chileans, right up to me and he gave me the line of "I'm trying to get home to see my sick mom, and I don't have any money, and I was wondering if you could help me out." Wow, that is so, so convincing. You know, we have that hustle in the States, too. In fact, these interactions have produced an amazingly strong fight-or-flight reaction in me when it comes to being in the general public. I tried to go to the market today for lunch, but I was accosted by so many waiters trying to get me to come to their restaurant that I had to leave because I was starting to panic. One guy totally saw "gringo" coming, and signaled to me through the crowd, and the aisle was too narrow to avoid him, and he was trying to talk to me while I pretended to examine fish in a case opposite his direction while I kept walking. He wouldn't let up, just kept yelling after me in English and Spanish. It's just gotten to the point where I just can't help but feel like I'm being hustled; like they're the ones deciding where I'll eat, not me, even if their intentions might be friendly. After I left the market and was waiting for the adrenaline to leave my system, I thought how they probably have no idea the reaction they're provoking in me, and how much more likely I would be to eat at their restaurant if they would just let me examine the large menus they all have posted and ask questions when I'm ready, if I have any. I know that this sort of reverse discrimination I've been talking about (Vest Guy, Bus Guy, Restaurant Guy) doesn't really affect my greater economic and social well-being, like many types of discrimination do, but it's still just so tiring and frustrating.

Another big similarity between Bolivia and Chile is the receipts: I think Chile is even more into producing receipts than Bolivia. For example, while I was in the bus station I wanted to buy a danish. So I went to the counter where the danishes actually were, and told them I wanted one. They wrote that on a piece of paper, which I took to the cashier, who then produced a receipt of payment for my danish. Next, I went over to a different counter and gave them my written request for a danish, plus proof of payment. They went back to the counter with the danishes, got one, wrapped it up, and handed it to me along with a receipt showing I had received my purchase. You know, I could just give you the money, and you can give me the danish. We don't have to bring ink and paper into this! (RIP Mitch) Another good example is the ATM: when you complete your transaction, the machine asks if you want a receipt. If you push the "no" button, nothing happens. Push it as much as you want, but you're not getting your card back until you push "yes" and just accept the fact that you're getting a receipt. Phone calls, street food - you're getting a receipt for it all, whether you like it or not.


I'm in Santiago at the moment, waiting to hear back from Omar Bello, the expert on Bolivian economy at the UN's CEPAL. I went to the building, which is pretty secure, but I did speak with the secretary for the Department of Development and Economics (but from the security gate). After a short wait, she came back and gave me contact information for Bello, and said he might be able to meet with me tomorrow. That hasn't ended up happening, but the process has still gone much smoother so far than anything did in Bolivia. I spoke with Bello on the phone today, and he said he was going to email me back tonight, and he sounded like he thought we could meet sometime this week.

I'm staying with a couple of guys from Couchsurfing.com, Alejandro and Diego, who live pretty close to the center of Santiago and are pretty chill. Alejandro is an architect; Diego works for the NGO Ocean Conservancy. Their apartment has unadorned white walls, and in a seemingly post-modern acknowledgment to the lack of decoration, there is an easel with a blank white canvas set up in the living room. Unfortunately, they work during the day until 6 or 8 at night, so we haven't been able to hang out much. Plus, I've been really tired lately, and have been going to bed pretty early.

Of course, that might have something to do with staying out until 8am several nights in a row while I was staying with Jason in Valparaiso/Vina del Mar (as is the practice when out clubbing in those cities, and I think it's screwed with my internal clock). One night, I got home about 9am and Jason was asleep. I called him and told him to come let me in, and he just mumbled and said "I hate you," and hung up. I had to hop the fence of the apartment complex.

Valparaiso is kind of the better-known area, and Vina is a little more upscale, but the cities run together. Jason lives in Vina; most of the clubs and touristy stuff is in Valpo (I'm just going to say Valparaiso from now on). Valparaiso is a port town and beach resort area where people vacation to from Santiago in the summer (it's late fall now, and the weather can only be described as glum: grey skies, cold rain, low temperatures, but I've never loved going to the beach anyways), and is a UN World Heritage Sight. As Jason showed me through the streets, covered with murals and small public art projects; brightly colored colonial houses; and beautiful ocean views, I couldn't help but wonder if I had chosen the wrong country to spend six months in. We rode in the ascensors, or elevators, which were built in the 1920's and are still mostly original. The ascensors are little wooden boxes that people get in, and then they are slowly pulled up or lowered down one of Valparaiso's many hills on a track that is similar to a roller coaster (only no precipitous drop at the top). Most of them provide spectacular views of the city, and I thought they were really fun just because they were so damn cute and quaint. Inside, it's perfectly obvious who is a tourist and who is a commuter: I was practically clapping my hands with glee, while old men read newspapers and didn't even look out the window.

Another interesting thing about Valparaiso is the buses: there are several private companies that compete on the same routes, and it's pretty wild. When a bus approaches a stop, there is a guy waiting who, for a few pesos, tells the driver how long it has been since another bus came through running the same route. If it's only been a minute or two, the driver will hit the gas, careening through traffic, in order to overtake the other bus and try and snipe his fares at the future stops. If it's been several minutes, the driver will go at a snails pace, hoping that this will provide more time for more fares to arrive at the stops. The drivers get a commission on the buses take, so it's worth it for them. This also means that they may or may not give you change, or maybe that they'll short-change you, in which case there's nothing you can do except try not to fall over as they race to the next stop. Oh yeah, and when you get on and pay your fare, you may or may not get change, and if they give you change it may or may not be correct. Depending on the mood of the driver, I guess. Also, people get on to try and sell random stuff, like a plastic stick with a plastic dolphin attached to the end on a string. They get on and hand one to everyone, and if you don't take it they'll drop it in your lap. Then they say some stuff about why you should buy their crap, and come back through and you have to either buy it or hand it back and feel like an asshole because they have some sob story. Fortunately they speak way too fast for me to understand, so I have no guilt and no plastic-dolphin-on-stick pieces.

My Spanish is coming along OK, especially given I haven't taken real lessons since Cusco. I actually feel like my listening comprehension has improved a lot over the last month or two (ie it's gone from crap to semi-crap), and I can actually talk on the telephone without having to ask "que?" at least once after every sentence of the other person. But other times, people say simple stuff to me and I totally don't get it. And once I don't get it, it can be hard for me to start getting it again for a while. It's like my brain is still processing the first thing I didn't get, and it can't move on to anything new until it's figured the first thing out.

Other times I have problems just because there are so many regional differences in Spanish. Like in Bolivia or Peru, I always heard donde va? (where are you going?). But at the borders coming into Argentina and Chile, they asked donde viaje? (where are you travelling?). It's different enough that both times I totally stumbled, wondering if they were asking me where I was coming from, or where I was headed, both of which seem equally reasonable questions at an international border. And Chile is the worst - not only are they known for being the fastest speakers on the continent (while Bolivia is the slowest - Jason told me he has heard from Chileans that Bolivians talk so slow it seems like they're slow in the head), but they cut off the ends of words (Diego asked me to hand him a lapi the other day - the word is lapiz, "pen," and he actually didn't really say the i even, so it came out more like lap with a barely pronounced p); they use the vosotros conjugation for verbs, which isn't used in Bolivia or Peru and which I haven't really learned (eg como estas, "how are you," becomes como estais, only they cut off the s and just say como estai); and they use whole new words that are only used in Chile (like polola for "girlfriend" instead of novia). Actually, I felt a lot better when Jason told me that there are some Mexican people in his program, and it took them a couple weeks to be able to understand everything people were saying - and Spanish is their first language.

My plan right now is actually to find a place to live in Valparaiso for a while, because I really liked it there, and it's always nice to be with close friends. Plus, I plan on taking more Spanish lessons, and if I can handle Chilean Spanish, I can pretty much handle it anywhere else. And Jason said that if I'm going to live there, we have to make a pact to only speak Spanish. Jason is a self-hating gringo who is militant about learning Spanish, so I should learn a lot, even if it might impare our ability to banter and joke around (we might have an exception for those things, though).

Back across the Andes

The anxiety is what's hard. My bus to Chile was supposed to leave five minutes ago, and I couldn't find it. I'd arrived at the station only five minutes early, which was not smart. Actually, the last time I had to catch a bus, when I was leaving Salta, I had arrived 3 minutes after the bus was supposed to leave. But that time wasn't my fault: I wanted some food for the bus, so I went into a restaurant to order some empanadas. They said they had chicken, meat, or cheese, so I said I'll take one of each. In fact, what I actually said was "I would like one chicken, one cheese, and one meat. One of each." (sometimes I go slow in Spanish. More for me than for them) Somehow this turned into one dozen of each. At least when the lady walked out with three dozen empanadas, I knew why I had been waiting for 45 minutes for what I thought were 3 empanadas. They were pretty nice about it, although I could tell they hated me. It's so hard to tell where these misunderstandings come from sometimes. I mean, it was a pretty simple request, something I thought I could have handled in Spanish. But maybe not. Then again, why would they think a guy by himself would want three dozen empanadas? At any rate, it made me late for my bus, which was just getting ready to pull out when I got there, running through the gate with all my stuff (which makes me look super cool, by the way: a big backpack on my back, another, smaller one on my front, plus a guitar. Awesome).

But that experience just made this one worse. Anxiety isn't something you get used to, I don't think. Kind of by definition, if you don't mind it, that means you don't really have it. So I was trying to get to Chile, and I couldn't find my bus. The terminal in Cordoba is pretty massive; there are 39 platforms, and when you ask the guy at the information desk who coordinates arrivals and departures, they tell you something like "your bus will be between platform 20 and platform 28." So I'm running around, trying to watch the buses pulling out, the buses pulling in, and the buses that are parked at the platforms, which are all full. Once it was ten minutes past the supposed departure time, I went to the information desk again, and they told me my bus was running late and hadn't arrived at the terminal yet. That helped some, but not much: why was the bus late? Did a wheel fall off? Did the driver OD on amphetamines? Do I really want to get on this bus now? The idea of a mechanical problem started to become especially worrying because more time kept slipping by: 30 minutes late, then an hour, then an hour and a half. And we were supposed to cross the Andes in this thing. So I spent an anxious hour and a half watching keeping an eye on eight platforms for my bus (which was supposedly going to be here "any minute"), and trying to listen to the station announcements, which was pretty much impossible - pretend you're at the drive-up window, where it can be hard to understand a language you've been speaking all your life, and then imagine the person on the other end is speaking Spanish. Now pretend you've only been in town for five days and you don't know anyone, but you have everything you own with you and you know that you're a ripe target for pick-pockets and con-artists. It's not a great time.

Well, the bus did eventually come, and once it did everything was fine. Especially once they started serving the wine (finally, my Argentinian bus wine! There wasn't any on my bus Salta-Cordoba). They serve it with the meal, which came pretty quick once we got on board, and it was actually hot food: chicken and rice over big slabs of zucchini, and a creamy sauce on top. The wine came in a plastic cup, but it was pretty good sized. Plus they came through to top it up! So once I got a couple of those in me I was a lot more relaxed. Unfortunately, the movie they chose to play was "Final Destination 3," which I watched for a few minutes to see if it would hit any of the superfluous nudity that was sure to come before I got too tired to care. By this time it was a little after midnight anyways, so I curled up with the pillow and blanket the attendant had provided and drifted off to sleep.

When I awoke, I was high in the Andes. Towering peaks dusted with snow looked down on our bus, which was winding its way through a desolate landscape to the border with Chile. The immigration procedure was a bit interesting: unlike my last two border crossings, which basically had nothing to do with security (in Bolivia the officers were literally discussing whether or not to ask me for a bribe; in Argentina I didn't even have to fill out an entry card explaining what I was doing in the country, and the guy looked through every page of my passport and asked me questions about where I had been. Not because he was suspicious, but because he thought it was really cool I'd been to Asia and India. My luggage wasn't searched), Chile goes the whole nine yards, with drug dogs and x-ray machines. Apparently they're quite strict about foreign fruits and vegetables; all the questions on the entry card were about whether you were carrying any (do you have any fruits or vegetables? Do you have any dried fruits or vegetables? Do you have any live animals with you, including livestock or bees? Does it look like I'm carrying goats or bees in my backpack?). Also, there were several cardboard cut-outs of a very stern looking cow standing on its hind legs with its arms crossed, saying, "do not attempt to bring any foreign plant or animal products into the country." It looked like it meant business, so I quickly finished the dried fruit I had packed, and checked "no" in that box on my entry card.

While we waited for our luggage to be x-rayed and hand-searched, I chatted with some Chileans who were on their way back from Brazil, and took me to be French from my appearance (maybe the wool coat? Or maybe people really just don't know and should stop trying to assume where I'm from, because "Alaska" is probably going to be one of the last places they guess. Down on the list with "Togo" or "Mongolia" probably). They complained about Chilean bureaucracy and told me where I could go skiing if I was still around in a couple months (there were resorts near the border crossing), and I told them a little about Bolivia and the work I was doing.

None of the three of us were selected for a hand-check on our baggage, so we were free to get back on the bus, which was slowly creeping through the line of trucks, buses, and private cars that were trying to get through a vehicle-choked arch reading: Bienvenidos a la republica libre de Chile, or, in English, "Welcome to Chile" (is there something missing there?). In the area around the Chilean side of the border were scores of giant white-plastic containers that looked like they were for contraband. There were military guys searching the trunks of private cars, and I had this incredibly strong urge to leap off the bus and just start running as fast as I could towards the hills. Then I could have a cool, Bourne Identity-style shoot-out at the border, you know, with lots of quick camera pans and near-misses, guards yelling in a foreign language, attack dogs, and probably some big martial arts fight with the unusually large MP that happens to know muay thai. But then I remembered that I'm alone, and I had no one to operate the camera, so I stayed on the bus.

Once we got back on the road, the view was incredible: huge peaks rising all around us, and a frightening, hair-pin road running down into oblivion. It really felt like I was at the top of the world. It felt deeper than Colca Canyon, and I think the sheer drop and the fact that I was elevated on a bus peering over the edge made it feel more dramatic than when I trekked in the Himalayas. The road was less than two full lanes wide, and it was occupied almost solely by double-decker long-distance buses and huge cargo trucks, all of which needed the whole road to make it around the hair-pins. It made for an interesting, slow-moving dance of vehicles up and down the mountain, as only one could go through the turns at a time. All along the road were giant concrete barriers to protect against landslides, but all along the wall were huge, car-sized chunks ripped out, as if the gods themselves hurled the largest boulders they could find down the mountain, and nothing as mortal as reinforced concrete could stop them. The idea of other-worldly interference was only reinforced when I saw a big white box truck at the bottom of our descent: it was on its side, and the side facing up looked like it had been shredded by the claws of some giant, 50-foot cat. The metal was stripped and curled, and the drivers compartment was crushed completely inwards. It could have been a prop from "Jurassic Park" or something.

I nodded off for a bit after we finished our descent, and soon after we arrived in Santiago. As I was getting off the bus, I asked the attendant where I could change money in the terminal. At the same time, a guy in his 50's wearing a red sweater-vest asked where I was going. I ignored him, because I hate being harassed like that. When I need a taxi I'll go find one. At least, I figured he was a taxi driver, so when he wouldn't leave me alone I told him "I'm going to change money, and then I'm going to Valparaiso." He said, "oh, you can change money right over here, right here." And he lead me to an office just inside the station. Except that I already knew where it was, because I had just asked on my bus. The guy waited for me while I changed money, and then when I turned around I saw him waiting for me, and behind him I saw a ticket office that said "Valparaiso" on the sign. So I started walking towards the office, and the guy was saying "You're going to Valparaiso?" I ignored him again, because I realized he wanted to "help" me for money. He asked me again and again, three or four times, so finally I just said "yes" in the most tired, annoyed voice I could muster, without looking at him. He followed me to the ticket office, where he was trying to tell the guy where I wanted to go while I tried to push him out of the way and tell the guy myself. Ironically, he was trying to get me a ticket to Valparaiso, but I was actually trying to go to Vina del Mar, which is right next to Valparaiso. When I had bought my ticket, I asked where the platform was, and turned to leave, which was when the guy in the vest said "the platform is this way!" So at this point I just keep thinking "oh, God dammit," because it's clear this guy isn't going anywhere, and he's not even helping me. Just the opposite. When I got to my bus and gave my large bag to the attendant to load under the bus, Vest Guy says "this one too," pointing to my smaller bag. I then had to explain to the attendant that I was taking that bag on the bus with me. This was when Vest Guy started saying "propina, propina, propina para mi, propina." Right, I should give you a tip for all that help you gave me, like annoying the crap out of me. I gave him the smallest coin in my pocket and he started mumbling at me, probably about cheap gringos, and I got on the bus.

The bus chugged off towards Valparaiso and Vina del Mar, while I got my first look at the Chilean countryside. There was very little to distinguish it from rural countryside in the US, actually (besides the signs in Spanish, I mean). We drove past orchards and vineyards; little farms with ponies and small herds of dairy cattle; model pre-fab houses with big signs imploring us to "get them while you can!"and little outposts of commerce advertising "rustic" furniture and homemade baked goods. There were even these big trees with peely bark that seemed suspiciously similar to madronas, and when I put this all together in my head I thought that I may as well be back in Washington, although there were other trees - a deciduous one that looked almost blue, and a coniferous one that didn't look like a tree, but more like if a Japanese theme park were to design a tree using green sheet metal - that were a little more foreign.

As we approached the outskirts of Valparaiso, I saw what were obviously the houses of the poor, but there was something different about them. It took me a second to realize what it was, but I finally saw that the difference was that the houses were made of wood, and there was even occasional linoleum siding. When put next to the houses of the impoverished in Bolivia and Peru, which were made exclusively of uncovered brick or adobe, they seemed much more familiar. As the bus began moving through Valparaiso proper, I saw huge, multi-level shopping malls and supermarkets, and lots of new-looking cars. It was an extreme contrast to where I'd been. Of course, there are a lot of other differences - and some similarities - but my initial impressions of life in Chile will come next post.

Argentina A-OK

Hello. I am now in Argentina. Salta, to be exact. And the food is better (horah). In fact, I had a damn good steak for lunch today that was bigger than my head (that's a lot of steak). And a fish bowl of wine (375ml, or a little over 12 ounces - the smallest glass they had), and a Waldorf salad (blue cheese/walnut/apple - I realized I had been hankering that salad for two months or so once I started eating it). So that was good. Plus, they have Budweiser here! Thank God I'm back in a civilized country. And the traffic lights go to yellow when they're about to turn red, but also when they're about to turn green. Which seems kind of silly, because when the go from red to yellow, everyone just goes, so they may as well go straight to green, I think. Also, a lot of stuff has price tags on it here (which they don't do in Bolivia), but if it has a $ sign, it's priced in Argentinian pesos. If there is no sign, it's probably priced in American dollars. Well that makes sense, right?

When I got here, the taxi driver told me that Salta is a great place, that there are no "bad people" here. Which is probably not true, but it is a marked contrast to arriving in a new Bolivian town and having several people tell you to "be careful, it's dangerous here". More welcoming, you know? Almost as welcoming as all the mullets, which somehow are chic here. Which is totally fucking awesome.

Another thing I like is how everything happens later in the day; stuff like newstands, stuff you would expect to be open really early, don't open until 9 or 10am. Lunch is around 2, and dinner usually isn't until 10pm or so. When I got here from Bolivia, I had to set my watch ahead an hour, even though it's directly south - like the Argentinians organize their time around their nite-owl tendencies. And I've never been much of a morning person, so that suits me just fine.

So far my only complaint is the napkins, which seem to be made of tissue paper. I wasn't even sure if they were supposed to actually be napkins, or maybe something that you hold your food in so you don't need a napkin as much. But they're napkins. Pathetic ones. But those are only at the cheaper places or if you go for empanadas (kind of like pot stickers, only baked, and the bread is flaky, and they're filled with either burger meat or chicken or cheese). Of course, the cheaper places are where I usually go.

So it's strange being a tourist again. I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to be doing... should I really just tool around the continent for the next few months? That seems like a really strange, not particularly appealing idea to me somehow. I guess I need some cavities filled, so I can get that done in Buenos Aires maybe. And I'm going to Chile for one more interview (hopefully) with the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and to party with Jason, who is on exchange in Valparaiso. So I guess that's a plan. In the interim, I'm going to a town called Cordoba, in the middle of Argentina, which is supposed to have lots of adventure sports. I thought I might do some rock climbing or something. I have a ticket on a bus company called "Plus Ultra Merco Bus," which seems like it's trying a little too hard to convince me that it's a good company. But supposedly the buses here are supposed to be amazing; like they serve wine or port before bedtime on the night buses, for example. And I like wine, so I think this will work out just fine.

Surviving the Bolivian Medical system

Well, I've been sick for the past few days, with fever and aching muscles through my whole body. I'm staying with a family in Santa Cruz, and they were convinced I had dengue (which is common here), also called "breakbone fever" (because your bones feel like they're being ground to bits inside your body. Delightful!). So they convinced me to go to the hospital, which I resisted for a day or so because I didn't really have any of the dengue symptoms, plus I just wasn't so excited about turning my body over to the Bolivian health care professionals. But we went, and they took my temperature (yes, I had a fever), and some blood, and some pee. And they tested my white blood cell count, and concluded that I had a mild or onsetting case of dengue. And, since I was coughing, I had a throat infection and needed to take antibiotics. I tried to tell them I'd had that cough since I got here and suspected allergies, but the doctor shrugged that off. I skipped the antibiotics. They told me to take some medication I'd been taking anyways, so I did that. I never developed any dengue symptoms. But it's been several days of just laying around with no appetite and being sick.

Since I was out last week, I missed my opportunity to interview Gabriel Dabdoub, the president of the Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce, who's quoted in the press a lot as rabidly anti-Evo (he's in La Paz this week). So that's a shame, because I still haven't had that interview. I spoke with a representative from the Hydrocarbon Chamber, who was critical of the nationalization policy but not as critical as I had expected. At any rate, I have one more interview on Wednesday with a guy from the mayor's office who is supposed to be a legal expert on the nationalization decree, and then a seat reserved on a flight to Tarija Thursday morning. I had been planning to go to a little town called Camiri, where they're mad about the nationalization being just a tax increase, but it's 8 hours each way over unpaved roads, which just sounds too awesome after getting over the flu and I don't think I deserve that much fun. Maybe I'll end up going, but I'm kind of over my project right now. I'm just feeling totally apathetic about the whole thing at this point. Mostly, I think I just want to get out of Bolivia, where a lot of the men are hostile, the women are indifferent, and a lot of the food is out of the federal school lunch program (mayonnaise and white bread, anyone?). OK, it's not all like this, but enough of it for me to be ready to see what Argentina is like.

Santa Cruz doesn't do it for me any more than La Paz, and actually probably less: the whole city is low-rises and sprawl, so it's easy to get lost and hard to walk around. It was mostly built post-1960, and I guess it's a lot like any American city built in that era. Part of it was that this place was built up so much in my mind: virtually everyone I met told me "oh, you're going to have a great time in Santa Cruz. The night life is off the chain, and the women are beautiful. You're going to love it." I already posted about my first night out here, and the next night wasn't much better: places were open, but the whole club scene here was just that - a scene. I wasn't anybody, and everyone made sure I knew it. I was out with this Belgian guy I met in my hotel, and we went out to a few clubs, which were nothing special (a room with a bar and a dance floor, reggaeton playing - basically any club anywhere in the country). I guess I would say the girls here are pretty, but I think mostly they just spend more money on clothes and make-up. Not exactly my scene.

From here, I'm actually probably going to head to Chile, where the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean is located, and where hopefully someone will sit in front of the camera for me. Chile is not Bolivia, which is a plus in my mind right now, and my friend Jason is just West of Santiago (and no, you can't be too far away in Chile if you're somewhere "West"). And from there I'm going to Buenos Aires to tango and eat steak.

I'm staying with another couchsurfer named Richard; he's 36, single, lives with his extended family (parents, 3 sisters, several kids) in a large house in the center of Santa Cruz. The whole family runs a place out of town a ways that has a swimming pool and a restaurant for people to rent out for weddings and stuff; or on the weekends it's just open for the public. Having an entire extended family under one roof seems to be pretty ordinary here - and you'll be hard-pressed to find any single Bolivians who can afford their own place (what's weird to me is that they're still treated like kids - my 25 year old friends in La Paz still get grounded and can't go out with boys). There's something about the whole organization of things here that is totally different from the US that goes beyond just multiple generations living together. Like this girl I met, Sarah, who is from Santa Cruz and was home visiting for a couple weeks. Sitting outside on the street with her, she knew everyone passing by: "She's lived there since I was born and was friends with my grandfather; I used to buy gum from her when I was little; I'm actually not sure who that was, but they seem to know me..." It seems like personal relationships are stronger here, I guess because people probably move around less and live with more people in smaller homes - there's always visitors. Sarah says that's her least favorite thing about America, that no one knows each other, and that there's no priority for family.

It's pretty true though that Americans tend to prioritize other things. Like for most people, moving away for a good school or a good job would be more important than staying to be near your family. In fact, I think there's a bit of a stigma about going to university where you grew up, and an even bigger stigma about living with your parents for long after you graduate high school. I think we gain a lot of independence and experience from this lifestyle, although I have to admit I envy the Latins for having such strong families. "I have 200 cousins," Sarah's son Angel told me. Wow, I don't even know how many I have. I think six or something, although I'll be hard pressed to tell you all their names or anything about them. It definitely feels like the Latinos are more rooted to their past and their future, through their families. Zesty Latins!