la serena part 1

This is the story of the hunt for my surfboard. Chile is country littered with waves . Any wave your heart dessires. long lefts to short, spitting rights. bringing a surfboard from SA would be a lus so i thought i would just buy one here. this turned out to be a bad move.
i spent 4 days and nights hunting through every surfshop in La Sarena. nothing. nothing agreed with my shoe string budget. i decided to go check out some of the beaches anyway.wave hunting. boardless. I heard about a beach 20 kms south. (or north,i cant remember) called tortaralillo.

i was on the bus heading somewhere. after about half an hour i asked the girl next to me where i had to get off if i was going to the beach in totaralillo. she laughed and pointed behind us. i had missed the place. running to the front of the bus everyone knew and had a laugh at me. i showed the driver my ticket. he pulled over on the high way with a blank expression, in the middle of no where , opened the door and pointed behind us. got off the bus. on a high way... I was about 5 kms past the beach. two options came to mind .
1.) walk 5 km back to the place i was supposed to get off
or
2.) jump a barbed wire fence and bundu bash towards the coast down a cactus infected mountain.

end of part 1

Valparaiso... maaad place

valparaiso is a really mad place...mad people....mad houses...mad vibe. it has a quirky charm. its definatly a place that could dicribe my personality. it has a downtown... and a residential area up on a hill... there is no order to houses or streets... every house is different and there is street art and grafitti everywhere... definatly my favourite town so far.

you could spend hours walking around the streets on the hill. its like a massive art exibition... i probly only got to see a tiny fraction of all the art . but it still blew my mind. Valparaiso is one of the street art capitals of the world.. there are no laws prohibiting graffiti and the town is infact a world heritage site...

everyone should see this place...

i spent a few days here... longer than initially planned. but hey. the first couple of days i spent exploring the surrounding beaches of vina del mar and renarca... these are up market beach resort towns... they have no real soul but apparently in summer the beaches are full of people...

the next few days i met up with a guy i met in mendoza..pablo. i stayed in his house thing and we went out to a punk club... good music... the clash and some good ska and such and also some heavy chillian punk... good times.

from valpo i had to catch the bus 3 hours up north to a coastal town called la serena. i overslept slightly and nearly missed it. i arrived here in la serena yesterday morning at 5:30. the hostel was closed so i waited in reception until it opened.

spent yesterday missioning to find waves... i got on a bus and said... playa por favor (beach please) the driver said which one. i said anyone so he dropped me off at this random empty shit beach with fokol waves... i named it fokol... there were some seagulls. i was tired so i fell asleep.. woke up really sandy

I stayed in Santiago for a few days. The first 3 days I explored the city.By myself and with a aussie man who had been travelling for alone 11 months. He was a bit mad. (lone wolf sikness). but its always interesting to here what people think about life. I didnt really understand half the things he rambled on about.

the hostel was good but i needed a change ,so i spent my last night in a different hostel... there i met up with some more aussies. these guys were cool. during the day i met some locals and we had some beers... then i went back to the hostel and played some risk with the aussies in the hostel bar. i lost. and the night slowly spun out of control. i woke up the next moring and i couldnt find my shoes. they were in the hummuk outside. im glad i found them. unluckly i lost my beenie. but it was a good night.

that morning living was a lus... my brain didnt want to work and i had to make my way to valparaiso,my next stop. luckely the aussies were also heading tthat way , so i just stuck with them. it helped alot. i was in no state to think.

i got on the bus with them and two hours later i woke up in valpo... followed the aussies to their hostel and booked my self a bed. i had made it. thank god for the aussies.haha

wandering around alone in a big city feels like floating on a cloud with flocks of birds speeding by, every face walking past me doesnt mater. Everyone seems to be heading in a certain diretion. On their way somewhere. Only thinking about the future. Disconnected from eveything happening around them. I notice these people are not living in the present.

I dont like big cities. Big cities make all little things in life seem completely irrelavent.to me that makes living irrelavent.Big cities are for small minds.

I think travelling alone changes the perspective through which i see things. It makes me more synicle. Being alone in a crowd amplifys the feeling of solidude. It can be one of the best and most refreshing feelings, but sometimes it can be difficult and often leaves an empty feeling inside. I often feel like i’m on a level above the croud when i’m alone. As if no one can touch me.Its a really good feeling. But sometimes i feel completely lost. As if an experience has far more meaning when shared with someone . like the same as happyness only being true when shared. I suppose its all about the perspective at which you look at it.

I defnatly notice when i meet people who have been travelling alone for long periods of time they go abit crazy... but thats only after about 1 year of traveling

bus to santiago... through the andes

From Mendoza my travels would send me westwards ,towards the coast. The pacific ocean. This would involve an 8 hour bus trip through the Andes mountain range. Mendoza treated me well ,but it was time to leave. The bus ride was more like a scenic tour. a road surrounded by huge snow topped peaks.

Once we made it to the Chile-Argentine border everyone had to get off the bus and sign some papers and show some passport. The officials wanted to know why i wasnt black and if i had a vuvuzela.

I told them of coarse ive got a vuvuzela and i am black, mandela is my grandfather. not to sure if they believed me.

after that everyone had to go into a room and put there hand luggage on this table. Next minute a sniffer dog came running in and went straight for this guys bag. the police then took him into this other room. I didnt see him after that.

I finally made it into Chile. Arrived at the main bus stop and my hunt for accomodation was on. My couch Surfing contacts were unavailible. So a cheap hostel was plan B. Walked around ...Asked around and eventually found something... Its like a rush getting off the bus alone...not knowing where I will be staying. But it always works out really well.

Mendoza.

I arrived in Mendoza on a bus from Buenos Aries. I had no contacts here and I had no idea where i was going to stay.It is quite a fresh feeling. All turned out well and I managed to find a hostel very easily. Even though nobody really speaks any english.

Mendoza is a Little city (100 000 people) at the foot hill of the great Andes Mountain range. It is the capital of its province and namesake Mendoza Provice. Home to the peak of the great Aconcagua,the highest peak in South America. Unfortunately I am unable to attempt a summit because the trail is closed for the winter.

I have been here for 3 nights so far , i'm staying in a hostel about a 10 minutes walk from the city centre or plaza de indepencia. Its a nice hostel called Ruca Potu with free wine and a free laundry service.

I arrived in the Morning and spent the day walking around the town. I had no map and got really really lost, but i saw some cool things and met some nice locals. (locals are very friendly to foreigners here).

The second day I went for a tour of all the wineries around the maipu region on a bike. Again I had no idea how to get there ,all I knew was that i had to take bus number 10 for about 40 minutes ,get off ,and the "bike n' wine " company would be somewhere there. This turned out well and I got there alright.Mr. Hugo was the owner and he greeted me with a smile and a big cup of really awful cheap wine. Downing it seemed to make it taste better.You rent a bike for the day and they give you a map and you are free to explore the area and stop off at all the different wineries along the way. I was about to head off when three guys asked me to join them. 2 from france and one from denmark. so i did and off we went.

Our first stop was a chocolate factory. That happend to make some absenth on the side. The absenth was heavy and felt like i was drinking fire. We washed it down with some nice hazelnut liquire and off we went. The next stop turned out to be another chocolate factory that also happend to make some absnth on the side. they also had many different types of liquir to try. we had green pepper, tabaco, grapefruit and cherry liquers. all followed by another shot of absenth.

We were now ready to find some wine. Cycling and drinking is quite dangerous but the locals are very carefull of tourists on bicycles in this area. We cycled around from winery to winery tasting the best wine argentina has to offer. All of it tasted really good. Malbec is the most common variety. Its good. Not too heavy.the argentinian Malbec from the Mendoza area is actually the best in the world.

After the wineries we stopped of at a brewery. the beer wasnt the best but it tasted good. At this stage everything tasted good.

Definatly one of the best tours i've been on. And i got to meet some cool people.