The hills of Valpo

Let it go
Yesterday I walked around Cerro Alegre, my neighborhood all afternoon, up and down the streets. I stayed on the hill and took something like 250 pictures. After a quick pizza, I was calling it an early night, and didn’t go out anymore. I had the prefect night in my hotel, the bed being a huge […] Read More

Heading to Valparaíso

Let it go
I wanted to see more of Chile than just Santiago, but flights to Easter Island were expensive, or completely sold out, and even a visit to the Atacama desert or the glaciers in the south would have meant a budget deficit higher than Greece’s. So I decided I’d got to Valparaiso and Viña del Mar […] Read More

Shopping guilt

Let it go
My friends know I haven’t bought a thing in at least two years. Except maybe some underwear, socks, and an occasional CD or DVD, I had totally stopped buying anything ahead of my trip. Even when I had the urge to have something, the thought that I would spend that much to put it into […] Read More

Bachelet’s party

Let it go
When the results were out and the cars started to honk, I went for a quick visit of downtown, to the San Francisco Plaza Hotel, where the future president was addressing her voters. The street vendors had foreseen the outcome and were selling Michelle’s portrait en masse. But also a fair share of Chilean flags, […] Read More

Todos con Michelle

Let it go
If you had asked me a couple of weeks back who the President of Chile was, my answer would have been: Michelle Bachelet. Little had I realized that her term had ended in 2010, with no immediate re-election possible according to the Chilean constitution. But somehow the face and name stuck in my head and […] Read More

In heat

Let it go
Sorry to all of you wrapped in scarfs and gloves… I’m suffering from the heat! It’s too hot for my taste, to run around in a city. The Andes are hidden behind a curtain of smog, and I just don’t feel much like walking around. I went to a park on Friday and, like many […] Read More

Phone issues

Let it go
I have phone issues! And this post is going to be a bit of a rant about efficiency issues in South America. In each country it has been a struggle to get a pre-paid phone chip, or to get it charged. In Brazil, I finally got a pre-paid chip from Claro, which worked pretty well. […] Read More

Hot days

Let it go
It’s pretty hot in Santiago now, and this kind of slows down all my processes. I tend to sleep in, mostly because I’m up late… then blog or read a bit, do some stuff that needs to be done, file documents, check credit card bills, get in touch with my bank etc… all that stuff […] Read More

Social life

Let it go
I was sad that I had to leave Buenos Aires. It had just started all to fall into place, my routine, the friends I had made… I wasn’t really up for leaving and starting all over again. Funnily, it was actually easy (no offense to the gang in BsAs, I miss you guys!!). But if […] Read More

Museum of human rights

Let it go
Yungay is also the home to the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos, that is dedicated to the memory of the military coup in 1973 and the following dictatorship. It is a modern building that recounts the events of 11 September 1973, when the military staged a coup against the elected socialist president […] Read More