Valparaíso- Hills, Art, and Dogs

On our last night in Santiago, we met up with some friends of friends for dinner. Peggy and Sam took us to a wonderful local restaurant that is a Santiago institution. It was fun to meet some new people and we had a great time.

The next morning, we hopped on a bus to Valparaíso. It's a city on the ocean, not far from Santiago. The city was built into the surrounding hillsides. Each hill has a name. Our hotel is on Cerro Alegre. It's in an older, more historic part of town. The view from our room is fantastic!

The city is full of colorful houses nestled on the hillsides. Because of the colors, local graffiti artists decided the houses would look even better with pictures painted on them. Not all the paintings are artistic, but many are. It's fun to walk down alleys and staircases to find murals hidden in a narrow spaces. There are a few pictures below of some of the art.

Since most of the people live in the hills, there are funiculars that take you up the incline. Some are quite old, and not all of them still operate, but it's a fun way to explore the town. At 20 cents per trip, they are cheap too!

We took a walking tour of the city witha group called tours for tips. The tour is free, but you can tip the guide if you like it. The guides call themselves Wally, and dress like Waldo. Our guide, Priscilla was awesome!

The other thing you notice here is the number of stray dogs. It's common to walk down the street and have a dog start to walk with you. They are all friendly and well behaved. One dog followed us for a long walk. We called him lumpy, because he was a little lumpy. The dogs are OK, but at night, they do bark a lot.

Well, today, we head to the airport to come home. The road to the airport goes through a wine valley, so we plan to stop at a few wineries on the way.

It's been a great trip!

Cerros, Lomitos, y Pisco Sours

We have been in Santiago for a few days now. It's been a lot of fun exploring the city. On Sunday, we visited the zoo in the park. It was fun seeing them list animals like "Mallard Duck" as Exotic. But I guess that's how it works when you're in a different continent. We expecially enjoyed the monkeys and other primates, and got to watch some swimming penguins.

After that, we rode the funicular up to the top of Cerro San Cristobal. It's a big hill in the middle of the city, in a giant park. At the top, there is a large statue of Mary overlooking the city. We walked down the hill from there, passing through a few gardens on the way. It was a great day, with a lot of walking. We were very tired at the end of the day.

Monday, we climbed the Cerro Santa Lucia, another hill in the city, this one topped by a fortress. We got some great views of the city from the perch at the top. We joined a bike tour with La Bicycleta Verde after lunch. They took us around the city, seeing different parks and civic buildings by bike. It was an interesting perspective on the history of Santiago and Chile. Our guides, Nacha and Fabian were great!

Today, we went to a small artisan market near the edge of the city. It had a bunch of tiny shops where artists and craftspeople sold their things. There was a lot of copper and lapis lazuli jewelry and art. There were also a lot of weavers selling llama and alpaca crafts. It was a lot of fun.

The food in Santiago has been excelent across the board. We ate at a restaurant called Galindo that is considered one of the best authentic Chilean restaurants in the city. Emily had a great pork sausage with beans and lentils, while I enjoyed a stewed beef dish. We tried a Lomito at the legendary Fuente Alemana, which is a tender, sliced pork sandwich with mayo, sourkraut, and tomato sauce. We've had corn pie, empanadas, mote con huesillas, parillada (a giant pile of grilled meats), Conger Eel, Mariscal seafood stew, tender roast pork with rice, and the list goes on.

We've also enjoyed some great Chilean wines and the local favorite drink, Pisco Sour - a concoction of pisco brandy, egg white, lemon juice, and probably some other things.

Tomorrow, we head to Valparaiso to enjoy a few days on the ocean before heading home.

Together Again in Chile

We are now both in Santiago, Chile. Emily's flight from Madison was long, but uneventful. The weather has been pleasant, though obviously colder than Madison since it's their winter here. When Emily arrived, we went back to the Ritz Carlton where my class has been staying. The 15th floor pool area had a nice view of the city.

Yesterday we took the Metro to downtown Santiago. First we walked along a pedestrian-only street and stopped to get coffee at a standup cafe where the women wear short, tight skirts. We saw Anthony Bourdain stop at this same place when we watched his "A Cook's Tour" episode in Chile. Then we explored their Central Market, known for its seafood. We saw albacore tuna being sold for the equivalent of less than $8/lb. Craziness. Though overall, I wouldn't say that prices are all that cheap here. Mostly comparable. 

Today we're heading to the large city park where there is a cable car up to the top of a peak that has a large statue of Mary overlooking the city. After we walk down, we're planning to visit the zoo and various gardens throughout the park.

Buenos Aires es bueno

I've spent the last couple of days in Buenos Aires. I enjoyed my time here, but I probably don't need to come back too soon.

I arrived here early Sunday morning. Our group started with a tour of the city, which was probably nice, but everybody was so tired from the flight that I'm not sure we got much out of it. We did see Eva Péron's grave, which was just around the corner from our hotel. The cemetery whee she is buried is full of cool mausoleums.

We spent much of our days in meetings with businesses. Most of these were a little dry, but there was one agricultural consultant who was interesting. I also enjoyed our tour of the River Plate soccer complex. If you're not a fan of soccer, River Plate is one of the best teams in Argentina, and is fairly well known throughout the world.

Aside from the business meetings, I was able to see a bit of the city. My favorite neighborhood is La Boca. It's a very eclectic place full of colorful buildings, art and music. It was a bit touristy, but still fun.

Things I learned about Argentina:
-The ordinary coffee is pretty bad, unless you can find a cafe that makes espresso.
-the wine is pretty good and inexpensive.
-the beef is greatly over-sold. I could get beef as good in Madison, and probably not much more expensive.
-The people are friendly and hospitable, and speak some language that is almost Spanish.

I'm off!

I'm in the Madison airport ready to head off to Buenos Aires for a two-week trip in South America. The overhead speakers at MSN are playing an orchestral version of Pink Floyd's "On the Turning Away." A fitting send-off.
I'll be with my MBA class for the first week of the trip. It should be an interesting trip, learning about business in Argentina and Chile. I'm sure I'll miss Emily and Claude while I'm gone. Emily was sad to see me go this morning. I'm not sure Claude realizes that I'll be gone for two weeks. I got some snuggles from him before I left, so I'll take what I can get.

The second week, Emily will join me in Santiago and Valparaiso. I'm really looking forward to that part of the trip. We'll be enjoying the culture, food, and wine of Chile.

Keep an eye out for updates from me this week and both of us next week.

Garden Observations

A few odds and ends today.

False Indigo
I've learned that with certain plants, it pays to buy a bigger plant right away. False Indigo (Baptisia) is one of them. I planted these two plants at exactly the same time, only I paid about $10 for one and $6 for the other. See if you can guess which is which. That said, I can't say enough good things about this plan. While slow to establish, one it gets going it's practically shrub-sized and requires almost no maintenance The flowers are lovely in the late spring, followed by cool seed pods. Plus the foliage looks great all season and into the winter. I don't cut it down until the spring.

Siberian Iris
I've come to love Siberian irises. While they only bloom for a week or so, their foliage looks decent all summer and they require practically no maintenance, other than cutting off the expired stems. This particular cultivar is called 'Flight of Butterflies' and is wonderful because the foliage is diminutive (the big foliage in the picture is dying tulip foliage) and you have these very dainty flowers on an almost non-existant stem. From a distance it really looks like floating purple butterflies.

Poppies
I planted this papavar orientale two years ago (I don't know the culivar off-hand), but last year the bunnies ate it down to the ground before i could put chicken wire around it that it never recovered. This year, i protected it in time and it bloomed. But the blooms lasted exactly 1.5 days and are now gone. This is a picture at the end of day 2. You can see they're already deteriorating. By the next afternoon, all the petals had fallen off. The foliage is ok, but not pretty enough on its own that I think it's worth having just for that. So overall, I'm not a fan of these poppies.

Allium
This plant has jumped up to the top of my fall-planted, spring-flowering bulb list.  I just can't get over how reliable, bunny-proof, low-maintenance (some of the taller ones do require staking, but I don't mind that - I buy bamboo stakes in bulk), and lovely they are. I'm already planning all the additional places I should plant alliums this fall.