Today started out normal enough. It ended with a bang.
I started out from Chanaral to Valpaiso. Filled up some gas at the gas station across the street when a huge dog came up to me to play catch. He dropped a bottle cap and so I obliged a few times for him to fetch it. Obviously, it didn’t go too far. Then I was trying to pay my bills when the dog got impatient waiting for me and starting stomping at my feet. He was a pretty big dog. I noticed that all the stray dogs in Chile are pretty big.
I then started the drive, thinking it’ll be sunny today. But I was wrong. It was foggy most of the time, and I barely used the sunglasses. I think I will skip on the contacts until I get into Argentina where the weather’s supposed to be more temperate.
I was just going through the pictures a couple days ago and was thinking about how awesome the guacamole was in Mexico. I stopped by a gas station about 400 miles away from Valparaiso, thinking I can then get to the city without having to fill up. I stopped by the nearby cafe as well, where I ordered some Ave Sandwich with tomate. Turns out it was a chicken sandwich with tomato and guacamole! I was pretty happy about the experience, it was worth every penny.
So I drove here to Valparaiso today, which was quite a pleasant drive. It was quite windy in some parts, but I greatly appreciated the double lanes, and they were all in great condition. I hope the rest of the roads are in such great shape.
I got here in perfect time for the sunset. It is the most beautiful sunset I’ve seen in my life. I will be leaving for Santiago tomorrow, but I do wish I had more time to enjoy it some. That and only if it was summertime here…
The night ended in a mad search for motels. One good thing about all the other countries that are much poorer that I passed through was that it was incredibly easy for me to find a decent place with a garage and hot water. Here, it’s almost impossible to find a decent motel at a decent price with hot water and a garage. And the fact that I passedy by absolutely none on the way to the sunset spot was discouraging. So I headed towards the hills, where I assumed I would come across at least one place in a bit more suburban area where I can find decent housing at a fairly safe place.
Little did I know that I parked my car and decided to ask a question to a lady who directed me to a dormitory of sorts for University of Valparaiso students. I don’t know what else to say about it so far except that I happened to stumble in during their final exam week. But all the kids here have welcomed me with open arms.
I get the feeling, though, that I’m not really supposed to be here. The guy who took me in is somewhat of an RA, someone in charge of the apartment like dormitory thing going on here, and he took some money off on the side at 8000 pesos. I’m sleeping on the bed of some dude that’s been gone for a while. But I can’t really complain. Why? Because the blankets are fairly warm, the room is cheap compared to how most are in Chile, and, most importantly, I got free dinner cooked by the guy that took me in. On top of that, he opened up an entirely new bottle of wine for me. There was this dude, though, who asked me a question when the guy was out of the kitchen. He asked me how much I was paying, and I pretended not to understand him. I get the feeling that the guy who took me in is gay. There’s a certain distinction between friendly people and gay people. He was just way too talkative and tried to get me more wine and way too nice, even considering the money I paid, which actually isn’t much.