Valparaiso which is also a UNESCO heritage site and Vina Del Mar is around 1.5 hours drive away from Santiago.
Both Valparaiso and Vina Del Mar are close by each other, 15 minutes drive away
Valparaiso is a port city and Vina Del Mar is more of a place with beach resorts and newer buildings

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Grab lunch at a seafood restaurant

Cerviche

Crab Cake

Valparaiso at night

Went to the casino at Vina Del Mar at night, then head back home.

Empanadas for lunch (950 pesos each, around $2 each and it’s huge)

Took a funicular to Cerro San Cristobal which is one of the highest peak and have a big statue of Virgin Mary at the top.

View from Cerro San Cristobal is pretty nice. We can see the whole city with the Andes Mountain as a background.

Went to the post office after that to mail some postcards. On the way, met Jonathan from the same hostel. Walked around the city and hang out for a little bit.

I have contacted Alvaro about couch surfing and finally we planned to meet up at Manuel Montt station at 9.30pm ish. Alvaro has a nice apartment and a good couch to surf.

Couch

Victor dropped by and we went to a hip bar called Grand Central. Then moved to another club called House of Glass. Seems like in Chile, the party only starts after 2am and there is still a long line at 3am to get in.

Walked around the city today and the weather is pretty cold.

Ate at Vegas Market again..there’s where the locals eat

Pollo with rice (chicken with rice, soup, salad 1000 pesos around $2)

Walked around the city with Jon.

Went to Plaza De Armas

Museu National

Chilean Stock Exchange

Climbed up Santa Lucia

Chilean party
Constitution night club clip

At Bellavista HostelArrived at Santiago airport at 4.30am. Took a shuttle bus to the hostel ($10) since a cab cost arond $25.
The weather in Santiago is pretty chilly since it’s still winter here.
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Hostel Bellavista

Met some crazy Americans at the hostel and hang out around santiago together. Surprisingly, there are 2 person from Astoria in the group.
Lunch at the local market

Cazuelas

Bellavista area

Art Museum

Seafood

With Ali G

Santiago Subway

1 liter beer in Santiago

Abbie wants to be in the blog too
Abbie, Ali G and Josh fish tool?

Video
At Bellavista Hostel

Walked around the city and visited Plaza de Bolívar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolívar_Square

and Gold Museum.

Walked from La Candeleria to Calle 70 which is like walking from Chinatown to 70 street, only that the blocks in Bogota is further away and the road is polluted from the public bus.

Met Vanesa for lunch. Vanesa had Ajiaco and I had Bandeja Paisa. Both are famous Colombian food

Bandeja Paisa

Public Phone in Bogota

Yes, you can’t carry gun on the bus

Northern Bogota is pretty different from the middle or southern party. The financial sector is at around calle 70
Stock Exchange

and the hip and happening place is at Calle 87 “Zona Rasa” area. There are many bodyguards around Zona Rasa area because the wealthy Bogotans here are afraid of being kidnapped.

Colombian style burger at their fast food joint

My flight to Santiago is at 9.40pm and I was a little late for my flight. Got into a cab and met a crazy driver. He mentioned about F1 racing, Pablo Montoya, fast and furious, go karting and drove like crazy

Met a few travelers from London and Ireland at the hostel and tagged along with them visiting the salt mine at Zipaquira which is 1.5 hours north of Bogota.
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Took the Transmilenio (1500 colombian pesos) which is like a bus running on a subway track to Porte Del Norte (north station) then took a local bus (3200 pesos) to the salt mine.

Zipaquira is a small town

and there is a famous cathedral underground the salt mine.

With the crew

Colombian Coffee…

It’s very nice of Vernon to drop me to JFK airport this morning at 5am. Only slept for an hour yesterday night since got back home late. I am flying with Avianca which is a Colombian airline.

My flight is at 8am and will arrive at 1pm Bogota time which is one hour later than eastern time. 6 hours flight in total. It took a while to get my boarding pass since the person at the airport front counter seems a little suspicious that I only have one way ticket to Bogota. Since I have
another one way ticket from Bogota to Santiago, they wanna make sure if I require a visa to enter the country.

Bogota is on a high elevation, around 2500 meters above sea levels and the weather is pretty cool. The city is spread out and the population is around 8 millions, similar to new york city. There are mountains on the east side and all streets are numbered. Carreras(avenue, east to west) and Calles (street, south-north, parallels to the mountain). Northern Bogota is rich and southern bogota is pretty poor.

Andres and Luisa picked me up from the airport and brought me to a Colombian food street fair. I was pretty lucky to arrive on Sunday because the street fair is a once a year event.

Andres, Luisa and their friends

Tried some Colombian food then managed to get cash from HSBC ($2 fees). Andres and Luisa showed me around the city
View of Bogota

went to Platypus hostel at La candelaria neighborhood

which is a pretty artsy/bohemian place. However, the place is very sketchy at night and someone mentioned a guy in the hostel just got mugged yesterday.
Ate sandwich with a bunch of travelers from London and US. A sandwich and a beer just cost me $3700 colombian pesos which is less than $2.

Last day before my trip.

Checklist…

Airticket, visas (only got chinese visa uzbekistan visa)

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My backpack

Went to K town and met up with old housemates and friends.

With Vernon and gangs..

Got home, slept for 1 hour and to Bogota!!

2 more days and I will leave NYC.

Since I haven’t got time to plan my trip, went to Barnes and Nobles today and bought the lonely planet guide “South America on a shoestring”. The book is 1000 pages long and that will keep my busy on the plane.

BBQ at Long Island city in the evening and here are the pics!!

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Flying off in less than 3 days and don’t think I did enough preparation for this trip yet.
I sold my car today to Elvis and we went to the DMV in queens to return my car plate. I have been driving the car for 5 years so I will definitely miss my car.

car

The DMV is just around flushing and there was a long queue at the DMV when we arrived. Surprisingly the DMV is pretty efficient and we managed to get everything done in an hour.

Car

queue

Stopped by flushing to grab the $4.95 lunch last time. 4 good dishes, fruit, soup and drink for 4.95? That’s the most reasonable food place in New York City I found so far.

????

Had a farewell dinner at a chinese restaurant with some old friends this evening.

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