Nov 15 -19, 2016: Chile  

Nov. 17, 2016.  La Casa Roja, Santiago, Chile.

• Checked out of the dorm, left my backpack (now jammed with gifts) in storage, walked 45 minutes or so to the bus station grabbing an o.j. and an empanada on the way, bought my ticket to Valparaiso (about 8 bucks), grabbed my seat (top level up front window seat), gabbed the two hour ride with my seat mate, a German software guy, totally into his craft.  I would ask a question, and he would be off for five or ten minutes, me nodding and grinning but not following at all (it would have have helped if I had had my hearing aids on).

• Then, once in Valparaiso, grabbed the "micro O" bus up the hills and down to the coast a few klicks west.  Walked back along the coast path, with lots of joggers in both directions passing me by, until I started spotting the first of what would turn out to be a surfeit of graffiti.  

• Valparaiso must be the graffiti capital of the world.  In fact, it held a graffiti event a few years back, inviting a number of artists to create murals in a short span of time.  So just about every street I walked along was decorated on both sides.  So nice!

• Found the famous mural by Inti, and an old guy, who told me he met Inti when he was creating his mural, told me where to go for another one.  So I am hoofing it towards Cerro Polanco to check it out.  One problem: because of a national strike, all the ascensores are closed.  Another problem: stopped for a shrimp salad on the way, and the TV news showed a big riot in Santiago.  

• Spent the rest of the on the streets and stairways, photographing street art, and drinking lots of Coke Zeroes - I'm sure the temperature was well over a hundred.  Then back on the bus to Santiago.  Walking back to the hostel, I decided to drop in for dinner (it is now about 9:30 PM) at a Rough Guide recommended restaurant:  Ostras Azucar.  Good call.  Even though the place was practically empty, and I'm looking oh so grubby in t-shirt, shorts, and worn out hiking shoes, they treated me like royalty, first escorting me to the "clam room" (my name), with two big vats of razor clams and a bar. I was presented with three clams and a shot of white wine, just to get things going, then to my table.  John would have loved this place.

• I ordered what the Rough Guide recommended: baked razor clams in a cheese sauce,  Oboy.  But even better: the local strolling guitar player turned out to be really good, with a marvelous voice, and he was later joined by one of the waiters, who later serenaded me on his own.  What a lovely evening!

• I am writing these notes while sitting on a park bench in my favorite plaza, one street from the hostel.  A bunch of young are playing guitars and singing two benches down, and the oh-so-prevalent smell of marijuana is wafting my way from one bench over (have I mentioned that, especially in Argentina and Chile, I've come across this smell a lot?). Anyway, will now return to the hostel and my own private room (in turns out that the dorms were booked solid by a slew of female teeny boppers), see if I can handle a shower with no towel to dry myself, climb into the sack, and contemplate how to spend my last full day in South America.

• Did I mention that the weather right now (eleven o'clock at night) is velvet smooth and warm?  The only negative is the presence of enormous piles of stinky smelly garbage in many street corners.  Is this because of the national strike?  I hope so - it would indeed be a pity if this was the norm.

• Ah, the room has towels!  My first shower since... hmm... Iguazu?  Anyway, it's been awhile.  Nice big comfortable wide bed.  A good upgrade, Sam.