Motels in South America

A typical "All-American Motel"
(Image from skianything.com)

In South America the motels are specific places for folks to go and have sex. This isn't a sleaze thing; it's culturally important because people in South America don't move out of the house until they're married, and that sometimes doesn't happen until about 40 years old. It is an absolutely bizarre concept for North Americans to not move out at the age of 18, but it's phenomenally common in South America. Knowing this, it is understandable why these motels exist, because who wants to bring the girl from the bar home to mom?


However, in a completely different context, I was talking with some friends the other day and I joked that one of them, who was struggling to find summer work, could get a job at his father's motel (the North American kind - i.e. - non-sexual) and he looked at me with one eyebrow cocked and asked, "What would my father have anything to do with a motel?" I was confused, until the others laughed at the notion of my friend's father running brothel. This led me to wonder aloud, "Why would you think that first and not about the standard sleep-while-travelling kind?"

Transportation in Santiago and Chile

The Baquedano Metro station, the busiest in the Santiago
system, located at Plaza Italia

Chile has an excellent transportation infrastructure. Use it instead of renting a car and you'll save lots of money, waste only a little more time, and probably end up enjoying your travelling experiences more. Below are alternatives for getting around Chile in general with tips on getting around Santiago noted below that.

Getting Around Chile


Long-distance:

Chile is a long and thin country. While in some places one can get from the sea to the border with Argentina in about three hours, it could take over a week to get from the border with Peru in the north to the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego. Obviously flying is the quickest way to get from one place to the next over large distances, but South Americans in general, and Chileans are no different, tend to take buses instead due to their relative value over planes. Also, departure and arrival times make busing convenient as well. And let's be clear, the quality of buses in Chile blow North American and European buses out of the water. It's not even close, folks. For US$40 one can take an overnight bus from Santiago to Pucon and eat and sleep better than with a first class ticket on a plane. Yes, it's a nine-hour ride, but if it leaves at 11pm and arrives 8am and you slept in a seat better than a bed in a hostel then does it really matter? For some, it might, but trust me when I say that it is easy to get a good night's sleep on these buses and it will save a lot of money, too.

South American Women (so far)

1. Uruguay
2. Argentina
3. Chile

I have only been to three countries, and I've heard many things about the women in Columbia and Brasil, too, so maybe this list will change, but for now this is how it stands in my eyes (which may not be important to anyone except me). I will be in Brasil soon, so I'll get a chance to do update this in a few months (First published in March 2011).

Chile - The Final Days: La Serena

The foam washed around my bare feet, and even though I had been walking for nearly eleven hours straight, it was only the sting of a sure-fire sunburn that dampened my spirits. Otherwise, I felt worlds away from everything, and that was exactly what I sought.

Chile - The longest ride: Bariloche-to-Osorno-to-Santiago-to-La Serena

We got to Osorno three hours late, and I was so exhausted that I couldn't walk. They didn't want to, but it took 30 men to carry me and my lethargy off the bus. AndesMar considered charging me for the extra drama, but I told them I'd bring them bad luck for a century if they tried.

Chile - Day Seven: Puerto Varas

So I got up and rushed around to run errands before hopping on a bus from Pucon to Puerto Varas. I needed to photocopy the Bariloche, Argentina info out of the hostel’s guidebook (because I didn't have the Argentinean book - only Chile), eat breakfast, buy lunch, shop the bus companies for prices, and get a picture of the still unseen volcano Villarica.

Chile - Days Five & Six: Pucon

The last time someone wrote "rien" in his diary he got his head chopped off. I'm not going to tempt fate, mainly because there is a steaming volcano a few miles from here, but what the hell - Pucon is small, it's Sunday in a country that still shuts down on Sundays, and I'm in a summer tourist town in the thrust of early spring. In other words, it's slow.

Chile - Day Four:

I slept well.

Chile - Day Three: Valparaiso and Vina del mar

Whoever said central Chile is similar to the Mediterranean was spot on. Unlike American deserts, or even unlike the semi-arid climate of Colorado, it is both dry and lush; around Santiago, there is enough brown in between the green that one might think they are in the desert after it has rained, but there is real grass here and the grass holds to the ground so there isn´t dust or loose dirt blowing through the air as it does in Colorado or Dallas or New Mexico. I´ve said it before - this is Greece in South America.

The closer one gets to Valparaiso, and the dark Pacific Ocean that dominates its business, the greener the land gets with vineyards and tall, thin sequoia-like trees. I don´t know what the trees are exactly, but they are as tall a tree as I´ve ever seen. The fir trees look soft, as if their needles would make a comfortable bed if they fell to the ground. But the dirt is still a hardened mud red. The landscape has now turned into the Sierras of California.

Chile - Day Two: Santiago

Santiago is an ugly city, and the Mapocho River smells like shit, the air is thick with pollutants, and everything is dirty. The women are much too average and the men are stiff in their suits. I am disappointed.

Chile Day One: Getting There

Yeah, OK, so no worries here. There`s not a care in the world. This is when I unveil the sword and prime it for the knarled jungle vines ahead. I hit Logan and Logan spit me off to Philly, and Philly spun me to Toronto, and I`m now circling Toronto and I want to see the CN Tower. But all I can see from here to eternity are straight lines of flickering lights intersected at ninety-degree angles by more straight lines that fade to infinity on this flat world, has no curves that I can see that bring all the straight lines beautifully together; there's just people going one way versus others going another way versus me rounding in the plane above them on my way to the straight runway below.