After a 25+ hour bus rides, I was excited to arrive at Viña del Mar, a Chilean beach town. I've never been to the Hamptons but I imagine they're like Viña: a popular getaway for the wealthy with their expensive cars and little dogs.
It was baking hot out the evening I arrived so I walked to the beach with my bus buddy and we watched the sunset and eagerly made our plans to spend the next day at the beach. Except the next day it was cloudy and cold. And the next day. And the next day. And the next day! All four days it was far too cloudy and cold to even consider getting into the frigid waters. The Humboldt current may be good news for Chile's seafood industry, but it's bad news for swimmers.
One evening, I had walked to the beach with a few other people and, as they talked, I started to scan the ocean, hoping to see some sea life. Sure enough, after just a minute or two, I spotted something! It was either a seal or a sea lion, we couldn't tell but I know Chilean fur seals are migrating this time of year. Whatever he was, he eluded our attempts to photograph him, but we were happy just to have seen him.
Without the beach to fill my days, I did some good wandering around town. As it's not actually that big of a town, I passed the same spots several times. In particular, there was a bakery I wasn't able to pass without going in and having a berlin. Berlines were a new pastry to me: a sweet bread filled with either cream (traditional) or manjar (a thickened, milk based spread related to dulce de leche) and covered with a generous dusting of powdered sugar. They are not donut like, which means they are delicious. I never got around to the ones with manjar as the crema ones kept calling to me.
I did a lot of great reading since the beach wasn't an option. By far, the best book I read was Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns. It's a nonfiction account of the great migration of blacks from the American south to the north and west between 1915-1970. Wilkerson weaves together three different narratives with an overall analysis of the era. Fascinating and well written, it reads like a novel. Thank goodness the New York Public Library has ebooks!
With a name that makes me suppress a giggle, I spent a great afternoon at the Museo Fonck. The museum has an interesting collection of artifacts from Chile's indigenous cultures, including the Mapuche, and an excellent permanent exhibition of Easter Island artifacts.
Foncky monckeys. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
Easter Island is so named because the first Europeans landed there on Easter Sunday in 1722. Of course, the island was already named by its inhabitants, but it seems the Europeans weren't the first to rename the island.
Easter Island is best known for its massive heads. You've seen them in cold remedy commercials from back in the day. One of the smaller heads, called moai, stands outside the museum.
Moai range in size from two to twenty two meters tall. Note the scale size of a man between the third and fourth statues!
There was one final exhibit at Museo Fonck; insects and taxidermy animals (I don't know what the appropriate verb is as taxidermy is a noun and adjective but, sadly, not a verb). It reminded me of a dreaded seventh grade science project where we had to pin ten insects and describe them and do a write up. My vegetarianism and my teenage laziness had teamed up so as to not allow me to kill any insects, meaning I was left with whatever dead bugs I could find. I turned in my project with just three of the ten required insects and I think I got a C-. I had minimal interest in this exhibit!
When I got back to my hostel, the first thing I did was look up flights to Easter Island. The $900 price tag was disappointingly beyond my budget (in fact, that's almost three weeks' budget!) but I am sure I'll get there one day (note: I'm not above taking donations). Remember Easter Island this weekend if you'll be celebrating Easter!
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