Rio & Santiago: A Novella

As a disclaimer, this is a long post. It took me a long time to write and the length got away from me so I wanted to put up front that you’re getting yourself into a long read with this post (thus I gave this post the novella moniker).

Hello all, I apologize for the delay in posting. I sincerely had intended to post more, however life has gotten in the way. I have severely limited free time and honestly haven’t been able to put anything together worth reading. While I was aware of this fact (obviously, given the time constraints that restricted me from blogging), I became more acutely cognizant of its existence on this trip to South America. For the past few months (could be year or longer, if I’m being honest) I have been extremely busy with work and school, and life has generally gotten in the way. This has resulted in me becoming very tightly wound and unable to appreciate time with friends, travel, personal connections, etc. This trip made me not worry about working out (I admit had a few fleeting thoughts here and there, but they were quickly drowned out by any drink that was close at hand). Additionally, I couldn’t even have checked my work email or let that stress me out if I wanted to, so there went half of the stressors in my life. From now on, I’m taking more out-of-country vacations, I decided. I’m wasting 12 days of PTO this year and I know I always say “never again” however I am re-pledging this year. I’ll keep you updated. I am counting on you, my dedicated fan base, (all 7 of you) to keep me earnest and hold me to these trips. Plus, if you enjoy these posts, it behooves you to pester me because more trips = more stories = more posts (it’s simple algebra).

So enough with my intro screed. You get it, this trip was sweet and gave me a fresh, and much needed, perspective (yada, yada, yada). Without further ado here we go. Also, I am presenting this trip in chronological order in order to give this post a more coherent flow when paired with my stream-of-consciousness writing.

December 12:

First day of the trip, and boy oh boy and I am excited. I packed on Wednesday night and had everything ready. I got up early to get one last swim in before I left (no cop cars / Ebola scares this time). I’m telling the people there that I’m going and it’s finally hit me that I’m going. Up until this point, I had kept the amount of people who knew about this trip to a minimum and had been largely dismissive about the trip when asked. This was for two main reasons: (i) I don’t like making a big deal of things about myself (see: my birthdays), and (ii) I had just finished finals this week and was just too busy to worry about anything.

So back to it, finished swimming and came back to my place to change and get ready to head out for the day (flight was at 7:50 pm). I called my mom to wish her a happy birthday (she just turned 35, thanks for asking) and tell her about the upcoming trip, where I’m staying, etc. Then I headed to my friend Carlos’s place. He somehow convinced his boss that it was “take your friend to work” day so I was going to work out of his office for the day. His office is close to the airport and if we split the cab there it was only ~$15, opposed to a $60 ride from my apartment or work.

The day goes by without a hitch and at 5:15 Carlos and I are both on vacation mode so we decide to pack it up and call the cab, it’s time to head to the airport and start this trip. We are waiting for the cab and Carlos pulls out his passport and then double checks that I have mine as well. Me: “Of course. I’m not an idiot”. I mean, it was in my blue SMU folder along with my itinerary, copies of my passport, and my cash for the trp. So I confidently reach into my backpack to feel the assurance of the folder’s glossy exterior. Except it’s not there. It’s not anywhere. I don’t think the word panic describes what I was feeling at that point. I was so far beyond panic: I was feeling anxiety, fury, panic, desperation that perhaps I just missed it. But no, the karma gods did not smile on me. That folder was nowhere to be found. 

I grab Carlos’s keys (we had planned to just leave his car at his work garage) and tear off back to my apartment. It’s around 5:30 and I have 1:30 to go home and get my passport and come back to the airport. I honestly think all is hopeless but I have to try. I have to. I booked this flight in July. It was $1,100. I have to make it.

About 10 minutes into the traffic on my way back home I pretty much gave up all hope. There was no way I was going to make it. I called the American Airlines helpline to see what I could do. Minimum check in time? One hour. Can you check me in from the phone? Nope. Were there any later flights? Of course not. Were there any flights tomorrow that I could get on? One indirect out of Miami, Florida. I was frazzled beyond belief, but the traffic had started to let up. Plus, I checked google maps on the way back to the airport and by the graces of God, 635 wasn’t supposed to be too slow. I did the math in my head: I could get back to the airport by 7:00. I know what the phone line said, however Carlos had assured me that if I got there by 7:00 they would pull a customer service miracle and let me on. To all those who don’t know Carlos – he’s from Mexico and travels internationally frequently. He knew what he was talking about and I had hope.

I raced home and picked up my folder. Where was it, you ask? Oh just on my kitchen table, right where I left it when I took it out to look at my itinerary. I took it out and set it down as I sat at the table, but forgot to put it back in my bag. Honestly, that one of the dumbest actions I have taken in recent memory. Do not bring this up with me.  I feel sufficiently dumb about it and no, it does not happen to everyone. Your efforts at consoling serve only to feed the flame whereby it is confirmed that, yes, it was completely my fault.

Back en route to the airport (by the way, I hope you, reader, are on the edge of your seat. Because you have no clue how much adrenaline was pumping though my system during this entire process). I’m driving fast, but not recklessly (90 MPH, tops) in order to get there on time. I got to the airport and just valeted Carlos’s car at the gate outside. At this point I don’t care how much it costs I just want to make this flight more than anything. I race inside and to my surprise – there’s no line! I hand the people my passport and explain my urgency. They seem very accommodating and then ask a very bizarre question: “are you going to Sydney?” “Uhhhh, no.” It turns out I went to the Quantas desk – which would explain the lack of a line as well as the friendly and accommodating customer service (yes, American Airlines, that was a jab at you. More to come shortly). Well, shoot. This is awful – the American desk was 20 gates away. So away I go, sprinting with a half-open backpack (I know because there were many friendly people who informed me during my run), my duffle bag around my shoulder, and my boat shoes (FYI – they do not compete head-to-head against NIKE for a reason).

I arrive at American and immediately explain to the gentleman manning the kiosks my situation. He points to a kiosk and tells me to go to work. Me: “there’s nothing you can do? My flight leaves soon.” Him: point to kiosk. Thanks, bro. Small surprise your job is being overtaken by a machine without sentient thoughts.

The kiosk doesn’t let me check in because I’m too close to flight departure – however I was so close (6:58 vs 7:50 departure). 8 minutes. I even saw someone from my group checking their bag! So I try to jump to someone at the desk. Them: “nope, get in line.” I’m flipping out – so I ask people in the line if they mind if I cut. I am obviously distressed and I explain that my flight is 50 minutes away now. Most are accommodating, except one. One lone soul. One lone, black, cold, frozen soul. Seriously, this lady was like “no, I don’t care. I’ve been waiting in line.” And as I sat helplessly in line, I watched her get served and then flash me a smile as she gleefully headed to security. No, I didn’t retaliate or say anything during this entire process (very uncharacteristic of me, I know). However, cold, awful lady, you know who you are and there is a nice spot in hell waiting for you.

I am now waiting in this line and have resigned myself to have lost to the corporate bureaucracy that is American Airlines. I text my friend who works for American if he can remotely check me in with his corporate sway – not expecting anything to come of it but hoping for the best. He calls me immediately and is incredulous that I have received such a warm customer service experience. He can’t help me but he says to just cut everyone and talk to someone (so much for me trying to be a rule follower – I thought I learned my lesson a few blog posts ago but apparently not). For the record, there are 2 employees helping customers check in, leaving an absurdly slow line and relatively unapproachable gate agents. I nonetheless crawl under the rope and plead with someone. They say if it’s under an hour there’s nothing I could do. If I didn’t have a checked bag they could check me in. And no, they can’t send my bag on another flight due to international regulations. Also, they remind me that it’s 7:30 … they suggest that I think about getting to the airport earlier (in their defense, perhaps I was drooling with a glazed-over look in my eyes, thus looking like the type of person who could actually use that sort of advice).

So game over.  I lost. Next flight that I can take is in 2 days. Only cost me $600 to change.

Oh, also, turns out that the flight I missed was delayed 2 hours. So much for not checking in with enough time. With 68 open seats on the flight, to boot. Thanks, American. I will keep this in mind next time I have a business flight.

December 12-13:

Generally moping around and sleeping in. Trying to make the best of a situation only goes so far when I’m getting texts from Brazil about all the sweet things everyone is doing. That was supposed to be me! Sigh. At least I really like living in Dallas and have good friends.

My previously-mentioned friend who works for American, who shall remain unnamed due to his empathy and agreement that his employer treated me awfully (let’s abbreviate him as AAF), travels frequently for work. As a consequence, we do not see each other often or get to catch up. So I chose to look at this whole debacle as a blessing in disguise because we were able to catch up and go out on Friday night – we hadn’t seen each other since August, just how things go sometimes.

On Saturday evening my friend, AAF, was nice enough to take me to the airport and let me into the AA club where I could get free food and drink. Yes, I did gorge on food and I drank a good amount of Heinekens as well (I can count the number on my God-given digits Mom, relax). But before I could get to the club I had to check in. And for the third time at this point (including my past 2 flights to and from NYC) I was unable to check in at a kiosk. So much for saving time. Myself and AAF are stuck in the stupid line that I was stuck in 2 days ago. Even though I didn’t even check a bag this time (learned my lesson) and came 3 hours early. Thanks, American. After a solid 30 minute wait in line (thanks, American) I had to go through the process of the gate agent being unable to check me in and having to call some internal hotline which takes another 10-15 minutes. But I made it.

December 14:

Finally hit Brazil at 11 am! Slept a solid 3 hours on the plane, tops (that plane sucked, American. For real. I took my blanket you gave me and put it under my butt for extra cushioning). And although we had made it, the 9 of us who came on this flight were a little apprehensive. We were supposed to go on the Rio bus tour and see Christ the Redeemer (which takes a pass you must buy in advance), but our flight was also delayed 2 hours (which did give me more time to drink free beer with AAF which I guess wasn’t the worst thing in the world). In light of the delay, we were concerned that we will be unable to make it to the hotel in time and make it to the bus in time in order to make the tour. My morale had hit a new low for this trip (seriously, these past few days were no bueno), but a text from one of the people already at the hotel informs us that the tour was pushed back an hour and our itinerary was wrong (this would soon become a theme).

Feeling relieved, I grabbed a cab with two other guys and we head to the hotel. In the first 10 seconds of the cab ride we also realized how screwed we are in this country. One guy doesn’t speak Spanish at all, I can speak limited Spanish but it’s nothing to brag about, and the third is fluent. Between us three, we all exchanged blank stares when the cabbie tried to confirm where we were headed. Portuguese is not Spanish – got it. We pulled out our itinerary and just pointed to the name of the hotel and were on our way without further incident.

Arriving at the hotel I went straight up to my room with Carlos, as he was already checked in. I pound on the door, supremely excited to finally be in Brazil. Unfortunately, Carlos was not as excited to see me as he was still recovering from the night before.

I noticed in the first few days that I was gone that people had already begun to weave bonds and were gravitating to each other. Yes, everyone had friends before we came and had certain friends that they preferred over others, however these bonds were new and this was a different dynamic. Obviously, I felt a little left out but I’m not here to whine about it. I just wanted to comment on how quickly these things happen – it was just interesting to me. I almost felt like an outsider in a group with which I was familiar and all who were excited for me to join. It’s just how these things happen. And of course it always goes away as you begin to have shared experiences.

Being the good friend that Carlos is, he rallied and we headed to the rooftop bar. I got a caipirinha (famous drink of Rio for those who don’t know) and forced Carlos to get a beer so I don’t drink alone. Carlos is not up for it so I end up drinking his beer too, so I was two drinks down within 15 minutes of arrival. I wasn’t mad. We went downstairs to pick up a quick bite from the juice place around the corner before the tour left.

View from hotel bar

An aside - I was very afraid to go to Rio because I had heard it was so dangerous. I have been wanting to go since sophomore year at Miami when I took a Brazilian culture class but could never find anyone to go with me and didn’t want to go alone. I couldn’t even persuade anyone to go with me for the World Cup this year – so this trip has been my best opportunity to go. So I was surprised to know that we could walk around in the city without fear (at least where we stayed in Copacabana and Ipanema). These juice bars are everywhere and have juice, smoothies, and food (I didn’t get a picture of one, I’m sorry). So I got an unidentified smoothie (honestly I have no clue what it was, but it was amazing) and a chicken empanada. I didn’t know Brazil had empanadas – however they do, and I probably ate 10 of them during my 2 days there as they were everywhere and pretty good.

After changing some money and feeling rich ($100 USD = $265 Reals), we embarked on the city tour. Our tour guide was very nice and was happy to show us around and describe to us the culture of Rio. People there are very proud of their city and their culture. We saw various sites, nothing that I took pictures of or remember – in my defense we were driving by them in the bus and didn’t stop at any. But the highlight of this trip was the visit to Christ the Redeemer. The bus drops us off to get in line to see the statue and having just chugged 2 drinks and a couple waters shortly before, I wanted to make use of the bus facilities before getting in line (my policy is that you never know the next time you’ll have an opportunity to use a restroom, so when you have the opportunity you should take it). I’m doing my thing when the bus starts pulling away! In my head I’m freaking out, because I’m about to be kidnapped and miss the Christ the Redeemer tour after finally having calmed down being assured I would get to see it after all. I tried shouting from inside but the bus driver couldn’t hear so I had to open the door and shout “Senor! Pared!” hoping that: (i) he would be able to hear me, (ii) that actually meant “stop” in Spanish, (iii) my poor Spanish would translate to Portuguese and he would stop. Moral of the story: he stopped, regardless of the reason and I was able to catch up to the group.

Unfortunately, Christ the Redeemer was cloudy, but we still attempted to get some good photos. Oh and they also sell drinks at the bottom of the mountain, at various stops along the way up and down, and at the top. (When I first arrived in Rio, one of my classmates said “no sober moments in Rio” and he wasn’t kidding. It wasn’t just the students who were pushing the partying, it was the city itself).

An interesting event also happened on our way back down. The trains that run up and down the mountain usually run like clockwork so we were puzzled as to why we were so delayed on the way back down. It turns out that a Mexican girl tried to kill herself on the rails. The most confusing part about that was that the trains literally go 2 miles an hour so we all were a little confused as to what she intended to do. No commentary on this really, just something that happened and I am including it in the interest of full disclosure.

After Christ the Redeemer and some more driving around the city, we were let loose to our own devices. One blessing of me arriving later was that it everyone had started to work the kinks out of the dining experiences. The first two nights I guess everyone had tried to be inclusive and go to dinner as a group of 20+. This ran into several logistical issues that people were now looking to avoid, so I was happy to have avoided some of that drama and got the benefit of the learning curve. We ended up going to a sushi place in Ipanema which was really good. We got a countless amount of appetizers, rolls (seriously, I would estimate 15-20), bottles of wine, and caipirinhas and the bill cost $75/each with tip. Gotta love that exchange rate.

We then got to take a scenic cab ride around Ipanema and Copacabana. It wasn’t mean to be a scenic cab ride however we didn’t know exactly where we were going and don’t speak Portuguese - in that event, we found it local custom for the cabbie takes his liberty to show you all around the city all for the small cost of 10x what your cab ride was supposed to cost. Such warming customs there.

We eventually made it home in one piece and had to be up bright and early for the Company visits in the morning.

December 15:

The first visit was to the BNDES, which is a government investment bank. Although quite hung over, I participated like an all-star and peppered the presenter with insightful questions (seriously, they were good questions and I honestly was curious about how they did business). Once the presentation finished, the majority of the class yelled at me for extending the presentation to 2 hours.

The plan after the presentation was that we had ~2 hours to eat lunch before we had to jump on a bus and drive an hour to see our next visit. Most people decided to eat at this place called Café Colombiano, (supposedly was on the Travel Channel, it looked awesome) but a few of us opted for a street juice place so we could go see the Cathedral. After a quick empanada and guarana juice I was refueled and ready to roll. Below are some pictures from the juice bar – didn’t get any of the bar itself but just the surrounding streets.

Cafe Columbiano

Streets of Rio

The cathedral was not at all like a traditional Catholic place of worship. I don’t know how I felt about it individually, but it was cool in that it was different. By this time, Carlos had bowed out of the group and asked that I take some pictures for his mom (so here you are buddy!).

The Monday afternoon visit was to Oceaneering, which is an oil & gas services firm. We had to drive an hour across the bay to see this place. It was now about 1 pm on Monday, my only full day in Rio. The sun was shining and to be honest there was no where I wanted to be more than the beach or exploring the city. So I was pretty salty about having to drive 2 hours just to go see this company for a 2 hour visit – this was my entire afternoon! Nonetheless, I kept the complaining to a reasonable level (I did make my voice heard, don’t get me wrong) and trudged on with this company visit. I originally had been most excited with this company visit because it was closely-related to my field of work and some of my colleagues were familiar with this company and their work done in Houston, Asia, etc. However, we ended up going to a factory that manufactures long cables that go from rigs down to wells and drill bits (they called them umbilicals). It was even more boring than it sounds. The engineers in our group were excited about it and were engaged however everyone else was pretty much hot and wanted to get back.

To the credit of our tour guides, they did land us back in Rio at ~5 pm as planned. This gave us enough daylight to go to the beach for a few hours. Our hotel was right on the beach, so all we had to do was run across the street and hit the surf. It was great and I’m really happy I got the opportunity to get out there, even if it was only for a short amount of time.

The beach also gave me an opportunity to play the game “eat the trail mix and nuts Evan had brought on the trip”. As we were driving back from Oceaneering, the tour guide informed us that we couldn’t bring any food into Chile because they are so protective of their wineries and don’t want to introduce any foreign cultures. It seemed a little overprotective to me, but I guess I could understand . The objection I took to this, however, was that our tour guide phrased it like we were idiots to not know this. As in, “don’t forget that you can’t take nuts with you into Chile. Don’t be the ignorant person who forgets and is detained in the airport for being so careless.” Oh yeah, totally. How could any of us be so stupid to break laws that we didn’t even know existed?!

Bros at the beach

Dinner in Rio that night consisted of just a place along the strip in Copacabana, which was not great. You would think with that prime real estate, there would be good restaurants but there isn’t. This was confirmed by others on the trip who had fallen folly to the same logic of expensive real estate = palatable food.  After dinner we headed out to the bars for a little before our flight to Santiago. We had a flight at 7 am and due to the inefficiencies of the roads and airports in Brazil we had to leave the hotel at 4:30 so no one was really looking forward to getting up so early.

December 16:

Still at the bars but we’re sticking to beers and some celebratory shots in an attempt to be sober enough to board the plane in a few hours. This was the night that I really wondered how Brazil operates as a country. We were out at the bars until 4 am on a Monday night but we certainly didn’t have the place to ourselves. Instead the bars were packed with what appeared to be decent people who have real jobs. I have no clue how this works. Back home, my alarm is about to go off at that time. Chalk it up to cultural differences and move on.

So we all make the scheduled bus time and head out for the airport. As a reminder: I’ve been drinking for a few hours, am running on zero sleep, and have the recent drama surrounding my first Rio flight seared freshly in my brain. So when people start incessantly asking if I have my passport and customs slip I may have been a little testy. And then when I didn’t have the email confirmation of my plane ticket that everyone else had, I may have had a small panic attack and refused to talk to anyone until I successfully checked in. End of story: I made it on the plane and all was good in the world.

The flight from Rio to Santiago was much longer than expected, which I honestly blame on my own poor expectations. I don’t know what I expected from a cross-continent flight however 5 hours just seemed a bit ridiculous to me. Nonetheless I received an aisle seat and proceeded to pass out for the next 5 hours, successfully avoiding what some classified as, “terrifying turbulence”. We landed in Santiago, ready to start part II of the trip. But before moving to Santiago, I wanted to hit you with some knowledge:

Some Rio observations and social commentary:

1. Brazil is a developing economy. It has been a few years since I went to Costa Rica and remembered what these kinds of countries are like. The past few out-of-country visits for me were to a resort in Cancun (pretty much counts as a dirty Miami Beach), and Monterrey (they call themselves the 51^st state for a reason). So I was not entirely prepared for the smells (not great) and the abundance of favelas (think: shantytowns. Of note, I was informed that favelas are now called “communities” as there is an emerging middle class who hails from the favelas and they are trying to reduce the negative stigma that is associated with the word itself, and harsh realities that are all-too-common there).

2. Graffiti: if there is a surface that can have graffiti in Rio, it has graffiti. I’m not kidding. You will see the usual suspects: highways, underpasses, old buildings. But then as I spent more time in the city I think the only locations to be spared were churches (but I won’t put money against me just missing it). It really contributed to the city seeming very low class and dirty.

3. American Influence: The young men walking around the city could easily have been mistaken for characters from the show Jersey Shore. They were tanned (their tans were real at least), muscle-bound, and covered in tattoos. I was expecting slimmer men who look like soccer players I suppose, but it seems that the American culture has rubbed off in a bad way. While the weightlifting seemed limited to the young men, the tattoos were not. It was impossible to find someone out on the beach without one. Men and women, young and old alike, all were covered in tattoos. Sorry, Brazil, for our trashy culture has penetrated and begun to ruin yours.

4. The Women: everyone says that the Brazilian women are the most beautiful in the world. I am still waiting to see it. Walking down the street, most girls were average looking – and that is to be expected in any public setting. Not all chicks can be 9s and 10s, however I didn’t see any. I have seen the models from Victoria Secret, and I agree that those Brazilians are the most beautiful women I have ever seen. But there aren’t any roaming around the streets of Rio. I heard that the most beautiful ones are of European descent and are more affluent – but even hearing stories from those who went to some of the nicer nightclubs, they weren’t knocked off their feet like they had expected.

5. No English: no one in Rio spoke English. The people at our hotel and our tour guide were pretty much it. Some were left with the conclusion that people from Rio were a bit elitist and did not want to speak in English to the dumb Americans and would rather see us struggle and/or not help us at all (as the French are notorious for). Or else, the widespread fluency in English is a sign of the status of your economy – i.e. developed nations with better education systems result in a higher English fluency than emerging nations (think about it, in Europe everyone speaks English). Whatever the reason, we were resigned to using our Spanish to help us get through. While some things translated better than others, it worked relatively well especially when compared to the alternative of speaking English.

I liked Rio but was slightly disappointed after I had hyped it up all these years. For those playing at home, I would relate Rio most closely to New Orleans. Honestly, many people wanted to end the trip after Rio – yes there was definitely an element of being over-partied, but the city also was just unglamorous compared to expectations. I have said this about New Orleans: it’s fun, but when you go around the French Quarter it’s just dirty. That’s how the whole city of Rio was. Additionally, the people do not seem to care about anything. In their defense, they seem also to be very happy, and there is something to be said for that (the beach was packed on weekday – defending my point). But it just seemed that no one cared and so it was not hard for me to justify that Brazil was stuck in emerging economy mode when so few seemed to care about anything. This can be starkly contrasted to Santiago, which was a pristine city, people prided themselves on being punctual, and people actually seemed to go to work (Santiago is also rated as the best place for investment in South America and has an “A” investment rating by S&P and Moody’s).

Back to it. While we were walking out of the airport in Santiago we all immediately noticed what a nicer country Chile was. We didn’t even make it past the parking lot to make this observation. The first cars we saw were a Range Rover, BMW M6, and a few Audis. In Rio I think I saw one Mercedes Benz in the 48 hours I was there.

We also noticed a cultural difference. In Rio our tour guide was all smiles and happy to be there and just had a positive disposition in general. It felt like we had been relocated to an Eastern Bloc country when we were being lectured by our tour guide on the bus ride back to the hotel. First, she talked down to us like we were children. Second, and this was a recurring theme in Santiago, she compared Chile to Brazil by highlighting the laziness and other bad qualities of Brazil. It’s hard to tell if that is just how Chileans feel  - as in Brazil gets a lot of press however it does not have as strong of an economy and they are more of a  party people, so Chileans feel it is undeserved and that Chile should receive more of the limelight. Or if it was because the presenters talking to us knew we just came from Brazil and wanted to compare. Either way, it seemed like they were trying to get our group to like Chile by pitting it against Brazil (and I can’t say it was an entirely ineffective strategy, because I really liked Chile).

We arrived at the hotel which was completely ready for us to check in (a big difference from the hotel in Rio, apparently). The hotel was really nice and resembled something like we would stay at in the US. So on those two points, Chile was already winning the battle of South America.

We had some time to go grab lunch before our bus tour of the city and a group of us just went to some Italian pasta place. Not really getting a feel for the culture just yet, however everyone spoke Spanish and the menus were in Spanish so we could finally make use of our Spanish speakers (who, up to this point, had been utter disappointments).

The city tour had less sights than Rio, however in walking around it was apparent that Santiago was a much nicer city. There was substantially less graffiti, which honestly spoke more to a city’s socioeconomic status than I had previously thought. All of the buildings were nice and new – however this is partly due to the political instability in the country. For example, the military staged a coup of the government in the 70’s (or 80’s? Give me a break. I told you I pulled an all-nighter at the bars the night before) and the military bombed the presidential residence with the president inside. Thus the presidential residence is only like 30 years old. Also of note, there is so much less security there than in the US. Granted there have been a few stories about people breaking into the White House lately, but there was almost zero security around the president’s house. I wouldn’t have even needed to jump a fence (there were none) or avoided any guards (none in uniforms at least) in order to knock on the front door.

We then walked around the city with our tour guides and went to this city square called Plaza de Armas. It was a lively place with artists painting and selling their works, caricature drawing (I have never done one, but have been tempted from time to time), families running around, and even a street performer. I didn’t get any pictures of this guy, but he had this yo-yo looking thing that he spun on a string and then threw into the air. He was doing all sorts of tricks with it and he was pretty good – so I was enjoying myself as an anonymous bystander in the crowd watching him. I did get nervous, however, when he started calling people in the crowd out and making banter with them. I was praying that he didn’t target me because I would have just sheepishly smiled (how embarrassing) or more likely just have walked away (he actually sent some kid packing during his show. I have no clue what the kid did wrong – nothing by my account. He was like 20 and just standing watching – the performer said something to him and everyone started laughing and the kid just walked away. So I was just trying to avoid that).

The cathedral there was gorgeous, much more traditional than the one in Rio:

Then we went to this open air market. It was fun to browse and see the different knick knacks available for purchase. I didn’t get much, because I don’t like to just buy crap for the sake of buying crap (just like I don’t like to receive crap from your trip either). Stories are enough, I don’t need the cognitive dissonance every time I try to chuck something). But I did find a funny cultural similarity when walking around the market. Carlos commented that during vacations his parents would always drag the family to these stupid markets and it would be terribly boring. I immediately laughed because I was already thinking in my head how my mom would love this market and could probably spend hours, if not days, browsing the labyrinth of shops.

That night we went to a dinner place I can’t remember and out for drinks at a place I can’t remember. I think it’s a combination of: (i) taking so long after the trip to write this post and (ii) it probably wasn’t that great anyway since I can specifically remember the names of places we went on other nights. [Edit: I remembered the place. Can’t remember the name but it was decent. Had lots of wine.] 

December 17:

Wednesday morning we had two speakers come in and speak to us: a government agency targeting foreign investment in Chile as well as Jones Lang LaSalle. They were fine, and educational, but honestly I don’t feel like boring you with the details of those meetings so I’m going to skip them (you can thank me later).

In the afternoon we got to go up in the tallest building in South America (63 stories). The building isn’t open yet and is not open to the public, so I felt it was quite an honor to go up to the top and take some pictures and take in the view. This honor was slightly diminished when we found out that this building had started construction over 10 years ago and had just been left in its current state of almost-completion for the past 4-5 years because they couldn’t find enough tenants to fill the space. So close, and yet so far.

During our city tour the previous day, our tour guides told us about a novel concept: coffee with legs. Essentially, the city had coffee shops where you can get coffee served to you by scantly-clad women. The genesis of this was from during the dictatorship era when there were strict curfews. Because the men could not go out at night they instead devised a way for them to have some fun during normal daylight hours.  If you know me, you know that I like to partake in the local customs in order to get the full feel for a new city and culture. In this spirit, a few of us went out in search of a coffee with legs establishment. However, again, if you know me, you know that I do not settle for second-best and was not about to go into just any coffee shop with its windows blacked out (a sure sign of a coffee with legs bar). Instead I checked with the guides the day before on which one would present the best … service. After a long journey (people there would “pretend” not to know where it was and sent us on a few wild goose chases) and we finally found our destination: Ikabaru. Along the way we walked in circles for a good 30 minutes and stopped in another coffee place along the way. My defense of the extra stop is: (i) we needed a basis for comparison for Ikabaru’s coffee (and indeed, I sampled the fares at both locations) and (ii) we needed a basis for comparison for Ikabaru’s … service. Conclusion: I can confirm that the coffee and service were better at Ikabaru.

Dinner that night was at Aqui Esta Coco, which by my account, was the best meal I had in South America. In a stroke of unbelievably bad luck, Chilean Sea Bass was puzzlingly out of season and we couldn’t eat it. So I got a risotto with sea scallops, and it was amazing. More amazing were the ceviche and the king crab crepe appetizers – literally the best crepe I’ve ever had in my life (full disclosure: I’ve had maybe 2 crepes ever. So it’s a small sample size).

Later we had a rousing night at Urracas, a club in Santiago). Carlos, true to form, bought bottle service and things got generally out of hand. Good times.

December 18:

The morning site visit was a little hazy … so you’ll have to ask someone else on the trip the details …

However, Thursday afternoon was the winery tour. This was the most hyped-up visit that we had on this trip and everyone had been looking forward to it all week, especially after sampling the local wines with every meal. And the winery definitely did not disappoint.

We did a deep dive into their accounting systems and how they are able to blend FIFO and LIFO inventory under IFRS, thus more accurately capturing the physical flow of inventory through their stores.  They showed us their prospectuses that they deliver to their private equity parents and how they present data in a meaningful way that can easily be interpreted. They even showed us their internal HR evaluation system, which was close to what could be found in the US!

Sike. We got walked around for 20 minutes and then got drunk. Mission accomplished. They set out a wine and cheese pairing which I have never done before. We all had 4 wines and associated cheeses to try. Our guide began to walk us through how you evaluate wine and how you check for colors, flavors, etc before trying it. Most of us have zero experience with wine tasting so as expected, we were pretty bad with it. When prompted for what colors we see: "purple!". When prompted for what flavors we taste: "grape!". We can only try so hard.

December 19:

After another late night at Urracas (Yes, we got bottle service, obviously. Carlos was present.) we rose at the crack of noon ready to seize the day! Originally we were supposed to go to the Andes and go hiking – I was super pumped about it. But apparently not enough people signed up so the trip was cancelled, leaving us with nothing to do. Being the enterprising individuals that we are, four of us decided to try to go on adventure day of our own. The people at the hotel said we just had a short subway ride and then would essentially be at this mountain where we could go white water rafting, zip lining, etc. Sounded awesome and only 30 minutes away? Sounded too good to be true!

And it was too good to be true. As I had previously mentioned, the people of South America have a terrible concept of time. We took the subway to the last stop – which by the way, the subway in Santiago is nicer than the subway in New York (Santiago: 1. New York: 0. Sorry guys, I’m never moving) – which took us an hour. So we’re already 100% over time budget. We then wandered around this town a little and got on a bus. Let me tell you, this was not a bus like you would find in any developed country. Next to my arm was this bottle of some sort of swamp juice that appeared to be holding a handmade sign up. It was pretty gross. After we got off, Carlos said he thought we were going to get kidnapped. There was one redeeming quality to this bus: it was a Mercedes. And you better believe we milked that detail as hard as we could when we got back. Anyway, we took this bus for another half hour until we got to some lodge/treehouse place. (For the record, without Carlos or Enrique, myself and Alex (the other gringo) would have been more than up the creek). This lodge/treehouse had no concept of time, should have seen that coming, so by the time we finished lunch it was 4:30. We were 1:30 away from Santiago and we had to leave for the airport at ~8 pm.  So we just turned around and headed  back into the town.

Waiting on the sketchy bus

The last day wasn’t so bad, despite my recounting of the story. We had some good laughs, saw a part of the country that no one else did, had good food (honestly, this restaurant was pretty darn good. They had this spicy cilantro sauce for your bread that was simply amazing. We topped everything with it.), and spent it with good company. It was the first, and only, full non-regimented day I had and it was great. I truly enjoyed it and will miss Chile.

Plane ride home was fine, just another night of no sleep. I ran out of steam so I won’t bore you with the deets.

And that was it, folks. A great time was had and I’m ready for the next. 

Song of the blog.