Chorillanas, Caleta Portales, Concon & the flu

On friday I went with some friends and explored Valpo. We were planning on taking a boat cruise of the city because it was such a beautiful day, but the port ended up being closed because of the protest that occurred the day before. Protesting is a pretty big thing to do here in Chile, because it is one of the main ways that people can make their voices heard. On thursday their was a protest about building a mall in Valpo, putting a substation under the main plaza, and one about the closing of a port that occurred in the north of Chile that left many without jobs. The city is trying to build an upscale mall in Valparaiso that would be located near the port and would be next to the ocean. People believe that this will ruin the culture and dynamic of what is Valparaiso. All of the small local businesses will slowly fade away. Also, they were protesting putting in a substation because they think that it will ruin the plaza and its architecture. Plazas are essential to chilean lifestyle and culture and they don't want that to be taken from them.

Moving on....

Instead of taking that boat cruise, we went to a restaurant and tried chorillanas, which is basically a pile of grease, but ever so delicious. It is fries with egg and onions and steak on top, some restaurants even put cheese on top. We went to the place where it was first created!

Don't they look amazing!

Then we ended the day by walking up and going to an amazing ice cream place in Cerro Alegre! The ice cream is one of the best things here!

The next day I went with a group of girls from my culture class to Caleta Portales, which is an open air fish market. You are able to see all of the boats lined up with people in front of them selling the fish they just caught for the day. We were there for a project that we had to do on the port and its market. One of the girls and I talked with a man who had worked there for 37 years, and learned all about the history of the port and the life of what it means to be a fisherman. We also got to be up close and personal with sea lions that were there playing on the beach and begging for food.

After I went with some other friends to a local beach town that has huge sand dunes and the best empanadas on the coast. The sand dunes are the size of mountains and I saw many kids flying down them on pieces of cardboard. All I know is that my calves hurt once I finally got to the top. But from the top you could see for miles and the whole coast of Valparaíso and Viña. Along the way we became friends with a local stray dog that was extremely sweet! After we played in the sand we found this amazing lookout that had all sorts of rocks to climb and look at the ocean. So beautiful and fun! From there we went to this cute little beach section that was full of different restaurants to get our empanadas. I got a tomato and cheese one, Maggie a vegitarian one, and Melissa got a shrimp and a crab one for us to try. So delicious! They take your order and then hand-make and fry them for you :) Empanada + a orange fanta makes my life complete!

The rest of the weekend did not go as well because unfortunately I got the flu :( But I went in an saw a doctor and got some medicine to treat my symptoms, but i still have a little sore throat.

Tomorrow I am going to La Serena, Chile for the weekend with some friends. It is in the North, cannot wait to tell you all about my next adventures!