Blue Backpack Break: Pablo Neruda's Houses

Hola todos,

One of the things that I had been dying to do in Chile since I started planning my winter/summer break was visit all three of Pablo Neruda's houses in Chile. Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet, diplomat, writer, intellectual, and politician (and I probably left something out too). He was a very influential and loved public figure, and his eccentric style and appreciations for beauty, nature, and the ocean are present in each of his Chilean residences.

La Chascona is in Santiago, Isla Negra is in El Quisco, and La Sebastiana is in Valparaíso. While visiting Chile, I was able to visit all three within four days! Here are some photos of the three houses which, although they are now museums, were left relatively untouched after his death. (Although I was allowed to tour the insides- with extremely informative audio tours- pictures were only allowed to be taken of the houses' exteriors. Which is definitely a major bummer, because the coolest parts of the houses were the inside, in my opinion!)

Isla Negra, El Quisco
(visited during week 1 of break)

One of Isla Negra's many beautiful ocean views. That metal fish is a sculpture version of the symbol of the Pablo Neruda foundation. The symbol is found at all three houses!

Just another stunning view of the ocean from a patio. Casual.

This was first written by Pablo Neruda in chalk, and then carved into the wood by a friend of his who was a carpenter. It reads: "Regresé de mis viajes. Navegué construyendo la alegría." which means "I returned from my travels. I navigated by building happiness". Neruda fancied himself a dry-land sailor, and his fascination with boats and the sea is present in all three residences.

Neruda also loved trains. He had sculptures and actual train parts placed in various locations at his houses.

Again, with the whole "wanna-be sailor" thing. Neruda would actually ring a port bell at his house to let his neighbors and fellow sailors know that he was home.

As you can see, the landscaping is gorgeous. This house was also very long and thin- the house stretches past the width of this photo! The long and thin structure, as well as clever window placement and ceiling height, gave one the feeling of being inside a train.

La Sebastiana, Valparaiso
(visited during week 2 of break)

La Sebstiana was named after the original owner of the land that this house currently sits upon- Sebastian something-or-other. Because this man was the captain of a ship, Neruda focused this house on his nautical passions in honor of the sailor.

See the fish symbol again? (It is in the black circle in the upper corner of the gray wall.) This a view of the walk towards the house from the street.

Can you see the boat? Well, it is a house that is shaped like a boat. Again with the nautical theme. 

Neruda definitely had the best view of Valpo from his balcony. Stunning.

The view from a window in the study. What.

La Chascona, Santiago
(visited during week 2 of break)

The name La Chascona refers to the tangled, messy hair of Matilde Urrutia, the woman who Neruda had a not-so-secret affair with. He built this house as a place for her to live and for their secret rendezvous.

The entrance to La Chascona. The blue bold outside tricks you into thinking that this will be another bold architectural piece like his other two homes. Nopes.

Although the exterior was not as ostentatious as Isla Negra and La Sebastiana, the flora was incredible.

The outside of La Chascona was the most boring of all three houses (although it was still pretty- just not peculiar!), but the inside was still super cool and eclectic. I'm bummed that I couldn't take photos to show you all!

My favorite house was probably Isla Negra because of it's proximity to the ocean, although La Sebastiana definitely had the best views. (I'm not a huge fan of La Chascona mostly because it was Neruda's hide away for when he was cheating on his wife. However, the greenery and interior decorations are very nice.)

There were two main observations that stuck out at me during my tours of these houses. Firstly, Neruda was totally obsessed with trains and boats. Seriously. He was like a five year old boy. And secondly, you cannot fathom Neruda's randomness, eccentricity, and creativity until you see the interior designs and decorations for yourself. He was a strange man with some weird tendencies, which are highlighted by the way that he decorated his houses. However, there is a strange artistic reality that can be appreciated by all.
That being said, it is obvious that you must visit at least one of the houses. If you are ever in Chile, you must visit Santiago. While you are there, check out La Chascona! If you want more, you can take a 2 hour bus ride to El Quisco to see Isla Negra. And if you have traveled all the way to Santiago, you are almost obligated to take a side trip to Valparaíso to see the town (and since you will be near La Sebastiana, you might as well see it, too!)

Besos,

Tina the Exploradora

Uruguay

Hola todos,

I am going to take a quick break from the Blue Backpack Break series to tell you all about what I did this past weekend. Because it was the Carnival holiday here in South America (and yes, it is an actual holiday when businesses close!), my classmates and I were given from Friday to Tuesday of this past week to travel again!

The Uruguayan flag (which holds a striking similarity to the Argentine flag)

Even though I am a little travel weary from winter/summer break still, I knew that I needed to see Uruguay! So for 4 of our 5 travel days, three students and myself found ourselves across the river in the country where Argentines and celebrities vacation. (Again, one reason why we only used 4 days and 3 nights- although Uruguay wasn't super expensive, it certainly wasn't cheap!)

Day 1

We started off early because we had to check in for our ferry ride at 7:15 am. The station was across town and we were busing- it took us nearly an hour to get there! We had no problems checking in, though, and took the ferry across the Río de la Plata from Buenos Aires to Colonia del Sacramento, otherwise just known as Colonia.

A little history: The Río de la Plata (meaning Silver River) was called that by the Spanish who arrived in Buenos Aires during the period of the conquistadores. The river, which is the widest river in the world (or so I've been told by Argentines), seemed silver when the sun reflected off of it. Needless to day, this excited the Spanish who were looking for precious metals. Imagine their disappointment when they discovered that the glittering surface was caused only by the churned up dirt in the river!



Colonia is a very cute, quaint town that reminds me a lot of Smalltown, USA. I would have loved to stay the night there just to walk around the town a lot, but there really isn't much to do there other than sit in a very nice park.


So we took a 3 hour bus to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. From there, we took another 2.5 hour bus ride to Punta del Este, where we had booked our hostel for the night. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that our hostel was yet another 30 minutes away from Punta del Este! A lot of bus travel that day.

However, we got to see two cool sides of Punta del Este, the ultimate celebrity touring city in Uruguay. Right on the beach, this city has the expensive resorts right along the coast of the ocean, but it also had these very small beach towns with a few beach houses and dirt roads. (If you are familiar with Rocky Point/Puerto Penasco, Mexico, I got déjàvu from El Chorro, the beach town outside of Punta del Este that we were staying in. I suppose it was appropriate that I was at a resort beach town this past weekend- so was my church's Rocky Point mission trip!) It was nice to get a break from not only the hustle and bustle of city life in BA, but also to get some nice ocean weather- less humidity and much less heat.

Day 2

We decided to check out Punta Ballena, a cool beach with an awesome house, which was about an hour away from us. Of course, we had no idea where to get off of the bus or where we were going when we got to Punta Ballena, but we figured it out. ("We'll figure it out when we get there" was the motto of this trip, I think.)

The beach was incredibly gorgeous, and the houses in the area were stunning. However, the best part of Punta Ballena was seeing the Casapueblo, an artist's house that was converted into a museum and hotel.

Much of the work of Carlos Páez Vilaró (the owner) was on display throughout the house.

Then we checked out the beach and saw some paragliders! The wind that day was perfect for any sort of gliding/sailing activity. Here is a video of some of what we saw (WARNING: one of my traveling buddies got a little explicit when the paraglider looked like he was going to crash...)

We hung out at the beach at all afternoon and then headed back to Punta del Este, where we walked along the beach and the town there.

We also dropped by a casino to withdraw cash from their ATM. Uruguay is the only place in our area of South America where you can withdraw US dollars from ATMs! (No, I didn't gamble while at the casino. Kind of a wasted opportunity, but I was low on cash!)

Day 3

We left Punta del Este today. It was probably good that we spent beach time yesterday, since rain was spitting on us all morning!

However, before we left we checked out Los dedos (The Fingers), which is a big statue of a submerged hand in the Playa Brava of Punta del Este.
(PS. The story behind this statue is very sad- a father watched his son drown and the last he saw of his son were his reaching fingers. The father had this statue made in memory of his son.)

We headed off to Montevideo which, although we had spent about 15 minutes here on our first day in between our buses, we didn't actually get to see the city at all.

The Plaza Independencia in Ciudad Vieja, Montevideo

We went to Ciudad Vieja (a Montevideo neighborhood) and checked into our hostel: Los Jardines de Babylonia. Like the name suggests, the theme was the lost gardens of Babylon, and the decor inside the hostel corresponded perfectly! We all really liked this hostel and wished that we could have stayed longer- alas, we depart Montevideo tomorrow.

We headed to the Mercado del Puerto to see the restaurant/tourism area in Ciudad Vieja. Tons of authentic restaurants were grilling up meats. Yum!

We headed to Los Pocitos, the main beach in Montevideo. (The water was a gross brown, though, because this beach is from the Río de la Plata, not the ocean, so there is a ton of dirt!)

Our travel crew at the Montevideo sign. The backlighting is weird because of the sun, but I am on the "o" on the far left and the rest of the group is on the "t" and both "e"s.

We wandered around in search of some dinner and came across a mall. Although it had a severely limited food court, it had an awesome candy shop! (And they had sour gummy worms, which I was seriously craving!)

We ended the night with a walk down the pier near our hostel. Seeing another beach sunset was beautiful!

Day 4

Today, we woke up early in the morning (5:30 am!) to head to the bus station, where we caught a bus from Montevideo back to Colonia. From Colonia, we ferried to Buenos Aires (and even though both Immigration and Customs were slow, we made it through without any problems!). We ended the trip with an hour-long bus ride back to our side of BA.

Well, another country checked off of my list and 4 more stamps in my passport. At this rate, I am going to need extra passport pages before my 10 year expiration is up! I had a great time in Uruguay, and even though is was short and sweet compared to winter break, it was nice to get out of BA a little (especially since the weather here has been horribly hot and humid).

Until next time...

Besos,

Tina the Exploradora

Blue Backpack Break: Food

Hola todos,

The past week or so back in BA has been nice- I'm not living out of a tiny backpack, I sleep in my own bed rather than a random bed at a hostel, and I get to sit down at a dinner table and eat a home-cooked meal every night! However, the repetitive nature of my everyday life might just kill me- after being on the road for so long and experiencing so many new things so frequently, regular BA is almost boring! (I say almost because the city really is what you make it- so I'm going to make an effort to keep myself engaged!)
Additionally, school has started again, meaning that I have homework to procrastinate. So... I wrote this blog post instead! I really didn't have room to put all of the cool foods that I ate into my weekly entries over break, so here is a blog just for food that I ate over break. I hope you're hungry!

Chile

This drink is called mote con huesillos and is super popular in Chile. In Santiago, almost every street corner in the downtown peatonales (pedestrian-only streets) had a drink stand that was selling these. It is basically peach chunks with a bunch of peach juice poured over wheat grains. Even though it sounds ridiculous, it is surprisingly delicious!

This is a cono de pizza from Telepizza. Although not specifically cultural (as Telepizza can be found in several of the countries that I went to), it is an unusual food that I ate. It's basically a to-go pizza: the outside is the crust, and the inside has cheese, pepperoni, and tons of ham. A super good and cheap snack!

My first day in Valparaíso was so frantic that I just bought the only food item left at an empanada store across from my hostel. I have no idea what it is called, but I saw it several more times throughout the city. I think it is a modified empanada española. Basically, it is cooked empanada dough on the outside wrapping up a salchicha (hotdog/sausage) with cheese, tomato, and oregano. Basically, pigs-in-a-blanket was combined with pizza and then put in an empanada. It was good despite its questionable appearance.

Here we have pastel de choclo, which literally translates to corn cake, although the food is more like shepard's pie with corn instead of potatoes. Corn, ground beef, onions, a whole hard-boiled egg, and a single olive (with the pit) are inside this traditional Chilean dish. It is delicious!

This is another traditional Chilean dish that is particularly popular in Valparaíso: chorrillana. A huge pile of french fries are topped with deliciously cooked and seasoned strips of beef with onion, and a fried egg on top. It was incredible, but take heed: one order of this dish is certainly enough for two!

Me, anxiously anticipating eating the chorrillana! Myself and two other girls split one pastel de choclo and one chorrillana for lunch and we weren't hungry until dinnertime.

Hotdog stands were everywhere in Santiago- the two main kinds were italiano (hotdog with tomatoes, avocado, and mayonaisse) or completo (hotdog with tomatoes, relish, and mayo). Above is the italiano that I had (hold the mayo). It didn't taste any different than a US hotdog, but since the locals were eating these hotdogs by 10:30 am, I figured I should give it a shot!

Cazuela de carne: although cazuela means "casserole", in Chile it is more like soup. This one had cabbage and bread on the side, and an entire slice of beef, half of a potato, and a sweet potato in the soup.

Brazil

I bought this in the São Paolo airport. It's called an esfiha fechada do carne and I really don't know what that means, but I do know that it is not an empanada, because those were listed separately. However, it tastes exactly like an empanada filled with ground beef and onions.

This was just called a sagúiche salvado at the corner store I bought this in while in Rio. Not a very creative name (since it translates "salted/savory sandwich") but still an interesting and local mix of flavors. The soft croissant-like outside was wrapped around a mix of cheese, chopped-up hard-boiled egg, and what I think was shredded pork.

An acai bowl on Ipanema beach! In Brazil, the acai bowls are different from the ones that I have had in California and Arizona- instead of having an icy acai berry blend that is loaded with granola, honey, and fruits on top, these acai bowls (which are actually more like cups) have strawberry or banana (or sometimes both!) blended with the acai. Generally, you have to ask for granola and/or honey on top, and sometimes the granola is blended in with the fruit and berries.

This was my birthday dinner. I split it with another girl, but there was definitely enough food for three! This is a traditional Brazilian dish that included grilled chicken, rice, french fries, and farofa. Farofa, at least the way it was explained to us, is scrambled eggs coated in this flour-like grain. It was a pretty strange side dish, although the meal as a whole was very good!

Guaravita is a juice of the guarana seed. Some soft drinks also have the distinct, earthy flavor of this drink, but the sodas are definitely less strong than this Guaravita! It is a very popular beverage in Rio, and can be found at every restaurant, street kiosk, and grocery store.

A note about Brazil: I think that I ate more fast food in Rio than I eat in one year in the States. Ultimately, I had four choices for food in Rio: expensive sit-down restaurants (no, thank you); slightly sktechy street food (again, I will pass); fast food like McDonald's, KFC, and Subway (not ideal, but cheap); and groceries. Surprisingly, the groceries were more expensive than the fast food- even if we wanted to cook a group meal!

Peru

A quick not about Peru: because my dad was with me, I was able to sample the most foods because we could each order something different and then split it! Plus, we made it a mission to try as many cultural foods as possible!

This delicious dish, called lomo saltado, has an oriental origin: because of Peru's proximity to Japan, it gets a lot of Japanese immigrants. This dish of rice with sauteed veggies and steak slices on top of papas fritas largely resembles the vague "Asian stir-fry". One of my favorites!

Yep, we ate some alpaca steak. And boy, was it good! It had a nice texture and a flavor that was different from regular steak, but not weird. (And yes, llamas and alpacas are two different animals!)

Yummy- stuffed peppers! Specifically, recoto relleno is a dish in which the recoto pepper, a very spicy pepper, is stuffed (see photo below) and then baked. Baking the pepper gets rid of much of the spiciness, leaving it edible (but with a kick). The yellowish stuff around the pepper is mashed potato that was cooked with the pepper- this is just one variation of the popular dish.

Cuy, otherwise known as guinea pig. You can still see the form of the little rodent too- the upper right of the plate holds its head (its mouth is open). There was not a lot of meat on this half, but we still got to sample the flavor. It tasted kind of fishy (in a not-good way) and I am not a huge fan, but hey- still getting cultured!

Not to be confused with chicha, which is alcoholic, this chicha morada (literally "purple chicha") is a drink made from purple corn. It is rich in antioxidants (according the ads...) and is a super popular drink in Peru. Because it is made with corn, it isn't super sweet (although it is a little bit dulce) but it is pretty dense (but not thick).

Chicken soup, or caldo de gallina, was literally everywhere. Different variations had whole chicken chunks (with or without bone) in the soup, whereas this one just had shredded chicken.

Grilled meats: to read about this meal for four split between my dad and myself (we were protein craving!) read about it here.

Ceviche, Or cebiche. But no matter how you spell it, this has got to be Peru's most famous dish. And it is worth the attention and love! I have no idea what type of fish this is, but ceviche is fish that has been cooked by acidic sauces- not heat. Because of this, the fish seems raw in both appearance and texture. This platter, split between my dad and myself, had four different sauces that all had an acid bite- so we knew we weren't in any food danger! The four sauces were traditional (top left), black olive (top right), curry (bottom right), and some other one that we couldn't really identify, but seemed to be bell pepper (bottom left). All were delicious, and the fish was super fresh! Yum.

Pisco sour

Basically, pisco is a clear, grape-based alcohol that is produced in Peru. Peruvians have manufactured what can only be considered a "national drink" out of this alcohol called a pisco sour: pisco, lemon juice, simple syrup, and egg whites are blended together to produce a delicious cocktail. You can even get flavor-infused piscos, such as the cranberry on the left and the andean mint (muña) on the right. (My dad and I made these specific pisco sours- read about where and how here.)

This is my dad being a model during the Inca Trail, sipping some delicious Inka Cola. Inka Cola, Peru's national soft drink, tastes very similar to cream soda, and my dad was basically addicted. (Plus, they have an Inka Cola Cero- their zero-calorie version!) There is also an Inka Cola Moradita, which tastes like bubblegum and cinnamon mixed with some chicha morada.

In my attempts to become culturally acquainted with a country, food was definitely one of the many ways to do so! And I'm very glad that I tried to get to know these cultures' cuisines- I now have some new culinary favorites and recipes that I will try to make on my own.And maybe this post interested you in international cuisine- or even given you some new kitchen inspiration!

Until next time...

Besos,

Tina the Exploradora