I managed to get out of Santiago today, I´m in a little town on the way to Portillo ski area called Los Andes. It has the feel of many other Latin American towns I´ve been in, from Ecuador to Mexio. Santiago felt a lot different.
My hotel is super sketchy in the way only some hotel rooms can be. Imagine the worst hotel room you can. Now take the blood stains off the wall, you´re getting a little too imaginative. OK, there, that´s where I´m staying.
I had a great experience today on the way to the hotel. A garrulous and half-drunk man greeted me from a propane truck, so of course I stopped and started talking with him. Before I knew it, I was checked in to the hotel and sitting in the propane truck. Victor had his grandson (son?) Alejandro on his lap and I was sitting in the center seat next to Victor´s nephew, Marcelo.
They gave me a quasi-official tour of the town, made more interesting by the fact that everyone (except Alejandro, who is nine years old) was quaffing Cristal beer, one of the local favorites. I have a feeling that drinking and driving is illegal in Chile but the folks in Los Andes probably drink a beer or two in the car quite often.
I managed to reach my conversational (and drunk driving) limit fairly soon and managed to talk the boys into dropping me off at the hotel.
The rest of my night was uneventful, as I spent some time hanging out in the central square and had a beer and ¨"completo," which is Chilean for "fancy hot dog."
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