americans on the loose in viña del mar

we woke up saturday morning and showered. after we showered, we noticed that the bathroom was grimier than normal hostel/hotel bathrooms. then we noticed the dirt on the walls and how sketchy it was because this huge house was basically empty. bri and i trekked to the grocery store to get money and food and came back to all of the others packed and ready to go. apparently the hostel ladies (who had made us pay the night before) wanted us out- stat. they were very unhospitable to us as we tried to shove our clothes in our bags because we didn't know the checkout time was noon. we left just after noon, hungry, tired, and in bad moods. we figured we had to find another hostel first so that we could drop our stuff off. after asking around, we thought we could just walk on the main road and there would be hostels everywhere. however, what didn't cross our minds was that this was a long weekend (because monday was columbus day) and all the hostels/hotels (which i found out are interchangeable in chile) were all booked. we spent almost 3 hours walking around viña del mar with our backpacks trying to find someplace with room. around 3:30, we decided to stop and get lunch, call some places, and figure things out. this is where the day becomes better. mariah booked a hostel for all of us after calling 5 or 6 other places and lunch was delicious. we got to our next hostel (which actually was a hotel and was cheaper than the other hostel, which we deemed the crack den), dropped our stuff, and made a beeline for the beach!

lunch after a long morning...

ceviche! raw fish cured by vinegar and lime juice

outside the second hostel

downtown viña

asado (barbeque) by the beach, anyone??

high rises by the beach

beach

the water was freezing. these children were loco

after the beach, we decided to rent one of those little cart things that tourists do.  it was super cheap (8 bucks for the 6 of us for half an hour) but surprisingly hard to pedal with 700+ lbs on it. 

family photo

friends

pedaling all six of us

and then we broke it

after the nice ride in which we actually went .2 miles per hour, we walked back to the main strip and got ice cream and starbucks (can you just see the americanization!?) and then headed back to our hotel. our viña friends had invited us back to their apartment to drink pisco and chill out. we headed back to the same club to go dancing, and then went back to our hotel "early", meaning 5am.