Oktoberfest and Vina del Mar

I’m a little behind on the weekend adventure posts, but I think sitting in an oceanside cabana in a small coastal surf town is a good time to write!

A couple weekends ago, our whole group, including Mary Goss, had a great dinner with about 10 ND MBA alums from Santiago on Friday night. We went up to an alum’s house outside the city in a beautiful neighborhood where we had an amazingly tasty catered dinner and homemade pisco sours. It is so nice to know that the ND MBA network extends so far—even to the Southern Hemisphere! Afterwards, some of us continued the party at Liguria, one of our favorite bars by the Tobalaba metro stop. A couple alums came with us, one of whom we learned is the Godfather of the ND MBA Latin Mafia—he had some great stories from back in his MBA days!

That Saturday, a lot of the group took a bus arranged by our language school to a fiesta de cerveza—Oktoberfest! I, personally, did not go, so I’ll have to let others fill in the details. From what I know though, they had a great time drinking out of huge mugs, eating tasty food, dancing to traditional music—though apparently Chilean amusement park rides aren’t quite as comfortable as ours. Several people came back with bruises and sore backs and necks—eek!

While others were at Oktoberfest, three of us spent a lazy day in the city exploring the Plaza de Armas and Mercado Central. The Plaza was buzzing with locals, and the market was packed with shoppers buying mostly fruit, vegetables and fish (Colleen loved having fish juice squeeze up onto her toes through her flip flops J). I tried to order fish and chips at the restaurant in the middle of the market, but the waiter told me it was dangerous and made from blowfish—I seriously think he was just trying to upsell me to the more expensive fish option instead. His trick didn’t work though…I just ordered a cheaper empanada. On our way out, Colleen met a talkative old man whom we later found out (when we saw him on TV) was the owner of the whole establishment! That night we got to catch the end of the Navy vs ND nightmare at the California bar. UGH!

With just Sunday and Monday left of the weekend, four of us skirted off to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar on a bus. It’s about a 1.5 hour ride for about $7USD and you can catch the buses that leave every 15 mins or so right from a metro station. Our plan was to explore Valpo on Sunday, but when we got there, we were surprised (and disgusted) by how dirty the streets were. Unfortunately (we found out later), we arrived when their sanitation workers were on strike, so the garbage was piling up on the sidewalks and streets—rotting vegetables everywhere from the markets too. I think at a normal time the city would be quite charming (though still pretty disorganized), but we hightailed it out of there pretty fast. At least we got to see some awesome futbol fan celebrations driving by!

We hopped on their metro rail that goes straight to Vina del Mar which is in the next cove over. It was like night and day when we arrived in Vina—clean streets, pretty parks, nice shoreline! We quickly remembered that it was Sunday, though, when most of the hotels and restaurants we tried to visit were not open. We finally found an awesome spot for lunch that served tablas (huge plates of food to share with the whole table) of seafood, potatoes and vegetables—yum!! And then we called up the Che Legarte hostel from the Lonely Planet guide for a place to sleep that night. Lodging and food secured, we bought our old faithful friend, Gato (vino), and headed to the beach for sunset (where even gutter dogs can find true love!). After a little stop at a great ice cream shop called, Enjoy Café, right on the water, we hit the hay after a long day.

The next day we just walked all over the city exploring on foot, finding huge pelicans here and a random castle there, as well as an Easter Island statue hanging out outside the archaeological museum. Sadly, our hour-long walk to find the city’s one paella restaurant for Adam resulted in finding it closed with a sign: Sorry, we’re closed on Mondays in November.

But, all in all, a fun (and maybe a little random) weekend!

Living and Studying in Santiago

Now that we’re about halfway done with our time here in Santiago, I thought I might take some time to describe what it’s been like to live and study here.

Santiago is a big, bustling city, and, like other big U.S. cities, it has some smog and a lot of varying neighborhoods all with their own unique flavor. Most of us are living in an upper-middle-class barrio called Providencia. Our language school is very close by, and our university is about 20 minutes by metro. The public transportation here is outstanding—the metros, buses and collectives (taxis that run on pre-determined routes like buses) take us pretty much everywhere we need to go. There are tons of taxis, but a few of us have run into some less-than-honest drivers who makes riding in those less pleasant.

Providencia also has tons of shopping malls and stores, good restaurants and bars, and lots of furnished places to rent short-term. The rent prices vary greatly—from as little as $200 per person for a shared apartment up to $800 for a single bedroom studio. Most of us used a housing agency for students called Contact Chile to find our places. Five of us have a great two-story apartment located directly above the Los Leones metro stop and a big shopping mall called Paris. We also have a grocery store (interestingly, it’s owned by Wal-Mart!) in the basement. The other students live in similar (but some nicer, newer) apartments nearby. And a handful are renting rooms from and living with local Chileans.

Most of our apartments come with a cleaning lady visit once a week, though not all of us have access to a washer/dryer. Some of us have been hauling our laundry a couple blocks to the full-service Laundromat down the street, which washes/dries/folds for about $5USD a load. Not bad!

The streets and sidewalks are constantly alive with activity—lots of traffic, vendors, street performers, and beggars. You can buy everything from rabbit-ear antennas to ladies underwear to fresh strawberries and avocados (palta…mmmm!) and flowers on the street—though not much artisan stuff unless you’re in a specialized art market. Surprising to me, there’s not a lot of room to negotiate for prices here—very unlike Mexico.

Our classes—International Ethics, Global Marketing, International Finance, and Latin American Economic Development—are all held Tuesday-Thursday at the University of Alberto Hurtado—a private, Catholic university in town.  After having Spanish class every day for the first week, we now take Spanish class just once a week like our other classes. We also have “practicum” once a week, for which we listen to speakers tell us about different industries in Chile (for example, the wine industry, the pension system, salmon, fruit exporting, banking, etc.). Overall, we’re getting a great first-hand experience and knowledge of what it is like to conduct business in a developing Latin American economy!

When we’re not in class, we’re of course experiencing the Chilean social culture. The food here is outstanding!! My favorites are the amazingly delicious fresh fruit and vegetables, roasted chicken, and seafood.  And the national drink is called a pisco sour—an incredibly tasty and dangerous drink that tastes similar to a hard lemonade. Three in one evening can mean danger! And, of course, this country has great, inexpensive wine too—so you really can’t go wrong!

Here a few shots of our classrooms and places around the city:

Educational Practicum: Concha Y Toro Winery

Ok, I admit that this blog post might not appear to be about an educational experience, but I assure you it is! Last week, Mary Goss escorted our group first to the Concha Y Toro primary production plant and then onto the Wine Tasting Tourist Center so we could get first-hand insights into a huge Chilean export: Wine. Chile is the fifth most imported country when it comes to wine--so it was important that we get some hands-on experience with this industry.
Concha Y Toro is the largest winery in Chile, is among the top 10 wineries in the world., is the first winery to be listed on the NYSE. They own 15,000 acres of vineyards throughout Chile, and are a huge player in the global market. It was extremely interesting to see the huge facility where they produce much of their win--on the tour they walked us through the process of getting the grapes from the field (where they are cut from the stems by hand) and into the barrels for aging. At the tourist facility, we were given access to the Casillero del Diablo cellar, which is haunted by the devil as legend has it. This brand sells 300,000 cases in the US every year.
Here are some pictures from the day:

The two funniest things that happened during the trip:
1. A little pig got loose in the parking lot and the security guards were trying to catch it -- fun to watch!
2. We had a little rap video shoot on the bus complete with a reggae tone music video on the TV...

Quintay - Town of 700 Chileans and 3 Gringos

Ahoy Matey!!

Welcome to Quintay, Chile. A small fishing village of dirt roads, great friends, amazing seafood, man's best friend, a cute Brazillian teacher and of course a 100 yr old shipwreck. A 40-min drive south of Valpo along a windy coastal road worth riding in a sportscar than a $1.6CHP collectivo.

Yes..it was Paul's first dive but we were not worried...his instructor took good care of him 50ft under.

I'll let the pictures do justice but basically if you want to feel miles away from any civilization..go to Quintay!! No internet, only 4 restaurants and 1 cabanas to choose from. You can even try surfing but we recommend the diving. make sure you ONLY eat fish and crab because that's really why you go there. By far the best tasting and freshest fish you will ever have at ridiculous cheap prices. A weekend in search of good seafood turned into a great getaway. Check out Playa chica and Playa Grande while you are there. make the 20min hike along the ocean.. you will never want to leave. 3hrs door to door from Santiago. Don't waste your time in Valpo except to get some cheap grub.

Sunset in the city

This picture is too good not to post -- the combination of a gorgeous sunset tonight, the awesome view from our apartment, and Colleen's amazing camera (and great photographer's eye) makes for this:

Pucon: Adventura en la District de los Lagos

After our warm-up trip to Cascada de las Animas, 13 of us kicked it into high gear and traveled down to Pucon, a small town in the southern part of Chile that is known as the adventure capital of South America. Pucon, as described in Lonely Planet’s Chile guide book, “can be boiled down to three things: the lake, the volcano and its easy access to every kind of outdoor sport imaginable. Pucon is a place where a variety of earthly wonders conspire to create a point of inspirational natural energy.” Obviously we had to visit.
Three guys rented an SUV and the remaing 10 of us rented squeezed into a maxi-van we rented from the local Alamo branch. The drive down took about 10 hours, but that included a leisurely lunch at an awesome steak restaurant with its own vineyard (the drive back took about 8 hours). The main highway that runs the length of the country here is called Route 5, and just like in the United States, but scenery down looked very similar to California -- green, lush, lots of vineyards. We even passed through San Fernando and Los Angeles on the way (as well as guys selling fish hanging from sticks)!

Our cabin was awesome -- slept 11 people and we made it sleep 13: Pine Lakes Resort just between Villarrica and Pucon right on the lake.  The owner, Armando, is a fantastic guy and so helpful.  We found out a few days into our trip that his groundskeeper had a health emergency and he canceled all the reservations except for ours.  He was so impressed with the ND MBA students last year that he didn’t want to turn us away.  So we settled into our cabin, grilled out, drank pisco and played a serious game of cards.
The next morning we woke up to a nice sprinkle of rain: something great for cozy cabins with wood-burning stoves but not ideal for outdoor adventures…or is it? Six of us embraced the weather and went white water rafting (bigger, faster river than the previous weekend!) and ziplining through the forest canopy (we didn't touch the ground for an hour!). The other group went to the Geometric Thermals (which the first group visited the next day). That night, one group went to visit some rustic hotsprings, while the rest went into town and had a super good dinner at a restaurant that Armando recommended. We were there in the off-season, so the whole place was pretty deserted, but Chileans are so hospitable that they were happy to serve us wherever we went! After rating, the guides had pisco sours ready and waiting for us, and after canopying we were treated to piping hot hot chocolate...good stuff.

On our second full day in Pucon, the weather was not clear enough to go on the guided tour up the volcano but it actually ended up working out ok (even though we were still a little jealous of the awesome pics from last year where they summited the mountain).  We hiked from the base camp up through to some pretty deep snow…all in all about 2 or 3 hours. Four of the guys even braved cold and slid down a HUGE bowl on their butts! (Video to come) The clouds lifted just enough to give us spectacular views of the lake and valley...definitely worth the climb.

Our next stop was the Termas Geometricas (Geometric Thermals)...a 1.5 hour drive on shoddy dirt roads in the mountains, but 100% worth the trip. There are numerous hot springs in the Pucon area but this one takes the cake. For a while we thought we were going to be stranded among the sheep farms in rural Chile, but our Hyundai maxi-van pulled through. 

Not too long ago these hot springs were built into a spa with over 15 different pools complete with waterfalls and misty fog. Each pool is kept at different temperatures with steaming hot water flowing past the freezing waterfalls.  Our screaming under the waterfall might have momentarily ruined the serenity of the termas!

After we were all well-baked in the hot springs, we journeyed back to the cabin and had a late-night BBQ dinner. We were lucky enough to be driving by Lake Villaricca right at sunset, so I'll leave you with one final beautiful picture of the view we saw.

Ciao!