Daytripper...(the wrong kind of) a one way ticket yeah!

I´m still calming down from an ATM scare I had, so I´m a little shaky writing this. I´ll do my best to rise above it and provide you with the witty reprose you´ve come to love and admire. In a nutshell, I lost my San Diego County Credit Union ATM card today, which is where my precious few travel sheckles have been sheltered from the current economic hurricane. Which scared the holy ba-jesus out of me, as it has a VISA logo on it and who knows who could have drained the thing down here. I think I left it in an ATM this afternoon, but i´m not really sure. I think the machine sucks it back up when you dont pull it out after a while. Sadly enough I did the same thing in Cuernavaca a fe years ago. Thankfully I was able to cancel it online with SDCCU before any unauthorized activity occured. Without money many thousands of miles from home I could be... lets just say... screwed, blued and tattooed.

While retracing my steps my backup plans went steaming through my mind. Specifically plans A through E. Here they are for your amusement or ridicule whichever strikes you first:

Backup Plan A: Using my Skank of America ATM card, which kind of sucks because they charge you an international fee, non-BofA ATM fee, and a foreign exchange fee. After reading the rest of my backup plans I´m sure you´ll agree that this would be the preferred option.

Backup Plan B: Begging ShitiBank for a cash advance. I´m sure they´d very kind and understanding with the fees.

Backup Plan C: Calling YOU for a western union money transfer.

Backup Plan D: I won´t go into details, but lets just say its not pretty and involves prostitution on a Chilean street corner.

Backup Plan E: Live like the dog I am.

Crisis averted. I´m happy to report that I´ve settled on Backup Plan A. Onto my walking tour of Valparaiso, but first a little of the lay of the land. Most of the houses are built on the surrounding hills over looking the port. Its a gritty little town with lots of wires and sort of rough appeal. Getting up and down from the Hostel involves taking primitive cable cars called Asensores. Built in 1883, they are both transportation and entertainment.Lets take a ride down the hill, shall we?



In case my link to youTube doesn´t work click here


What goes down must go up, or do I have that backwards? Speaking of going up, this video took 2 hours to upload, so PLEASE watch it. Thank goodness internet access is free here at the Hostal. But free is generally CRAPPP!



or click here

On my way to Plaza Sotomayor to start my Lonely Planet Walking tour, (here after referred to as the LPWT,) I realized how poorly animals are treated here. These poor meowers were obviously sick. The big one has snot coming out of his nose and you could feel the vertibrae and ribs sticking out of the little kitty.



Best let sleeping dogs lie...because they are everywhere.



At Plaza Sotomayor, heres a shot of the naval building.



and a tribute to the Chile´s naval ¨martyrs.¨ After 9-11, that word always makes me a little nervous.



After the ATM incident I headed to the Bus terminal to buy a ticket to Buenos Aires. One thing I was looking forward to on this trip is a 24 hour bus ride across the Andes. What can I say, I´m a cyclist, we love suffering. I was only a little disappointed as the trip would take just 22 hours. Darn, I´ll just have to get by. Problem is the mountain pass is closed today due to snow, and may not be open tomorrow either. In which case I´ll try to make it to Asuncion Paraguay. Assuming they dont take the same road. Or I´ll wait it out here in Valparaiso and continue daytripping.

Speaking of daytripping, I took the Metro....



...to Vina del Mar, 8km north. Vina del Mar is the weekend destination for many Santiaguinos and where the rich in Valparaiso moved when the train connected the port to Santiago and urban sprawl ensued.

Here´s a cool looking building, I dont know what it is, what it does or who it belongs to, but it looked cool.



So I trotted around Vina for a couple hours snapping fotos and generally making a nuisence of myself. Here´s a 5 star resort called Hotel del Mar



Its eqaully fabulous from the backside



Until it was time to return to Valparaiso in a tailspin of ATM panic. Heres´s my return pose (BP thats a buzzword for Before Panic.)



The leg keeps getting better day by day which is good. I probably walked more kilometers on it today than any other day since the skiing incident. At least I´ll be off of it for 22 hours starting tomorrow. My posts will go dark for a couple days as I brave narrow mountain snow covered passes on poorly maintained single lane roads all the while praying to beesus my bus trip doesn´t become a one way ticket!

Relax mom, I´m just being dramatic.