Vina del Mar

We went to Vina del Mar for the weekend, about 7 hours north of Chillan by bus. The city is right on the coast, and though it was supposed to rain on us not a drop fell for the whole weekend.

We left Friday morning and returned to Chillan Monday morning, so we got a solid weekend in. On the way to the city we stopped at one of Pablo Neruda's houses, which was fun. I bought one of his books of poetry a week ago for $40! The cashier told me the price in Spanish, but I thought "No way it's that much, I must've misunderstood" and waited until he gave me the receipt to sign. Well, it was that much. I should trust my Spanish comprehension a little more, was the lesson I learned. Anyway, they had the same exact book, at his house, for half the price. Oh well.

The house was interesting, but what stays with me is the fact that he amassed all of that beautiful stuff and now he's dead and it doesn't matter. I guess it's nice for us, but in the scheme of his life it's now a wash. And his poetry isn't even that good, in my opinion, so I came away from his house encouraged to do something with my life that truly matters.

We stayed at The Hotel O'Higgins in Vina del Mar, which is a grand old place that's a little run down but fun. My friend Ben put it best: "I think every room in this hotel is a little different." When Dave and I entered our room I said to him "I feel like I'm in the Bourne Identity," and we were both expecting to be assassinated in our room sometime during the weekend. That didn't happen, thankfully

We ate breakfast and dinner for free (or it was included, rather) each day, and we ate lunch out in the city. The first night we were there we went out to find some fun, but ended up going to a pub that charged us $30 more than they should have. People in our group argued for a long time with the bartenders, nearly starting a fight, but eventually we paid the extra and left. It ruined our night. We all gathered at a McDonalds down the street and tried to get up the motivation to go somewhere else, but we all just went back to the hotel around 2am, which is ridiculously early compared to most nights out.

The next day we went on a tour of the city. We took a little boat ride through the harbor and saw some sea lions. Then we took these things called "ascensors," which are little cars on tracks that go up steep hills, to the top of the city. We walked through the narrow streets, looking at what vendors were selling. We eventually had lunch at a restaurant that overlooked the harbor.

That afternoon Dave and I took a four hour nap, and we were awoken around 8pm by the sound of cars honking their horns. It's not uncommon here, but it seemed excessive. I looked out the window, expecting to see crowded roads, but there were only a few cars. Perplexed, I studied the scene for a bit. I noticed that the cars were driving around with Chilean flags hanging out their windows, and then it made sense; the people were celebrating their futbol team. At the time I didn't know, but later I found out that their team had won their game against Colombia earlier that night, thus qualifying for the World Cup in 2010 in South Africa.

As I was watching the cars drive in circles around the plaza outside our hotel I heard chanting coming from the park. So we grabbed our cameras and walked over. What we found was quite the spectacle.

Hundreds of people were there, dancing and chanting and flag-waving and drinking, celebrating their team's victory. And more people were arriving all the time. I would say over a thousand people eventually showed up, and it went on for over four hours. We got some great videos, including one of a guy diving into a shallow pond in the park and smacking his head. He wasn't okay, had to be helped out by his friends, and later we saw an ambulance arrive and then speed off after a few minutes. But that was nothing compared to the rest of the night.

I moved from the park to an intersection right next to the park, where a second large group of people were gathered, dancing in the street and blocking traffic. Some cars tried to drive through the intersection, but the people were hitting and jumping on their cars so people gave up on trying to drive though. Police had showed up at this time, blocking off one street next to the park, and a big bus with police in riot gear was on another side of the square that formed the park. This intersection was the corner between the blocked off street and the riot bus.

Some cops on motorcycles finally showed up to escort the cars through. There were two of them. One drove his bike up to the front of the intersection, and got off his bike. The second lead the cars through the intersection to safety. No one touched the cars with the police there, but a girl kept trying to reach for the parked bike to touch it. Her boyfriend tried to hold her back, but she got to it and tipped it over, breaking one of the mirrors and the kickstand. When the bike fell everyone in the crowd let out an ominous "ohhhhhhh."

The cop was obviously pissed off, but he didn't see who had done it, so he just picked up his bike and held it up. A second officer came over to pick up the broken mirror. Just as it seemed like things were cooling off, I heard a bottle break on the ground. I looked to my right to see five of the riot police approaching. Apparently they had started to walk toward the intersection when the bike was tipped, and someone had thrown a bottle at the approaching officers. The police made for the side of the crowd that the bottle had come from, and everyone scattered. There were too many people for the officers to be able to pick out exactly who had thrown the bottle, so the incident blew over. The shops behind where I was standing had thrown down their gated doors as soon as the bottle broke, and they now reopened them. But it was close to being a riot.

I walked away from this intersection, thinking nothing else would happen, when I heard more bottles breaking on the ground. I realized that the people in the park were throwing bottles at the riot bus and the officers on the other side. This continued for a few minutes, with the riot police eventually packing up and driving off. There were less than a dozen of them and they obviously weren't up to the task of tangling with a mob if it came to that, so they did the right thing. As they were driving off a guy tried to push a garbage can in front of the bus. The bus nearly hit him but swerved and drove around him.

I forgot to mention that I was recording everything I've described, so I have some interesting video footage to show people when I get home.

Later that night we all went out again, looking for some dancing. We found a nice little club, but one of the guys in our group got kicked out immediately because he had brought in a bottle of rum, and they wouldn't let him back in. So we decided to move camp.

This eventually lead us back to the McDonalds from the night before. At 5am, as we were leaving, a couple of guys got in to a scuffle with the security guards. They were kicked out of the restaurant, but they didn't take kindly to it and were kicking the doors, and one of the doors they kicked hit one of the security guards.

The offenders were leaving the premises, but now it had become personal. The guards followed the guys down the street, throwing trash, food trays, chunks of concrete, and anything anyone could get their hands on.

I took a study-abroad preparation class before I came to Chile, and in this class they told us in no uncertain terms to avoid large gatherings of people and disturbances. I did exactly the opposite of this more than once that night. And I took my camera each time.

The fight continued down the street, with passersby gathering to watch from a distance. The offenders and the guards were yelling and pointing at each other, and continued to throw things back and forth. One of the guys in our group kept swearing at the guys in Spanish and English, and I was afraid that he would attract some attention and bring us in to the fight. I kept telling him to shut up and so did one of the girls in our group, but he wouldn’t listen. Mercifully, the guys fighting with the security guards couldn’t hear him.

I followed the fight down the street until they came to the corner, and the perpetrators went around it. I thought the incident was over, but the security guards kept yelling and pointing, and the guys came back for a second round of flinging stuff at each other. There were cars passing frequently, and a couple times it looked like somebody was going to step into the street at the wrong time. I got closer with my camera, far closer than I probably should have.

The traffic cleared for a minute, and one of the offenders ran into the street spraying what had to be mace at the guards on the other side of the street. As he made it to the middle of the road, one of the security guards hurled a large chunk of concrete into the air. It came down right on the guy's head. He immediately went limp in the road. I caught the whole thing on camera. But now I stopped taping, turned around, and walked away with everyone in my group. We were all shocked. The security guards promptly left the scene as well, everyone coming to the realization that what had just happened was way beyond what the offense warranted. The guy was unconscious in the street, and some of his buddies had gathered around to help him. But it looked like he wasn't getting up on his own that night.

It was a crazy night, and a crazy weekend. We went to the mall and the beach the next day, but it all fades to the background compared to that night. I'm sure I'll get scolded by my family, and maybe by most of the people that read this, but I honestly wouldn't do anything different if I had the chance. It was completely fascinating to witness that up close, even more so since I can go through my videos again and again. I wouldn't trade those videos for anything.

I'm back at home now, but not for long. I got a ticket to the futbol game tomorrow, Chile vs. Ecuador, and I'm going up to Santiago in the morning. I won't be back until Thursday, and since we didn't have class Monday, today is the only day I'll attend class this week.

I'm much better health-wise, almost completely healed I think. I took the last of my antibiotics this morning, and I don't have a cough or any congestion anymore.

I learned two weeks ago that I don’t have the money to travel after the program is finished. I was bitterly disappointed for a couple days because traveling is the equivalent of adventure to me, and I was looking forward to having some great adventures. Despite my inability to travel, I’ve definitely managed to find some adventure.