Get on Your Bikes and Ride!

Last Friday, my Chilean buddy Simon was nice enough to take Megan, Rachel, and I on a bike tour of the Viña del Mar and Reñaca area! You should know that Simon bikes a lot, and not just street riding, but tricks and other such fancy things. Therefore, I was sure to tell him 16 times that I don’t have the muscles to bike through the hills of Viña (I still can’t figure out how one would say “I am not in shape enough to bike the hills of Viña”) because, let’s be honest, I don’t know that I will ever be in shape enough to bike the hills of Viña. He was also nice enough to loan Rachel and I bikes, and upon seeing my bike, which was covered in rust, I almost backed out. But then I saw that it had a bell, and I hopped right on. The story is best told through the following photos:

Gringas out for a bike ride! Megan on the left, Rachel in the middle, and yours truly on the right

A beautiful Viña beach

The crew

This is the Larraguibel monument right along the beach--It honors Alberto Larraguibel Morales who jumped over nine feet in the air on a horse. This probably happened during an epic battle of some sort, but the jumping bit was all that sunk in for me. To get an idea of how high he jumped, see the picture below:

The height of this lovely stone block is the height of Señor Larraguibel's jump. If you can believe it, Megan jumped it, no horse required! Not really, but she was close.

The Reloj del Sol--essentially a giant sundial! Apparently it's accurate to within a half hour...maybe not the most reliable giant clock in the world, but it looks extremely cool

Like I said in my last post, Viña and Valparaíso are home to the Chilean Armada, and these cannons sit right in front of one of the main Naval Academy buildings. At one point in time they were functioning, but they were usually used for ceremonial shots. Now, they seem to just be there for show and for small children to climb on.

This contraption is literally the most fun you could ever have on a playground. Ever.

I refuse to stop taking pictures of the beaches/ocean even though they all end up looking the same--it's just too pretty

My buddy, Simon!

Taken from a mirador (or lookout point) in Reñaca. For a little perspective, the city on the far side of the bay is Valparaíso

So we are conversing with Simon in broken Spanish and someone poses the question "What's your favorite animal" which prompts a thirty minute conversation about what the Spanish word for a sea otter (Megan's favorite) is. When we couldn't describe sea otters to Simon, we turned to attempting to draw one. Once that didn't work we just continued to draw animals. In this photo we have a walrus (or foca) on the far left, a sea otter (or nutria) by his side, a penguin (or penguino) in the middle, a llama (no translation needed) second from the right, and a fireman (or bombero) on the far right. Why a fireman? Well Simon is a fireman here in Chile, and he wanted to be represented. The lovely man at the empanada stand later told us that the Spanish word for a sea otter is nutria and we will never forget it!

My favorite shot of the day!

 Overall, we had a fantastic time! We also stopped at the best empanada stand near the Playa Cochoa (Cochoa beach) and I had my first, and most certainly not last, shellfish empanada. I returned home sunburned (prompting a lot of roja gringa jokes), well fed, and well exercised. Overall, a fantastic way to spend a Friday!