Showing posts with label sun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sun. Show all posts

Monday, April 23, 2012

ViƱa del Mar, Chile



I took a quick commuter train from Valparaiso to Vina del Mar:


Vina del Mar, sister city to Valparaiso, is its complete opposite. Clean, orderly, corporate, tourist friendly, this place is a beach resort. I happened to be there during Semana Santa, which is a week-long Easter celebration in Latin America. Somehow I was able to find a cheap and nice place to stay. The beach is very nice, and you don't feel the tourist vibe so much there. For some reason, the majority of bars seem to be devoted to karaoke. 


















Thursday, March 22, 2012

Punta del Este, Uruguay

Punta del Este has the reputation for being a Cancun-type location, but with the summer season over it is actually a laid-back, very nice city, although comparatively expensive. The main part of the city is on a narrow peninsula surrounded by ocean, so pretty much anywhere you go you are at the beach, which is very nice. I used Punta del Este twice as a stopping point between other destinations. One of my rooms almost had an ocean view. Well, it did have an ocean view. It was a real hotel room which I considered to be somewhat of a luxury, and for $50 I thought it was a good deal. The hotel's elevator, like many other elevators I have used during this trip, had an old fashioned metal gate which you have to open and close yourself before the elevator will move. Feels a little rickety, but its kind of fun to do it for yourself instead of having one of those elevator operators there.
The night before returning to Buenos Aires, I happened to run into Rocio, Naty, & Gaby, and we would travel back to Argentina together.

Hotel view:


The infamous "Fingers":





More photos from Punta del Este:



I've never seen so many people sunbathing facing away from the ocean: