Question: How does a "6 or 7 hour" bus trip turn into a 12 hour bus trip? Answer: sitting at the border for 5 hours. Ding, ding, ding...correct.

And, that's about how it played out for us on a lovely Saturday afternoon. We pulled out of Mendoza on a beautiful, warm, sunny morning and made great time as we headed up the mountains. I have said it before, but it bears repeating: the Andes are a most impressive mountain range. Jagged, snow covered peaks lined the highway as we winded our way towards the border...and now we are stopped. We took a quick peak out and saw a line of 8-10 buses ahead of us and shrugged. A few minutes later the driver came back into the bus and said we were looking at 2 hours of waiting at least. When we left the lady next to me shook her head and said she figured it was going to be way longer then that. And, she was right.

We were perched high in the mountains, surrounded by snow and blistering wind and there was no where to go. We wandered down to the kiosk for a coffee and a sandwich and then retreated back to the bus where at least it was warm. Finally, after at least 2 hours we were hearded into the Immigration office where we waded through the maze of lines and different desks to get stamped out of Argentina and stamped into Chile. The actual process of getting stamped in and out took all of 45 seconds each...but the whole process of finding the right line and waiting in it and then getting back to the bus took an hour. Next we got to wait on the bus for another hour before getting to clear customs. Again we were herded off the bus but this time we were held in a small cell type area. They collected our paperwork and kept us in quaratine while they unloaded and x-rayed every single piece of luggage on our bus. In the mean time they shouted confusing and often contradictory directions at us. People stood there with their heads down. The somber mood was continued when they held up a few bags and yelled for the owners to step forward to watch as the bags were searched by hand. I felt relieved that our bags were not held up and at the same time I felt scared for those whose bags were...

It's no coincidence if this narative sounds like the opening scene from Schindler's List, and although I'm obvisously exargerating with this analogy...it's not too far off... and as we ticked into our 5th hour at the border crossing Gina started to lose her cool a little. Normally very calm and 'go with the flow'...you know things are getting ridiculous when she starts to get hyphy...a parakeet in a beauracratic tunnel, so to speak.

At last we were herded back onto the bus and our bags were loaded and finally..adjust over 5 hours after we came to a stop about 200 meters up the road, the bus lurched forward and we were off down the hill and into Chile. We had 3/4 of a bottle of wine and a liter bottle of beer and after what we had just been through...well, lets just say...the wine and beer didn't last long enough to even see the bottom of the Andes.

So much for getting in at 4 or 5 with time for a walk and a meal. It was 9:30pm when we pulled into Valparaiso bus station and past ten by the time our cab dropped us off at our hostel and we rang the buzzer. Thankfully the sweet lady running our B&B hostel was still awake and whisked us to our room. It was too late to go wandering around looking for food, so we just went to bed hungry this night.

The spot we stayed was great. Its a hostel by name, but a B&B in spirit and very pleasant. The sweet owner fixed us a good breakfast each morning. As the place was pretty empty, she upraded us into one of her tiny apartments, so we had our own kitchen. The place was called El Mirador (meaning the view spot) and it had beautiful views of the Valparaiso bay and out into the Pacific Ocean from the balcony and even from the bedroom.

Over breakfast we chatted with another couple staying there who told us that they had crossed the border by bus from Mendoza the previous Saturday and it had taken them all of 45 minutes to get through. Indeed, they had commented to each other how efficient that border crossing had seemed to them. G and I almost choked on our coffee...

It was a beautiful, if a little brisk morning as we headed out to see what Valpo had to offer. Immediately we realized something was up...it was Sunday so it was normal for some things to be closed, but Valpo seemed practically a ghost town. We quickly figured out that we'd stumbled into Chile right as their biggest holiday long weekend was about to kick off, which means everybody vacates the city and heads for the countryside.

We found a café that was open for business and got into another coffee. The café was called 'Melbourne Café' and was obviously owned by a ex-pat Aussie as the walls were adorned with photos of our old stomping grounds and random Australiana and AFL memorabilia.

We couldn't really figure out what to do so ended up wandering around and seeing what we could for a few hours until an urge to use a bathroom sent us scurrying to find a lunch place. We settled on about the only place we could find and grabbed a table in the relatively empty place.

Figuring there wasn't much else to do we ordered a bottle if wine and a salad for G and sandwich for me. The most memorable thing about the meal was definitely the waiter. He was maybe the most dim-witted waiter I've ever experienced. At first I felt bad because I thought surely he had a condition of some kind, but nope: just a straight up knucklehead.

For starters, he took forever to longhand write out our entire order including writing "Concha y Toro Sauvignon Blanc 2011" one word at a time as he copied the description word for word from the menu. It's not as if this was the world's most extensive wine list either; I can assure you it was far from that. Still, I have no problem with him taking his time and being precise. The thing is about 10 minutes later when he brought the wine it was a Chardonnay. When I pointed it out to him he looked as dumbfounded as if I had travelled back in time and shown an iPhone to a caveman. Seriously, I could see the gears in his head turning, his mind was working, a bit of smoke coming out of his ears...but for the life of him he could not get his head around the idea that "Concha y Toro" could have a 2011 Chardonnay as well as a 2011 Sauvignon Blanc. Look: I know wine can be a complex and complicated thing and I'm no expert, however it's relatively simple at this end of the spectrum.

Finally, after he had studied the menu and then the label on the bottle and compared the 2 about 4 times I (as politely as possible) instructed him to go back and get a bottle that looked just like this but said "Sauvignon Blanc" and he dutifully marched off. It took him another 10 minutes of rummaging through the fridge till he finally re-aproached. It was a Sauv Blanc, but the wrong brand. He explained they were out of the Concha y Toro but assured me that this brand was "really, really good." Yeah bro, we're gonna take your word on a bottle after you just proved yourself to be completely ignorant on even the most basic of wine knowledge. Anyway, I told him we wanted the same price as the other bottle and said just pour it.

He went back to the bar area and then reappeared a few minutes later with 2 glasses and the opened bottle. I dont care that he didn't open it in front of us, which is, of course standard operating procedure...but I kind of wish he had since the screw off lid had a puncture mark in it showing that our genius had been attempting to open our bottle with a cork screw!!! How funny would that have been to watch!

Anyway, at long last the wine was poured and we had a good chuckle as we cheered our first sip...I felt like we'd definitely really earned that bottle.

That afternoon we headed up into the hills to wander around the windy streets, stairways and alleys that Valparaiso is known for. The views from up there are great, but what really makes it cool is all the artwork that covers just about every available space. There are murals and graffiti/street art on most walls. The stairs are painted, and where there isn't paint there are mosaics. We cruised in and got a tour through an artsy little boutique hotel. It's definitely a cool city to wander around.

Back down on the flats we hit the grocery store for some supplies then headed back to the pad where we listened to A's baseball and played cards until it was time to make dinner. That night NFL was on and we watched a bit of the Spanish broadcast of the 49ers beating down the Lions.

For some reason we both slept awfully that night and so the next day we just laid low. It was a good day to do so since the weather had turned foul and since even more things were closed including the grocery stores. We ventured out only for a mission to get bus tickets and an afternoon walk. That night there were fireworks out over the water and luckily we could see then fine from our window and didn't have to venture out into the cold to do so.

On Tuesday we packed our stuff and then headed out. The sun was shining as we made our way down to the water and headed North towards Viña del Mar, which is the other town out on the coast. Along the walk we saw seals sunning themselves out on an old pier and a few more swimming through the shallows just offshore. After a good 5 miles we pulled into Viña and happily pulled up a chair at Starbucks for a nice big cup of Joe. We then checked out what Viña had to offer (very little as most things were still closed for the Holiday) before deciding to make the long walk back. By the time we got back we had been walking for about 5 hours and figure we'd done about 12 miles so we were ready to sit down. Luckily the lady at our hostel had let us keep the room until we we had to leave that night for our overnight bus ride south so we just chilled and watched TV till it was time to lug our bags out to the bus stop and head for the bus terminal.

We had a quick dinner of kiosk sandwiches and crackers before our bus pulled up and we crawled on to find our bed for the next 12 hours. Next stop Pucón and Chile's famous Lake District to see what sort of adventures we can get ourselves into.