A Walk In The Park

With the daily grind of menial tasks out of the way (shower, breakfast, trip to the internet cafe - no internet in apartment yet - lunch, walk to print shop have some pictures printed for the fridge etc) it was time for some more exploring. There is much talk on the street about football (soccer) and there is a team based right here in Viña del Mar. The home team "Everton" play at a pitch within walking distance and so we struck off to find the field and perhaps find a schedule of home games. A 40-minute walk through varied neighborhoods brought us to the first significant green space that we have seen. (Think about a miniature Wascana park but not near as nice).

The area is called Laguna Sausalito, and Sausalito Stadium is where the games are played.

In this shot you can see clay tennis courts on the right and a "Ship- restaurant" on the left.

This is a small beach, a playground and area for picnics, etc.

This is the soccer stadium

On our way back home, we walked down this street in Vina and found a great little fruit and vegetable shop. We took this picture to show some of the character of the neighborhood. A very interesting part of town that is distinct from the area where we live; however, we are not all that far away.

We are enjoying exploring the city and finding new and interesting areas. There are still some "tourist" highlights that we have yet to see (museums, churches, etc.). Outside of the small neighborhoods, we are noticing a lack of culture and tradition as is the case in every big city, I guess. If we had been dropped into our neighborhood, without knowing exactly where we were, we would not immediately assume we were in Chile. Of course, we would catch on soon enough that we weren't in Canada because of the language around us, but, in our immediate surroundings, there isn't a real display of culture and/or tradition. We have seen some displays/booths of artisans selling their wares, but we have yet to see something that would be unique to this area. Geographically, Chile is long and thin and has very distinct regions for mining, agriculture, wine making, etc. It is full of mountains, lakes, ocean, desert and volcanoes. It seems that Vina and the connected cites of Renaca and ConCon are focussed almost entirely on the tourist industry. While we are enjoying the city, and certainly the ocean, we are looking forward to a point in the future when we can travel to other parts of of the country and see some of the things that are distinct to those areas.

That's all for now folks....Love, Norm and Charlene