I’m glad to say we graduated! Over here it works on a number system I score a 5 to everyone else that’s a C – job well done no need to do any more than required – and those words I have also heard a lot of times! But (!) its done me well so far in life so I’ll take my C and go on the beers!
What a celebration we have too, earlier on that week we were watching a street play, which was in Spanish and we had no clue what was going on but the dutchman and myself are over 6ft so we can at least see what’s going on. Like aways in Chile if you stand still for long enough someone will come up to you and start a conversation – thankfully this conversation was in English and after a while our new buddy Rodrigo tells us he has an English exam the next day and would really appreciate if we could join him for a cofffee so he can practice his English – sounds like a fair deal if you ask me!
“So where would you like to have coffee” he asks.
Now before I continue I need to explain a little bit about the Chilean coffee scene, starters it all tastes like crap because all of the money from coffee is made from shipping it across the world so in exchange for some of the best beans the world they get freeze dry Nescafe in return! If your lucky to find a fresh coffee shop you are presented with a number of options which are not different types of coffee but different ways they are served to you!
Cafe Haiti is one of the daddies here, like a Fuckbucks they are on pretty much every corner and althought they look exactly the same in many ways they are very, very different! You need to pick your cafe accoding to your taste in women! Yes thats right if your choice in lady is long legs and a peachy arse then you need Cafe Haiti on that side of the road, on the oppsite side is the Cafe ‘Cougar’ Haiti, beside that the young girls cafe and across from that you have the 30 somethings cafe. The best part is they all have the same work outfit, its a very short and very tight pink mini skirt a pair of tights and thats about it – well what else do you need! Lets say my rule of one cup of coffee a day went out the window and as for the cafe I chose to drink it in – why choose just one!!
“I’ll have a coffee with long legs is my reply” I had an idea that this idea of coffee could go a little further than Cafe Haiti and our new Chilean friend will be the best person to show us.
With a smile and a gilnt to his eye he tells us he might know the place – “my brother showed it to me before he says, but I don’t know where it is” After approximately two and a half minutes of walking around the shopping streets we call into a pretty standard looking shopping centre and spy ‘Highway 55’ – the name of the cafe, but its a little different from what you’ld be use to – for starters it would be useless to sit in here all day and people watch as the windows are all black so you can only look out, second reason is that you don’t have any need to look out the window….. we were greeted ‘hola chicas’ by a girl in bikini which was manufactured from just a postage stamp, the barrista has some some dental floss on and as for the other servers they too sported some dental floss and a postage stamps.
What a coffee shop! You get your cafe Express served by a beautiful girl who flirts with you for a while then away you leave with your senes hightened from the caffeeine and an extra spring in your step because you’ve just been told: your lovely, how you could be a model and that they have never been to London or Ireland and we should go I’ll bring my twin sister! All in a langauge which I still don’t understand and I like to think thats what she told me. Oh and before you all think that I am a little perve and hung out at this place all day I had one cup and we left.
Well their were 8 more of these cafes all beside each other and you can’t give all your business to just one!
Its safe to say that Rodrigo is going to be a very good friend, we helped him with his english and he showed us coffee with legs. The following night their is a game of football on in Santiago Copa de Santander Libertadores, it is the equilivant of the Champions League Quarter Finals – second leg, its University de Chile Vs Deportivo Quito, we watch the first leg the previous week in a bar with a load of locals and it wasn’t the best night they lost 4-1 away in Ecquador and I have to admit the other team looked a little special but Rodrigo has a season ticket and tells us that he will get a pass from the wife and take us to the match – it will be fun!
Rodrigo, the Dutchman, Miss Ireland and myself all pile out of the car and turn up to the stadium to see if we can get some tickets and after a little running around we find a tout and pay $15,000 each thats a full 50% over the face value but I want to see a match in South America and even if the home team needs to score at least 4 goals and not conceed any it is worth paying the £10 over the face value – Mr Tout is over the moon to sell his 3 tickets in one go and while he is jumping around happy with his afternoons work Uni de Chile score the first goal and an almighty scream goes up!
The four of us are sprinting around the stadium to get in, each time we get to a gate they tell us its full and go to the next one, no point in worring about seat accolation on the ticket I say to myself and when we do get in I see that seats are just optional. The stadium has an offical capacity of 45k and then some on top of that, the place is alive with thousand upon thousands of people standing everywhere trying to get a view, I thank my stars that I’ve got height on myside so when we do find somewhere to muscle into I’m happy, I just need to apologies to the 3,500 shorter chileans behind me!
The match was off the scale Uni de Chile win 6-0, it was a completly different team from the previous game and the football was nothing like what I am use to back home – here its all attack and how you win is to score more than the other with south american flair – easy, so when the final whistle goes the city is going to turn into a party and the place to be is Bella Vista, approximately nine minutes of a stagger back to the hostel if you don’t stop for a completo, its also the student area of the city so you know the party will be good! So good the 03:00, or 04:00 or in fact it could have been 05:00 o’clock finish to the night was just what we had to do.
Typical that tomorrow is check out day, but that will have to wait for another day this hangover is going to hurt so we stay one more day and then we have a date with a bus which has Valpariso printed on it.
the bean hunter 