Vina del Mar , Latin American Law Program, Day 7

I can't believe this trip has only been a week. It feels like we've been traveling for a month. Obviously, it was a slow morning. We were all covered in champagne, and confetti. Emery still had red lipstick on his cheek at the breakfast table. The hostel family relied in reliving the previous evening. 

Once we were up, we cabbed to the beach in Vina del Mar (the adjacent evening). Zac had checked it out the previous day and we all met up at a cafe near the Sheraton. We had some great helado (as a part of Rebecca's ice cream tour of South America). We went to Playa Caleta Abarca. It's a very popular beach.  It was especially popular this New Year's Day.  Apparently all of Chile had the same idea we did.  The entire beach was still covered with confetti from the previous day's festivities.  We found a spot to chill out and layed around for hours.

There are a few unique characteristics about this beach.  The water is crazy cold.  The waves are crazy big.  And all the people that go to the beach are just regular crazy.  I have never been to a beach with so much crowd activity.  All the kids were playing in the waves.  All the parents were watching.  Whenever there would be a missing kid (at least four times over the time were were there), the lifeguard would walk around carrying the kid on his shoulders, and whistling.  If it went on for a bit the entire crowd would start clapping to wake up all the hungover nappers.  Then, once the mother of the child arrived, the crowd would judge her reaction.

The highlight of the beach day was the fight on the Calamity Cliff (our name, not theirs).  Some tourist knocked over a little girl.  Little girl's older brother started yelling at the tourist.  Tourist yelled back.  Older brother gets an umbrella pole and attacks tourist.  Mom gets involved.  Dad gets involved.  The entire beach ran over to watch.  After the fight is quelled for round one we went back to relaxing.  The tourist came back to avenge his honor with a broken glass bottle.  He was ejected again.  During round three, a lifeguard was thrown off of this cliff (probably 20 feet), and the entire crowd started chanting for his arrest.  It was a true cultural experience.

After relaxing at the beach, we all did a costume change at the beach.  We went from swimsuits to dresses in about ten minutes.  I was pretty impressed with us.

We checked out the casino.  Enjoy del Mar was a reasonably nice casino.  I won US$40.  It is a little challenging to play blackjack in a currency and language I don't understand.  But, I did ok, and it was a fun hour.

After some gambling, we went to a restaurant recommended by our Lonley Planet "South America on a Shoestring" guide called Divino Pecado.  This was the best food, and wine, we had thus far on the trip.  I had a great Sol with pasta.  The scallops were great.  Everything was awesome.

After a great dinner, we couldn't find two cabs.  So, we split into two groups to try to find one.  At Emery's lead, we took a bus back and arrived at basically the same time as our friends that took a cab.  We were quite pleased with ourselves.