home already

It's midnight here and in Chile that is way to early to come home from a night out (even if it is a school night). My friends and I headed into Vina to try to find some terremotos tonight only to discover our little outdoor bar didn't serve them. Bummer. That's ok though because they did have strawberry mojitos. One more word that is different in Chile than the rest of the Spanish speaking world (Strawberry is frutilla here instead of fresa if you were wondering). Anyway, I was just about to order another round of drinks when our waitress told us they were closing. At 11:00? We weren't aiming to party but that is pretty early to close. I guess everyone is right that Valparaiso is the party city out of the two.

So we headed into the plaza to grab a taxi home and they have the craziest system here. They are called collective taxis or colectivos and they are taxis with set routes that you share with other people. Every route has a number on the roof so you jump in whatever taxi is headed toward your house (mine are 86 and 7) and cozy up with up to four other people. It's really hard to see the numbers from far away so I asked one of the colectivo drivers who was parked where to stand to hail my taxi and he told me he would take me straight there for a little extra. I asked how much but unfortunately, numbers are one thing I really need to work on.

He said 2800 but all I heard was the word thousand so I jumped in. Two dollars is a pretty good deal to be taken straight home! When we got to my house, I handed him 1000 pesos and he just looked at me like I was stupid. He then repeated 2800 to my disappointment and I handed over the money. I guess $5 still isn't too bad of a deal to avoid walking alone at night.

These aren't my pics but I google imaged it to give you an idea of what they look like and how hard it is to see the number and hail the right taxi when they're going fast!