Chilean National Botanic Garden

Ah, finally to the plants. The Botanic Garden is located just outside of Vina del Mar, a ritzier town north of Valparaiso. We caught the 203 bus from downtown Valparaiso which makes its way along the coast, through Vina, and down an increasingly narrow road past light industry like the Coca Cola bottling plant. The bus driver let us and one other passenger out across a bridge from the Garden. After paying admission at the entrance we studied the sign with the map on it and headed off towards one end of the garden. The allee of trees at the entrance are sweetgum trees, making us feel right at home! The garden has collections of plants from the Easter Islands, the Juan Fernandez islands and the Valdivian forest, but these special collections didn't have any plant identification signs unfortunately. There is a formal "French" garden area, a small cactus garden with very large cacti, and a pond area formed from a small creek. The pond was in desperate need of algae control. Around the gardens are hills wooded mainly with Eucalyptus. Pines would have been the natural vegetation probably.

We were distracted by an old red VW van advertising on a loud speaker a theatre performance at 1pm, so since we were in need of a break from walking around, we took a seat in the shade to watch. The van was transformed into the middle of a stage with curtains extended from either end. A troop of about 5 performed a slapstick play about a mythical peasant who had pissed off a Patron by pretending that his shit was a bird with golden feathers. He gets the patron to hold the "bird" under the peasant's hat while he takes the patron's horse and hat to go get a cage. We didn't stay for the whole thing so I can't tell you how it ends! I'm sure the peasant comes out smelling like a rose. It was very entertaining with some music and clapping involved and the actors engaging the audience of young and old alike. I got the gist of the story but missed a lot of the jokes.

Unfortunately the only food for sale at the garden was packaged cookies and ice cream, so after a snack to tide us over until we could get back to town, we caught a bus back into Vina. Vina is a very large town and the center of town is a mile or two from the beach. We had lunch along a row of restaurants above street level. Jake tried the traditional meal of churrasco pobre. Anything served "pobre" is a meat served over french fries with a fried egg on top. I got a beef and avocado sandwich. The avocados are delicious here! Vina seemed more prosperous than Valpo - higher end shops and parks with more flowers, but it still seemed very large and we decided to skip the beach to return to Valpo in time to do laundry. Yes, there are mundane things that must be done while traveling!