We are back in Santiago

I must apologize for not updating the blog for the past day or so. It's mostly been because we've been relaxing in Valapariso, a coastal town about 2 hours from Santiago. It reminds me a lot of San Francisco combined with a small European town. The streets rise up the hills from the shore in a twisted and snakelike pattern, you often look over a railing and see the street you just came up 50 feet below you.
After getting off the bus we took a taxi to one of the Hostels that we had in the guide book. The taxi guy over charged us, but was very helpful in making sure we found a hostel that had room. In the end we knocked on about three doors before we found the one we stayed at.
The first day was spent going north of town to the "good beaches". We were warned by pretty much EVERYBODY that we shouldn't go to the beaches closest to us because "mal" people were there. Fortunately they have a nice rail system that runs north/south and we were able to use that to get north.
After spending about 30+ minutes traveling we laid out on the beach and I got to play in the waves for a few hours. Being a good son, and listening to my mother's advice, I used lots of sunscreen. The others were not as lucky and seemed to get a little redder than they wanted to. The end result was that we didn't go to the beach the next day and the use of aloe vera went way up!. For the evening we grabbed some pasta at the store and cooked dinner. That night I had the opportunity to do a video conference with Tami, we hadn't been able to get the video connection to work, but this time we did. It was pretty neat, yet strange, to know that the person I was watching in the little box was in another hemisphere. I got to see my cat come up and nuzzle her as she typed to me. Over all, it once again reinforces the fact that bringing my laptop along was worth the effort.
In the morning we lazed around and I got my first cup of REAL espresso in a month in the little cafe that was located in the bottom of the hostel.
The rest of the morning and afternoon was spent looking for the post office and getting tickets for the bus ride home the next morning. The evening had us going to various little boutiques around the neighborhood.
In the morning we took off back to Santiago and had an enjoyable ride back. One things that did go wrong, and really the only wrong thing of the whole trip so far, was that Jake got his camera nabbed. Please go to his blog to find the details.
I will say one thing about the situation, and this goes for everyone who reads this blog. IF you are observing someone having their camera being taken out of their bag, DO NOT flick the sleeping guy in front of you in order to tell him in Spanish that his friend is being robbed. The better option would be to say "STOP STEALING THAT CAMERA!" or possibly tell the guy who is having his camera stolen "HEY SOMEONE IS STEALING YOUR CAMERA!!!". Flicking the sleeping guy in the head repeatedly will just irritate and annoy him.
Aside from that incident the rest of the day was pretty easy. We went shopping and then met with the person from the Ministry of Education for a dinner, which was very good. Tomorrow we have some paperwork to do, in order to get reimbursed for the travel money, and we hope to do some tours of the vineyards that are around Santiago. Wish us luck, we'll keep our bags and valuable close to us and safe from now on.