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Our Room at the Yo Yo
We do live it up, don't we?

Believe it or not, I have fond memories despite the bad bed and the mildew. Bill thinks he got flea bites. VERY nice people, though. Lisa from Scotland, a Spanish teacher, spending her summer break working at the hostel and in Valparaiso. There was Hoss and Jamie, two American teachers, becoming sweethearts; and Roberto, the man on the midnight to dawn shift, polite and helpful, offering tea and calls to taxi cabs in the early morning hours after we'd gone to the folkloric club. We didn't want to go to sleep in case we might miss the 6 a.m. bus to La Serena.

We went back to Valparaiso and the club just before we left. After a taxi hurled us through the streets at 4 a.m. to find the bus station was closed, where else would we go to share a couch and have a blanket put over us?

Valparaiso is a small city just south of its more refined cousin, Vina Del Mar. I loved it: bohemian, artistic, a bit seedy in spots, hills to climb like in San Francisco, breathtaking views, glorious architecture, music, and murals. The helado (ice cream) in Chile are delicious everywhere, and are much like gelato, but the portions seemed to be extra big in Valpo.

See what I mean about the view?














A photographer's dream. Everywhere you look, scenes perfect for pictures.

We climbed to the top of the town, back down for lunch, then up another steep hill to Neruda's house. There are ascensores, funiculars to help with the hills. We just never came across one. Probably a good thing considering the helados.

Many street vendors, more great alpaca sweaters and hats. Families shopping on downtown every night until nine o'clock. We were warned that Valparaiso was dangerous. If we had gone down certain streets at night, it probably would have been. Well, I wouldn't walk through the Tenderloin at 2 a.m either.

On the nights we went to the club, young people were still on the street when it let out, no doubt wondering who these old farts were. Both times we came back to the Yo Yo, a charming young French woman was cooking (so sorry I haven't retained her name!). The first morning she was baking a tart; the second morning she had potatoes in a pot for gnocchi.

If you go to Valporaiso, please go to El Gato en la Ventana. It's on Simmons, up the hill just a way from the main streets, on the left. It doesn't open until ten. Music starts between midnight and twelve thirty. If you order a cuba libre, you won't get a lime. Instead your glass will be filled a third of the way with rum. Good thing, too, because it was cold until the dancing started. If you don't smoke, well . . . I kept telling myself that one night of inhaling probably wouldn't kill me. There was such joy in the room. Live for the moment!

The audience joined in traditional songs and danced euphorically as the night went on. The music is mostly acoustic and loud. The musicians are incredibly talented. Definitely, a night to remember.

MARK: Today I had help from Lucy, age 8, with today’s update. I asked her to talk about our stays in Bryan and Austin, TX while I typed what she said. Full disclosure – I took what she said and changed the order of some sentences so that it goes in chronological order. Otherwise, though, this is what she said. Her comments are in the larger font.

LUCY: When we came into Texas, we were listening to a song named "After Breakfast Let’s Go to Texas.” My mom and dad are in a band that’s called the Church Ladies and it's their song.

We went to Bryan, Texas and stayed with Petey, my mom’s friend. Petey is a really nice man. We walked around Texas A and M. It was really hot out and I liked it a lot. Petey told us about butterflies and Texas Rangers and trees.



MARK: For the Texas A&M football team, there is great importance given to "The Twelveth Man." Here's Karen with her hand on the thigh of that hallowed player.



Also, in Bryan we finally got our antenna fixed! Yay! Here's a picture with Daniel from the Honda dealer.  Such a nice guy!



LUCY: We went to a restaurant. It was my dad’s birthday. It was a Mexican restaurant and I tried Sopapillas and I loved them. In the Sopapillas we put a candle and sang Happy Birthday to my dad.



Another day we went to Aunt Pat and Uncle Frank’s house in Austin, Texas. We saw Suzanne and Stephen my second cousins and Francesco, which is a baby, my new cousin. Francesco was 3 months old when I met him. He was really cute. I love the way that he holded on to my finger.

MARK: Here's Zoe with lovely Francesco, and then my family:



MARK: While we were at in Austin, Lucy decided to play with my aunt’s weight set and promptly dropped a 5lb weight hard on her left ring finger. It then proceeded to turn purple and swell up. It’s still purple and swelled, but a bit better now. And she can move it around, so we’ve decided it must be okay. Yet another adventure with Lucy.

(I have a picture of Lucy's finger but Karen seems to have hidden the camera and she's asleep right now -- the nerve! -- so I can't download it.  But I'll put it up here soon)

LUCY: We went to lots of bookstores and me and Zoe got these little stuffed animals and my brother got a hat. We went in the kids section and played with the trains.



MARK: We loved the beautiful state capital building -- where we arrived just in time for an amazing tour. And we remembered the Alamo...



We visited an amazing independent bookstore in Autsin called Book People. They were very kind to us!


At a Barnes and Noble in Austin we had an unlikely encounter too strange for fiction: I was standing there talking with a bookseller when I heard a woman’s voice behind me say, “Mark? Mark Hughes, is that you?” I turned around and there, out of the blue, stood a familiar face from Rhode Island. Beverly Pettine is a friend of the family who used to work with my mother. Beverly doesn’t live down here in Texas--it was just a strange coincidence that she just happened to be visiting her sister in Austin (who knew?) and just happened to be in exactly the right the bookstore with her sister and niece when she saw a sign announcing that I was going to be appearing here. She looked at the time and my appearance just happened to be exactly when she was here. If I were to put that in a story, no one would believe it. Yet, here’s the proof: Here I am with Beverly in front of our car in Austin, TX, of all places. Whoda thunk? :-)

 

We also had a very nice afternoon with friends of friends. Our neighbor, Jay, grew up in the Dallas area so we were very pleased to meet Brad, Holly, Katie, and Grace, who live in Austin. Lovely people and our new friends in Texas. :-)



LUCY: Yesterday we went to Stephen and Jonathan’s house and they have five dogs. Their names were Max, Casey, Billy, Toby, and Lloyd. They were cute. I loved to pick Max up. He was the littlest but he was 31 years old. We went in Stephen and Jonathan’s pool and swam. Stephen and my dad and mom threw us in. It was really fun.

Right now my brother and sister are filling their stomachs with Cheetos. We’re driving to Dallas, Texas. We’re going to stay with Gigi. We were just listening to High School Musical in the car.

MARK: A sad note: I just got some terribly disappointing news from NPR – they are not going to air the road-trip stories after all. Given their already busy line up and the fact that the producer working with me will be away in Alaska for a month starting this week, they made their decision not to go forward with the road-trip stories. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am about this. I sent out the message about NPRs decision earlier this morning and was truly touched by the many, many the kind emails people sent in reply. I’m grateful to have such a supportive network.

On the other hand, I’ve already learned a great deal from working with NPR so far, and the experience has been a lot of fun. Perhaps after the summer is over I’ll submit some commentaries in the style of the first one, where I talked about quitting my job. We’ll see.

In any case, this is so far the only significant set-back in an otherwise successful and happy road trip/book tour. And I’m determined to get over it before we reach Dallas. :-)

I appreciate your friendship.
-- Mark

LEMONADE MOUTH (Delacorte Press, 2007)
I AM THE WALLPAPER (Delacorte Press, 2005)
www.markpeterhughes.com