I just got this message:

A French canadian guy came across a guestbook entry at a certain hostel in valpo. He was astounded that the entry happened to be yours, as he had bumped into you in cusco and el chantel.

He then proceeded to tell us about your numerous bodily complications.. followed by the statement.. yeah Roosh is a funny guy.

We werent really listening to him up until the word Roosh was shouted across the hostel breakfast table. Turns out youre quite the backpacker celebrity! Luckily we were able to experience cosmonova without actually going there through your detailed recount.

Backstory:

I met a few Australian girls in Buenos Aires.

I met a guy in Cusco, Peru who is French Canadian. Two months later, I randomly bump into him again in Patagonia, about a thousand miles away.

In Valparaiso, after Peru but before Argentina, I stayed at a hostel that had a guestbook. After a horrible night out I put in a lot of care writing a warning to fellow travellers about a certain club. I signed it with just “Roosh.”

Both the girls and the guy went to Valparaiso at the same hostel at the same time and discovered that they both knew me through this guestbook entry, which I paste for you here (I drafted it on my laptop):

My opinion of Valparaiso will be shaped by what happened to me on Wednesday, October 24, 2007. I went to the club strip off the water and landed in a club called Cosmonova. The main bar only had a dozen people, so I explored and found a room guarded by a stocky bouncer. Inside was a semi-circle of guys sitting quietly in chairs, waiting for something. I thought this was the gay part of the club but there was another room nearby that only had girls. I asked the bartender what was going on but with her Chilean spanish she might as well have been talking in Portuguese.

A local overheard my confusion and escorted me back into the room of men. In the middle of the semi-circle was an overweight chilean woman, wearing only sunglasses. And I mean only sunglasses. Men hooted and hollered as they filmed her with their cell phone cameras. “Very sexy?” the local asked me, in a tone like he was trying to convince me how great his country is for having this spectacle. I nodded yes but it was as sexy as watching a hot dog eating competition. I went back to the bar.

The show ended 15 minutes later. I know this because an avalanche of men frantically searching for a meal poured into the bar. Many went hungry as there was only one girl for every three of them. I use the word “girl” loosely: many were over 30, the type who gets a kick out of watching a shaved, eyebrow plucked man wave his manhood while wearing nothing but a pair of sneakers.

I think it’s time to go back to Argentina.

South America is a big continent. Even with Lonely Planet, the odds of this happening is incredibly small. It made my day.

My third contribution to the Volette travel blog is up.

Class is not a word I’d use to describe Valparaiso’s nightlife. I had the unfortunate experience of walking into a club called Cosmonova where the owner at some point came up with the idea to combine aspects of a nightclub with a strip club. It took the appearance of a naked Chilean woman for me to understand why there were 60 men forming a semi-circle in a dark room next to the bar. Nearby was a room of ladies being entertained by what I imagine to be a hairless man, stripping Chippendales-style for their pleasure. Once the show was over and the salivating hounds were released on the much smaller female population, I fought my way to the exit. Talk about warming up the crowd.

At risk of tooting my own horn, I think I captured the city with competence.

It’s difficult to explore nightlife is cities that are both prosperous and large because everything is so segmented. There’s the weird house clubs, and there’s the expensive lounges, and there’s the area where the grunge kids go. Therefore I don’t know how representative my two nights in Santiago were.

Friday. A horrible misunderstanding sent me and a few gringos into The Circuit, a gay house club in Bellavista. The gringos followed my stupid ass in even though there were warning signs like guys wearing shirts two sizes too small and a complete absence of females in line, all because I didn’t want to “walk all night to find a club.” Once inside it was too late. It was fun for a half an hour until I ran out of gay jokes (e.g. “Hey look it’s so crowded that those two men are forced to hug tightly). Several men were wearing Abercrombie & Fitch shirts, which should tell you all you need to know about that brand, but disappointingly no gay guy approached me beyond some deep stares. I don’t know what makes a large gay scene but I imagine Santiago has it because this club was packed. The house music was actually very decent. $10 ass rape cover.

We then went into a heterosexual house club called La Feria nearby but I think it had only four more girls than the gay club. The rule so far in South America is that the clubs have hotter girls than what you see on the streets (somewhat opposite of the States), but that turned out to be not true in Santiago. Quality sucked and the DJ played music that had a lot of beeps. $8 regretful cover.

This was my most expensive night out in South America ($30), and probably the worst.

Saturday. We take a 20 minute cab ride to Plaza Ñuñoa, a hard to pronounce hot spot that only had sit-down bars. Another 20 minutes walking landed us in Kmasu, a decent club playing popular music, including a lengthy hip hop set featuring Dr Dre and Sean Paul. Halfway through the night I conclude that Chilean girls are unattractive; homely faces with pale skin and a culture of obesity that rivals that of the States means the few lookers know they are lookers. The homely girls are quite friendly though. We all got trashed at the reasonably priced drinks and stayed until 6am. The girl I ended up talking to wasn’t a drinker so I had to act sober like I just got pulled over by the cops. On the other hand, the American girl with us got so drunk she passed out and needed to be carried back to the hostel. USA! USA! $8 cover.

Santiago doesn’t have Salta’s weird all-night glass policy, but it does have an interesting way of buying a drink. You have to wait in an orderly line at the register, pay, and then take your receipt to the bartender who makes your drink. It’s actually a very nice first-come first-serve system instead of having to wait next to a mob of people snapping their fingers and waving paper money to get the bartenders attention.

Overall, Santiago was a bust.

La Feria

Here’s the beer drinking dog working on the last drop of Cristal beer.

Me and two other German gringos clamored for a photo as locals in the line of a club watched on, disturbed by the behavior of individuals from the Western world.

I was the only one who got a clean shot!

I saw about 400 feral dogs a day in Chile but this is the only one worth a picture.

Towards the end of the movie Ghostbusters 2, a lady’s fur coat touches Vigo’s slime and becomes a monster or whatever and scampers down the street. That’s almost like how this carpet freak looks like when walking around. I imagine when it lays down to sleep you can’t tell which side is its head and which its ass.

Postscript: Since writing this I’ve met a beer drinking dog who was also picture worthy.

I sat next to a Brazilian guy on the 23 hour bus ride to Santiago, where we stayed at a hostel that had a guitar laying around. He didn’t bring this up on the bus but apparently he studied music theory, has been playing guitar for 13 years, and knows most popular American rock songs, including lyrics.

While he played I sat quietly with my hands on my lap. To the girls my physical presence was disturbing his acoustic treatments.