Month: March 2013

Chronicle of Two World Cup Qualifiers

World Cup qualifiers are special matches. In South America, there are only 16 meaningful matches over four years to decide which 5 soccer mad countries make it to the World Cup. In North America, there are only 10.

Each game is a grinder. The pressure is high. Any screw up can mean dropped points and the potential to miss the World Cup. In most countries outside of the US, the entire country stops for each match. On match day, Chileans gather round their tvs to watch the game, accompanied by friends and family, piscola, beer and sometimes day long asados. The national mood rides on the result: a win national ecstasy, a loss, national depression, followed by assigning blame and national soul searching.

Last week, Chile sat in 6th place, on the outside looking in after 9 matches. On Tuesday they lost a hard fought away game to bottom feeder Peru 1-0 where they should have drawn and the entire country went into depression.

Next up was Uruguay, probably the best per capita soccer team in the world and a team Chile hadn’t beaten in something like 25 years. At 3.8m people, Uruguay are the reigning South American champs and took 4th place in the last World Cup. Chile needed a home win or else they would be in deep trouble and were at risk to miss the first South American World Cup since Argentina ’78.

My friends Mike (visiting from the US), David, Pepe and I got tickets to go to the match. It was my first South American World Cup Qualifier, though I’ve been to US qualifiers and World Cup games in Germany and South Africa. We met up in my apartment to have a few beers, then took a taxi to Chile’s Estadio Nacional. We got there just in time to hear the national anthems.

Estadio Nacional, Chile/Uruguay
Estadio Nacional, Chile/Uruguay

Our tickets were for a general admission section in the corner and it was really full, but we ended up with seats low down, but still with a good view. The crowd was electric, willing Chile to score. Chile obliged in the 11th minute, scoring right in front of us. The crowd went nuts. Chileans really believe they could win. The crowd was on Uruguay’s striker Luis Suarez the entire game, especially after he punched a Chilean defender in the face and got away with it.

Uruguay pushed back from the start of the second half and Chilean fans were suffering badly. Fans cursed players and screamed abuse at Uruguayan players and refs, while singing songs to support the team. Our section had a significant number of families attending together. Fathers attending with their young daughters all screamed as if they were alone with their best friends. Chile scored again in the 77th minute and the party was on. Uruguay brought on Diego Forlan who had a few close chances, but it wasn’t enough. Chile had won. Everyone left the stadium happy. Everyone was together, something that doesn’t happen very often in Chile. Chile was back on track, moving up to a tie for 4th.

We walked a bit, then caught a cab to watch the US take on Mexico in Mexico City, a place the US has only won once in 75 years. We watched surrounded by dejected Mexican fans as the US got its second away point in Mexico in World Cup qualifying and solidifying their road to the world cup. Although the US still doesn’t have the passion for soccer that much of the world does, the vocal US crowd in Denver in a driving snow storm for the victory over Costa Rica and the over 7m tv viewers for USA/Mexico shows that soccer is growing and gaining popularity. At 60% of a typical monday night football game, that’s huge progress.  If you get a chance to see a world cup qualifier even if you’re not a big fan, take it.

Travelogue: Driving from Santiago, Chile to Mendoza, Argentina

My parents came to visit last week and we decided to rent a car and drive over the Andes to visit Mendoza for Vendimia, the grape harvest festival. I’ve already been to Mendoza , but I’d never driven over the Andes, which is always rated one of the best drives in South America.

For someone used to flying into countries or driving between the US and Canada, there are a surprising amount of hoops you have to jump through before you’re even able to go from Chile to Argentina, especially if you’re renting a car. First, you must have a notarized letter of permission from the car owner that says you’re legally able to take the car out of Chile. Next you have to have a special type of insurance for the entire time you’re in Argentina or else Chile won’t let you out and Argentina won’t let you in. You also have to carry proof of insurance with you at all times, especially at the border. If your insurance is expired when you try to come back to Chile, Argentina reserve the right to keep the car until you personally come back with valid insurance. Lastly, you have to have the customs form that lists when the car has gone out/in of Chile in the past.

Paperwork to go from Chile/Argentina. At the end, lots of stamps!
Paperwork to go from Chile/Argentina. At the end, lots of stamps!

If you don’t have ALL of them, you won’t be able to leave and will have to turn around at the border. Make sure you call to reserve your rental car a few days ahead of time, as the agencies need time to get the paperwork in order. Most companies ask for a week in advance, but I was able to do it with two days notice. My insurance and all of the paperwork cost CLP$70.000 (US$140) for five days in Argentina and I probably could have gotten it a little cheaper if I had shopped around.

Once I took care of all of that, we got on the road. We left Santiago and headed northwest into the foothills toward the city of Los Andes. The first hour or so is on nice four lane highway, but as you make your way toward Portillo, the sky center, it turns into a winding two lain highway with some significant dropoffs. It can be frustrating because trucks have to travel incredibly slowly and there aren’t many passing zones.

There’s currently construction on the Chilean side of the border to make the road safer and the countries have agreed alternate traffic. You can go into Argentina from 20:00 to 07:00 and back into Chile from 08:00 to 19:00. This construction is likely to go on for at least another two months.

We arrived at the construction zone at about 18:30 and had to wait until about 20:30 to get moving. There were probably 60 cars ahead of us, plus another 100 behind us by the time we got moving. It ended up being a mess because everyone arrived at the border crossing at the same time. When there’s no construction, you can arrive at any time cross. Total driving time should be around 5 hours. In our case, it took us 7 hours of driving time because we had to wait in a huge line at the border.

Andes looking volcanic

Because of the construction we had to cross at night, so we didn’t get a feeling of just how big the mountains were on the way into Argentina. But I felt myself steadily driving up on nice wide two lane highways. All of the sudden we reached a sign that said “zona de curvas peligrosas” dangerous curves, and we started to go up, straight up. It was mesmerizing watching the cars zigzagging up the hairpin turns, seeing the white and red lights like tiny ants on the mountain above us. There were 28 curves in all and it took us almost 45 minutes to cover the 7km to the top.

The border crossing is located at the top, just before the Cristo Redentador tunnel that connects Chile and Argentina. The countries have partnered together to have a shared border control all in one place. There’s four steps: first, show your auto papers, insurance, permission to leave Chile, etc, that we talked about before. If you don’t have it, Chile won’t let you out of the country and will send you back down the mountain. Second, you have to have the correct papers to leave Chile, your passport or identity card. After those papers are stamped, you move onto Argentinian border control. The Argentinians stamp your passports and check to make sure you have your insurance paid up and that the Chileans have let you take your car out of the country. Another stamp.

Day 7 Daytime crawl down Andes switchbacks with trucks (25)

If you’re from the US, Canada or Australia, you must pay the reciprocity fee ahead of time and bring the printout. The rules just changed in February and they don’t have anyone at the border to take your money. They were nice enough to let us use their personal computer to pay the fee and print out the paper, or they would have sent us back down the mountain and into Chile. Previously, Argentina only collected this fee if you flew into Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires.

Next, you pass to Argentinian customs where they make sure you’re not bringing in contraband or huge amounts of dollars. Since we were clearly tourists, they just asked two questions and let us go. All told, we were at the border for about two and a half hours.  On the return trip, it only took us 30 minutes.

The road down from the border slowly slopes down, following the path of a large river. After about an hour, you arrive at Upsallata, a small resort town in a beautiful valley. From there’s it’s another hour and a half, at least to Mendoza. Make sure to watch out for trucks. We saw three different trucks completely flipped over and could smell burning breaks on countless others. They drive about 20km per hour going down the mountain, making for interesting passing in no passing zone opportunities.

Day 7 Dammed up river

After three days in Mendoza, we drove back to Chile during daylight. The mountains are huge and colors change quickly as you drive farther in. We stopped at Upsallata for a bbq lunch at a truck stop, which was one of the better lunches I’ve had. The owners were preparing their own Sunday family lunch and served us some of what they were going to eat: five cuts of beef, two types of sausage, potatoes, a tomato, onion and lettuce salad and homemade bread. It was just what I needed to make the drive up over the mountains and back into Chile.

The drive itself lived up to its billing. It’s a beautiful, fun drive, but make sure you have all of your paperwork in order or you might get turned around at the border. I wouldn’t want to try it in winter though!

Day 7 Daytime crawl down Andes switchbacks with trucks (16)

 

Looking for more high quality information about Chile? Check out my book Chile: The Expat’s Guide:

chile expat guide cover

Travelogue Uruguay: Montevideo, Punta del Este, Punta del Diablo, Velizas

Uruguay is a small country of about 4m people sandwiched between Argentina and Brazil. Nearly half live in Montevideo, the capital. It sort of feels like an upscale, more laid back Argentina that actually works. People speak the same accented spanish as they do in Argentina, but with seemingly less slang. I took an eight day trip last month during Carnaval for a short vacation.

montevideo

I arrived into the Montevideo airport, tried to rent a car, but couldn’t find anything, so I immediately took a bus directly to Punta del Este, hoping to find a car there.  I hadn’t realized when I booked the flight that it was going to be Carnaval in Uruguay, but that explained why everything was busy.

Punta del Este is the French Rivera of South America. South Americans with money come from all over to play on the beaches, eat in top restaurants and hobnob with each other. As such, it’s really expensive, but there’s great food and good beaches. Nearly everyone there was in good shape, extremely tan and fairly well dressed. It wasn’t really my style, as Punta is very built up and feels a bit like Florida. After a day and a half it was time to move on.

credit: UNEP
Punta del Este. Credit: UNEP

I took a bus north along the coast to Punta del Diablo, a small town that gets overrun with tourists in the summer. One family used to own all of the land, but has now sold lots to developers for cabins, restaurants and small apartments. Since it was Carnaval and everyone had monday and tuesday off from work, the place was packed. It’s really close to the Brazilian border and you can tell: portuguese is everywhere, the merchants accept reales, caipirinas are on every menu. They also accept Argentine pesos, but at 10 pesos to the dollar, or 2x the official rate. Argentinians were happy to pay.

Punta_del_Diablo_09

Punta del Diablo has two huge beaches that were full close to town, but if you walked 10 minutes, you could find beaches with hardly anyone. It was hot and sunny, maybe 90 degrees, in the morning, but every late afternoon it got cold. Try to stay at a cabin instead of a hostel, they’re about the same price.

The surf was pretty high, making the water seem colder than it was. There are tons of little restaurants, mostly catering to tourists. The best ones were farther into town, maybe 3 minutes walk. The first ones were touristy, kind of expensive and lower quality. My favorites were a mexican cantina through the center of town and Il Tano Cucino, an Italian restaurant where the owner makes his own pasta and gnocchis outside each day. It was so good I went twice in one day.

At night during Carnaval, the city came alive. Local kids filled up anything they could find to have massive water fights with each other. Others took to ambushing tourists. My favorite was a kid with a hose who hid behind some bushes to spray people. After I got hit, I watched for 20 minutes as other got destroyed by the water.

Later on in the night, there were two parades with local kids dancing, singing and riding around in floats. Everyone followed the parades, dancing, singing and drinking until they arrived at the beach, between three bars. It morphed into a huge outside dance party with the occacional spray of water from some kids. Everyone was happy. You could tell the Brazilians apart from everyone else by how quickly they moved their feet.

Velizas. Credit: pablodavidflores
Velizas. Credit: pablodavidflores

After a few days in Punta del Diablo I went on a day trip to Velizas, about an hour to the south. It’s a tiny town, much less developed than Punta del Diablo, but the beach was beautiful. The water was warm and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Looking to the south, you can see the huge sand dunes of Cabo Polonio national park. I wished I’d spent a little more time there.

montevideo

I spent my last two days in Montevideo. I found a great hotel on booking.com that happened to have a 65% discount in the old section of town with a view of the “sea.” Although everyone calls it the sea, it’s really the rio de la plata, which at montevideo happens to be one of the widest rivers in the world. The old section is in the middle of being restored. There are boutique hotels, small shops, good restaurants and stores that are going into beautiful old buildings. Montevideo has some incredible arquitecture that is way better preserved than Santiago and the old city is going to be incredible in a few years as people start to move back.

I went for lunch at Mercando Central and sampled Medio y Medio, a half and half mix of white wine and champagne that really sneaks up on you. Uruguayans eat the fourth most beef per capita in the world and for good reason. Their steaks were incredible. Bar Fun Fun is a touristy but eclectic bar that’s been in business since 1895, complete with live tango and music. At night, hardly anyone is around in the old city, except at a few bars. It was a little creepy and felt like a zombie movie, especially compared to the day when it’s filled with people

Bar Fun Fun
Bar Fun Fun

I really liked Uruguay. The country seems stable, people are nice, the cities seemed safe and things seemed to work. People seem to have a really high quality of life. Montevideo is in the middle of gentrification and the old city will be incredible in about 5 years if they continue to make progress. I will definitely be back in the future.

montevideo

 

Medio y Medio in Montevideo
Medio y Medio in Montevideo

 

Startup Chile Generation 7 Application Help

Startup Chile is opening the seventh round of applications today, March 11th. This application period will open March 25th and run until April 8th and the winners will be announced May 23rd. In the round six application process 1421 startups from more than 60 countries applied for the right to come to Chile for $20m Chilean pesos (US$42,000). Chile invited 100 of the 1421 companies who applied and they began to arrive over the past six weeks.

Startup Chile has become more competitive as the number of applications has grown. This round should have at least 1500 companies from all over the world vying for 100 spots. More than 500 companies have already gone through the program since the pilot round in 2010.

It’s a great program, especially for entrepreneurs who are bootstrapping or already have developed a product but need more time to figure out the correct business model for their business. It’s a perfect fit if you’re looking to target the South American market.

My company, Entrustet, was part of the pilot phase of Start-Up Chile and I’ve been in Chile since November 2010. I blogged extensively about my experiences in the program and in Chile, along with advice on how to get selected for Start-Up Chile. I tracked down the stats from the pilot round companies a year later, which was published on The Next Web. I also wrote Startup Chile 101, the book that will tell you everything you need to know about living, working and doing business in Chile.

Since the third round, I’ve helped startups review their applications and prepare them to get accepted into Startup Chile. Overall I’ve now reviewed, 18 applications for prospective Startup Chile teams and 12 have been accepted.

Round 3 – 6/9 66%
Round 4 – 3/4 75%
Round 5 – 3/6 50%
Round 6 – 3/6 50%
Overall: 15/25 60%

In rounds 5 & 6, 6.8% of applicants were accepted into the program and 5/10 (50%) of the applications I reviewed made it. Two companies had applied two times previously and were accepted after we worked together. Another team needed to completely redo their video and we worked together to make it happen. I thought 2 more of the teams that I worked with completely deserved to make it in, including one that I would have invested in myself.

I can help you craft an application that emphasizes the criteria that the judges are looking for, correct your grammar into perfect English and give you the tips you need to have the best chance at getting selected.

If you need help with your application, please contact me. Editing, writing, review, advice. I charge a small flat fee to review and edit your application, plus a larger success fee if you are selected for the program after I’ve helped you.

Want help? Got questions? Want a quote? Email me: nate at nathanlustig dot com or fill out my contact form.

Note: I WILL NOT write paid letters of recommendation.