The Lakes District of Chile

Puerto Varas is a cute touristy town. It received a lot of German-speaking immigrants in the second half of the 1800's (as were a lot of towns in the Lake District) and still has such a German feel, mostly due to the architecture. We found a big, very old hostel, which used to be a house to an immigrant famil. It was massive, and the stairs were tilting to the left.. it definitely had a haunted house potential. Jesse watched the rest of the Packers game when we got in (they lost, first loss of the season). We then cooked soup for dinner and got to sleep early. The next day we did a walking tour of the town. All the German architecture makes it feel like it's not Chile! There isn't a veranda or adobe wall to be seen in the whole town. It's a very European feel, and the rain, clouds and green hills adds to it. The churches are all fashioned after German style churches as well. After the tour we took a micro to a small town called Frutillar. It is another very German looking town. It's very clean and pleasant and is also right on the lake. We just walked around and took pictures, then got back to Puerto Varas and made BLT's for dinner. 

Fruitillar

The next day we headed into the national park on a micro. We stopped at some beautiful rapids, which were crawling with tourists, but we found a small hiking trail that no one was on which took us to a beautiful river. Then we went further into the park and hiked up a trail which took us very close to a volcano. It was gorgeous scenery and there was not one other person on the trail. We got back that evening very tired, and made grilled cheese sandwiches and soup for dinner. We had planned on going to some more national parks to hike and camp but the weather was still cloudy and rainy and the forcast said it would be that way for a week. So we changed our minds and took a bus north to escape the rain, to a town called Valdivia.

In the bus station we met a Swedish kid called Stean, who was also headed to Valdivia. When we got there the three of us found a cabana style room at a hostel. It had a tiny kitchen and bathroom attached. Pretty luxurious!! We took off for the Kuntsman brewery after we ate, and Jesse and Stean got a “column” of the unfiltered. I got the taster. 

The next day we went to two of the Spanish forts in the area. The Spanish were pretty paranoid in this area and had tons of forts. There was a battle for independence here as well. We had to take a little ferry across the bay to the second fort, where there was a re-enactment happening at 4pm, so we hung around! It was pretty good. I've never seen a re-enactment. Then we took the ferry back. Jesse and I wanted to try to go to a museum, but when we finally found it it was closed. So we walked around a bit and went home.

The next day we took a 3 hour bus to Pucon. It's another town on the lake with a big volcano next to it. But this volcano was smoking! As in, there was smoke coming out of the top! Crazy, huh! The first day we just set up camp and walked around town inquiring about various buses and renting a car. We found a cheap car to rent for Christmas Day.  So on the 25th we headed up early to the National Park Villarica, which is where the volcano is.  We did a 3 hour hike around the base of the volcano and it was really beautiful..  We made it high enough to see snow, so we did have a white Christmas! Then we drove on to a small town about 30 miles away which is known for it's Mapuche heritage (local indigenous people), but everything was closed for the holiday, so we drove up to one of the lakes known for it's nice beach and sat there for a few hours.  We even went in the water because it wasn't that cold.  Then we head to the Los Pozones thermal baths, which are all naturally heated from volcanic activity in the earth.  We got there right at dusk and it was really relaxing!  We spent about and hour and a half going from pool to pool, then drove back to Pucon and crashed for the night!  

The next day we took a bus back to the village and saw the Mapuche museum and ate a traditional Mapuche meal, which was very good.  No meat, just a quinoa with vegetables and bamboo hearts.  At the restaurant we met another couple (the only other people there) who were from San Francisco! Then we headed back to Pucon and caught a night bus back to Santiago, arriving at 7:30am.

Now we are cat sitting in Santiago for a week. It is in the 90's here and there's no air conditioning!  It's our friend Michelle's cat, which is the cat I found in my apartment building lobby 6 months ago and fostered for 2 weeks.  Her name is Misha, and she is obsessed with food. So it's like having a dog almost!  It's so nice to have an apartment to ourselves. Our own bathroom, kitchen and internet access! Such luxury! 

Last night we went to our friends Joanna and Jorge's apartment for dinner.  We made shrimp spring rolls which were delightful, and I loved playing with their 1 year old daughter, Emma.  Joanna is from Seattle.  She did a study abroad program in Chile during college and met the daughter of an old co-worker of mine during it. So that is how I came to meet her.  And she introduced us to her friends:  David, Leslie, Pamela, Pablo, and we kept meeting more and more Chileans, so it's been all thanks to Joanna we've had such a great social life here!  

I am enjoying not having anything to do and getting to catch up on world events, read, upload my photos to Facebook, etc.  But then it's back on the road for another 5 months! Eek!

Happy New Year everyone!  Plan a vacation for 2012! :)

Land of Seagulls

We arrived to Quellon, on the southern coast of Chiloe after only 3 hours on the ferry. According to our Lonely Planet guide book (the last one for Chile was published in 2008), right near the dock was a cheap hostel... so we took a right and started walking. We didn't see anything but sheep, so Brad asked some passing guys where we were. Turns out we were about 10km from town! The dock had completely moved locations in 3 years! So we got on a city bus and went downtown, found the hostel, checked in, then went looking for food. Jesse and I ate some yummy sandwiches at a cute little cafe: one steak and one crab! Mmm. 

Then we went back to the hostel. There was a TV with satellite in our room, which means channels in ENGLISH and so I watched The Queen, a really good movie, while Jesse and Brad played cribbage in the common area. They met a traveling salesman called Alexi from about 4 hours north, and he offered to drive us all to the next town, Castro, the next day, at 11:30am. So we got ready and waited. And waited. He finally showed up at 12:30 (typical Chilean) and told us he had to wait on a sales appointment at 1, so we couldn't leave until 2:15. He then offered to drive us to end of the PanAmerican highway, which is just minutes outside of town. The PanAmerican highway runs from Alaska all the way down to Chiloe. So we went. And we lingered there until about 2, and we were all wondering about his appointment he was supposed to have... we finally went back to town and he wanted to have lunch, so he took us to this cheap local place which was pretty good. Jesse had some sort of bean soup with sausage and a fried egg on top. Then Alexi had his appointment, while we sat in his car, and then we finally all headed north to Castro. When we got there Alexi bargained with the hostel owner to knock $4 off the price of our rooms! Such a salesman!

The next day Brad and Jesse and I did a walking tour of Castro, saw the really cool Italian designed church in the square, the famous parajitos (houses on the water built on tall stilts), a cute marketplace where I bought some local cheese, and the cemetery, and then Brad headed off north to Ancud and then the western coastal town of Chepu. Jesse and I went out to dinner and had lamb! Lamb is a common dish, and they cook it whole over a fire, so we wanted to try it. It was pretty good. .

The next day we took a bus to a long island just a few thousand yards off the big island, to the town of Achao. This town had the oldest church in Chiloe, from 1790. Chiloe is famous for it's Jesuit-built wood churches. There about 60 of them, and I think 10 are on the Unesco World Heritage Site list. The church in Achao was pretty cool to prove it. But apart from the church there wasn't much going on in Achao. It was a cute town, clean and pleasant, just boring. There are several islands close by where people lived, and I really wanted to try and take a boat over to them, since I love tiny islands! But instead we walked for a long time down the beach. On the way back we saw a huge hog run down onto the beach and start rolling around in a pool of water happily. It was really cute! Then the owner came down with his long stick and shooed the pig back up. We followed them down the street, and I saw the pig go into her yard and hop her sty fence. She totally knew where she was going! It was so cool seeing a pig being herded down a town street.

The next day we headed off to Ancud, by way of a coastal village called Quemchi. There was supposed to be a really great restaurant there, and I love to eat, so wanted to go. Chiloe is very like northern and central Europe – fields full of sheep and cows and farmhouses. We found the restaurant and their daily special was lasagna, which I enjoyed. They wanted us to sign their visitor book too. We then went off to Ancud at the north of Chiloe. When we got there, we found out the last bus to Chepu, where we had hoped to kayak through a “sunken” forest, had left for the weekend. So we went up to a beautiful campsite on a cliff over-looking the water and set up camp. It was sunny and beautiful. We walked back into town to the grocery store, and then cooked up some chicken sandwiches.

The next day we visited the museum in Ancud, which was really good, and then had lunch at a place famous for it's curanto, which is a local dish of Chiloe that is mussels, scallops, sausage, chicken, pork, and a potato, served with a bowl of rich broth. It was absolutely crazy. We had ordered one each, and it proved to be way too much! But it was really really good and Jesse almost finished all of his!

Then we visited an old Spanish fort, which was one of the last holdouts of the Spanish in the whole of the Americas. There was just the outer wall left, with cannons facing the ocean. It was pretty cool. Then it was back to the tent. We didn't even eat the soup we had planned to make for dinner because we were still full from the curanto! We watched Hangover 2 in the tent (awful and not my choice of course) and slept. It rained again, but luckily this time it cleared up in the morning and our tent dried out before we had to pack up and leave. We got a bus out of Ancud to Puerto Montt, where we were going to switch to a micro (pronounced: mee crow) to get to the lake-side town of Puerto Varas.

Next up: The Lakes District

From Patagonia to Chiloe

We arrived back to our couchsurfing host in Punta Arenas pretty late in the evening. There were three other couchsurfers there, all exchange students from the University of California. Marcelo fed us, then we stayed up late chatting with him. The next day Jesse made a pork chop parmesan dish for us all, then we headed back to Puerto Natalas on the 6pm bus. We got back and stayed in the same hostel as before. Our bus to El Calafate was at 8am and took 5 hours. We had to cross the border back into Argentina, which wasn't too bad since it isn't a high-traffic crossing. The landscape was flat with hills and mountains and tons of sheep. It felt very remote and huge.

El Calafate is very touristy, thus very expensive. It reminded me kind of a ski resort town in Colorado, just without the snow right now. It's full of wealthy American retirees on their package vacation. There are tons of artesan shops selling really cool stuff, and tons of tasty looking restaurants, so it was painful for me! We found a hostel and put our stuff down then went out to find lunch and money. All the ATM's were out of money! It took us about 3 banks before we found one with only $100 in it! Then we went to a restaurant and ate a pizza. We got back to the hostel and streamed the Packers game online. It was a pretty bad connection and was painful to watch, which sucks, because it was the best game of the season – they won with a field goal in the last few seconds of the game.

I slept in my sleeping bag on the bed because it was kind of shady place. In every place we check for bed bugs because Jesse had a bad experience with them in a hostel in Asia. We didn't see any. So we went to sleep. But at 5am Jesse woke up, turned on the light and said “Bed bugs.” And he was right. There were bed bugs everywhere. And by everywhere, I mean, at least 4 that I saw myself, which is a pretty bad infestation. They are really really tough bugs, who can live for a year without eating (sucking blood) and mate with their family members, so tend to reproduce rapidly. Every city has them, and they will eat and eat and eat. Jesse had at least 40 bites on his body. Bugs like him because he's got warm blood... maybe from those German and English genes of his. So we spent 2 and a half hours picking through our stuff looking for bugs. I found three. It was really gross. They are round and very black. They can't move fast, so it's easy to kill them. Then, at 7:30am, we left... we didn't tell the guy there were bed bugs and we didn't want to pay... because of course they would deny it and there would be an altercation.

So we were standing in the street at 7:30am not sure what to do. Jesse suggested another hostel that we saw which was only $6 a night, but I vetoed the cheap hostel idea immediately. We walked a couple blocks and stopped at the first place we saw, which was a house-hostel, not a hostel and was $15 a night each. We checked all of our stuff again for bugs, and the mattress, and went back to bed. That day at 1pm we had a tour of the Perito Moreno glacier in the national reserve.

We got to the park, which was an expensive one hour bus ride – about $50 each, then paid to get into the park, which was another $50. But the glacier was very very cool. We had 5 hours to hang out, which we thought was nuts, since it was just a chunk of ice, but it turned out to be almost perfect. The glacier was just so cool, and there was a winding platform of pathways. They had built metal walkways everywhere – I guess for in the winter, when snow and ice would make walking on the ground dangerous. We sat and ate sandwiches we'd made and watched the glacier do it's thing. You can hear it creaking and groaning, and then a chunk would fall off with a loud echo into the water. It was captivating! We wanted to see a huge chunk, but only small chunks fell. Jesse hopped the walkway and went down to the lake to feel the water. Some other guys had brought back a chunk of ice from the water, so we got to touch and taste millenia-old ice!

Finally the bus came back and we got on thankfully, since it was starting to get chilly. About 10 minutes into the ride the bus pulled over and the driver hopped out then hopped back in and yammering something in Spanish. We all looked blankly at him, so one of the Spanish-speaking tourists said in English, “The bus is broken. A new bus will come in one hour.” I was not super thrilled at this information, given our unfortunate incident with bed bugs that morning, and because it was already 8pm and by the time we would get back to town the grocery stores would be closed and we would have to either spend a lot of money on dinner in a restaurant, or eat just the 5 eggs we had with nothing else. So out we got, and within 10 seconds I saw a car coming around the corner and I stuck out my thumb and smiled big. They stopped, there was a guy and a girl and no one in the backseat. We told them our woe, and they said to jump in. They were a lovely couple, Lucille and Marcelo, from Brazil, tax lawyers, spoke English well, and were really pleasant company. They dropped us right in front of the grocery store and we thanked them profusely. Jesse made ravioli and garlic bread for dinner, and we shared it with the hotel manager lady.

The next day we were supposed to check out at 10, but since our bus was at 9pm, we pushed it to 11. We had nothing to do all day because there is nothing to do in El Calafate but eat and shop, and it sucked we couldn't hang out in our room... it was such a nice and quiet place. We walked around and visited a small park, but the wind was pretty bad that day, and then it got chilly. So we grabbed the computer and sat at a restaurant for about 3 hours. Then we went back to the hotel and asked if we could sit in the living room for 3 hours.

Our bus ride to Rio Antiguas was overnight and took 16 hours. There were tons of tourists on it. We met cousins, from Ireland. Chris had the thickest Irish accent I've ever heard and I could only understand about 70% of what he was saying. It was the weirdest thing! The road to Rio Antigues was only paved for about 3 hours in. All night we were on a gravel road, and the bus was alternating from hot to cold when the AC was turned on and off. It was pretty miserable. We finally made it to the Chilean border and had to take a little mini-van over the border to Chile Chico. Chile Chico is a cute town on this huge lake, and we had to wait a day and a half to get the ferry across. We are working our way north, to Chiloe. In Chile Chico we set up camp, and at the campsite ran into 2 Isrealis, 2 Americans, and 2 Germans. One of the Americans met the Irish cousins in the grocery store and invited them to share our asado (bbq) that night. So it was quiet a community! Everyone was so cool and we really enjoyed the company. One of the Americans, Trinity, is the girl who is walking up to Columbia with her two friends. The other American, Brad, is only 20 and is on the same University of California exchange that the kids in Punta Arenas are on. He's from Santa Barbara, and was coming our way too, so we have been traveling with him.

With 2 Irish and 2 German friends about to get on the ferry from Chile Chico

In Chile Chico we went on a small hike next to the lake. We jumped into the lake off of a rock and it was COLD! Like, painfully cold. I can't believe I let Jesse talk me into it! The lake was just so clear and blue, it was hard to resist. There were little islands just offshore that looked so cool, and it was such a shame the town did have kayak rentals or something!

We got to the other side of the lake on a 3 hour ferry from Chile Chico, then took a bus to Coyhaique. This region of Patagonia is called Aisen, and is absolutely beautiful. The most beautiful landscape in Chile, in my opinion. The road is called the Carretera Austral and is famous with travellers: cyclists, hitch-hikers, etc. It was so lush and green, with mountains, clear rivers, beautiful colorful Lupin flowers everywhere. Just so picturesque it was hard to believe it was real. Sheep and cows and horses everywhere, as well as sweet looking farm houses dotting the flat lands. At one point the bus stopped and a farmer ran out and brought the driver a big plastic Coke bottle of milk! The German couple was still with us at this point, and had arranged to work on a farm in exchange for food and board. Pretty cool!

We could only stay one night in Coyhaique because there was only one bus up north at 8am the next day. It had taken Brad a whole day at information desks to find a bus. It was a mini-van again, and we were the only tourists. The drive was again, simply stunning. There are so many reserves and parks in Patagonia, and we went through one. We saw another mini glacier on top of a mountain. We saw gringos cycling through as well, with their bikes loaded down with all their gear on either side. I can't imagine the stamina and strength it would take to do that! It was raining the whole time!

We weren't sure how to get to Chaiten, which is were the ferry to Chiloe was leaving from in 2 days. No one could tell us if there was a bus or what time. We transferred buses in another town and made it up to this road-side town called Santa Lucia, which was totally ugly and depressing and tiny. But where we found out that there was an 8am bus to Chaiten. We pitched our tents on the side of the road (literally) in the rain, ate salami and cheese and bread for dinner because there was no restaurant, then watched a movie on our laptop. It rained. And rained. And our tent leaked on the sides, where the cover didn't reach. Jesse's stuff got pretty soaked, but mine seemed okay. Packing up the tent in the morning, however, was not a good time at all.

We arrived in Chaiten and found a nice hostel and slept all day, then Jesse made pasta and chicken and we watched the Packer game of course. Chaiten is right next to the volcano that erupted last March, and it was covered in ash. There were houses mid-high in ash. It was really crazy.

Now we are on the ferry to Chiloe. It's huge and pretty comfortable. It's supposed to take us 5 hours to get to Chiloe! But at least it isn't raining and the scenery is beautiful. 

Next blog: Chiloe (which means"land of seagulls")

Eat Hike, Sleep Hike

Two days ago we met a girl from Colorado, Trinity, in Chile Chico.  She is hiking with two friends from Ushuaia to the Columbian border over one year.    She was in town because a street dog stole one of her shoes and the new ones she bought gave her awful blisters and she needed to get to the biggest town nearby, Coyhaique, where we are tonight, to buy new hiking shoes.  While she was staying at the hostel in Chile Chico, where we were camping in the yard, another hostel guest stole her hiking pants.  So now she has to buy those too!

Anyway, here is her blog:

Eat, Hike, Sleep, Hike

Patagonia

On Nov. 22nd at 1am we caught a flight from Santiago to Punta Arenas.

Punta Arenas is in the far south of Chile, in Patagonia. It's cold there. About 45 during the day. We don't really have the gear for this type of weather and are reluctant to buy it for the week or two we'll be down here... so let the cold begin!

In Punta Arenas we had arranged another couch surfing, but our flight got in at 5am so we slept at a table in the airport until 9am, then took a taxi to Marcelo's house. He had a nice house and it was really warm! The use natural gas there, and it's a lot cheaper then petrol. The first day we went on a tour to Fuerte Bl....., which was the first fort established by the Spanish in the area, but was abandoned because it was so cold. The locals, natives called …...... , then took all the wood the fort was made with and used it for their fires. So the fort was rebuilt in the 1940's. It still looks really cool. That night Jesse made a beef stew with dumplings for us, and two other couch surfers that had just arrived. It was really good.

Then the next day we went for a hike in the hills over-looking the city. It was really beautiful, but really windy!

The next day we took a 12 our bus ride to Ushuaia, which is the southern-most city in the world. There are other towns, but not of any significant size. The bus had to cross on a ferry to the island Tierra Del Fuego, which is half Chilean territory and half Argentinian. We rolled into town about 9, but our couch surfing host was not home from work until 12:30! So we ate, then sat around at a cafe. Yep, tired! Our couch surfing host is Andres, a lively guy who is from Buenos Aires, but has lived here for 4 years and works at a hotel. His little apartment has this tiny loft that we are sharing with another couch surfer, Nitsan, from Isreal.
Ushuaia had a lot of Croatian immigrants after the area was colonized, and it reflects in the architecture, which gives the city, which is half surrounded by snowy mountains, a ski-resort in Switzerland feel. It's really cute, and really expensive! We can't afford to go on any boat tours, they are all about $80 each! Which is too bad. But we will go hiking tomorrow in the national park, which should be amazing. And today we went to a really great museum about the indigenous peoples the Selk'nam and Yamanas. They were amazing people who lived on the shores of the waters and lived off mussels, seals, whales, otters and guanacos. They didn't wear clothes, because the clothes they wore would get wet from the continual rains and would only make them colder. They would wrap themselves in huge animal skins and go about like that. It's astonishing to me they could survive with no clothes in the climate there!

The next day we took a 9km bus ride to the national park, Tierra del Fuego, which means Land of Fire. It was called that by earlier European invaders because as they sailed by, they would see all the fires from the indigenous people.
We went to the park with another girl who was couch surfing at the same house we were. Her name is Nitsan, and she's from Israel. The park is truly beautiful. Lush, damp, cloudy, snow-capped hills, thick forest. We were having a great time hiking along the coastal trail, when Nitsan slipped on a wood bridge and hurt her ankle. She couldn't walk. We had a passing tour guide radio to the rangers what had happened, and then Jesse piggybacked her to the beach. We weren't sure if help was coming, but we suspected it would. Passing tourists gave Nitsan asprin and candy for energy. She is only 22, and had just started her 8 month tour of South America. Finally a ranger came and waited with us until more rangers came with a body board to strap Nitsan too and carry her out. It was a long way! 3km, I think! Jesse helped to carry for awhile, until some beefy Spanish guys came by and offered to help. I was taking pictures on Nitsan's 35mm the whole time. They finally got her up to the road where and ambulance was waiting. When Jesse and I got back to the house later that day, she was lying in bed with a cast on her ankle. She had fractured one of the small bones on the outside and needed minor surgery the next day. Luckily, she wasn't in pain though. I felt sooo bad for her. She will probably have to go home, since she can't walk for 30 days and then can't strain in for another 30.

We made it out of Ushuaia the next morning on a 5am bus back to Punta Arenas, where we were spending another night with our couch surfer host, Marcelo, who we really liked, and then heading up to Torres del Paine, a very famous national park in Chilean Patagonia. I will write about that soon!

We've had limited internet access, since none of the couch surfing hosts have had internet! It's been pretty cold and wet here in Patagonia, even though it's Spring here. It reminds me a lot of England, Ireland, and the Isle of Man - always overcast and raining. There are also millions of sheep and cows to add! But it is just so beautiful here, that it's magical, and sucks you in and makes you want to stay. I just wish I was in better physical shape, so I could hike more!

Norte Chico

Since Usallata

As you know, we have quit teaching English, moved out of our apartment, and started traveling. Our first stop was to hop over the border with Argentina to get a tourist visa. We were on a work visa, and it had expired, so we needed a tourist visa in order to keep traveling in Chile. We were worried there would be a problem at the border, there is always a problem when you try to do anything involving bureaucracy in Chile because the initial people you come into contact with don't actually tell you the correct information regarding the materials, papers, payments, locations you need. There are minute things like the size of your passport photo that can delay the whole process.

But there was no problem! We camped in Uspallata for 2 days. We saw some cool petroglyphs in the desert, which had been made 2 to 10 thousand years ago, which was pretty cool!

Then we went back to Santiago for a couple days and stayed with our friends Alex and Naoko. We of course watched the Packers game at our friend Gregorio's house, and then left on a bus on Monday night at 10pm. It was an overnight bus. The trip was 15 hours up to Chanaral, a town in the Norte Chico region of Chile. I am a pro at sleeping, even in transportation modes, so I slept most of the time, so it wasn't too bad for me. We arrived at Chanaral at 11am, pretty weary. We were headed for the national park called Pan de Azucar, but we weren't sure how far away it was and if we could get there that same day. Our guide book said there was a cheap bus that could take us there, but we soon found that that bus only ran during peak season, which is January and February. A taxi was following us and told us that he would take us for $40 round trip. Which is crazy, but it was the only way. So we quickly bought some food because we were camping, and went up to the park. It was so beautiful and uninhabited. We pitched tent at an amazing camp site right on the ocean, and then took at boat ride to an island just offshore where we could see Humbolt penguins. The next day we hiked into the hills through a valley, at is was just so gorgeous, something out of the imaginations, like something Disney would build for a a theme park ride. It was a perfect hike, only 3 hours, and we brought sandwiches with us and ate them when we got to the head of the valley where there was a spring.



Then we walked along the shoreline, which was just stunning. We were the only people. There was no one else the whole time we walked. I was shell collecting, as usual, in the beautiful rock pools. The next day our taxi driver picked us up and took us back into town to get a bus south to Caldera. Caldera is a really historic town in Chile because it was the first port in the north. We visited the cemetery, which was very cool because there were graves of the first immigrants from Germany, England, Scotland, and even China there. We also visited a religious shrine for Padre Negro, a black priest who lived in the area 80 years earlier, and then we went to a beach town just south called Bahia Inglesa, because the English pirates and sailors used this bay to hole up while resting. It was really beautiful, although a bit windy. We are traveling a bit before the high season so there really aren't many tourists and the beaches and towns have all been pretty empty, which has been nice, but also annoying since transportation and tours haven't started yet.

After Caldera we went down to La Serena, which is the second oldest colonial town. And it looks really colonial. It's as close to Europe I've seen yet on this trip. I really loved it! There were tons of old stone churches. We went to the beach but it was a bit chilly and windy. We stayed with a couchsurfer, Cecelia, who had her own little townhouse up the hill from the center of town. She was really friendly and we had our own room. She was having a lunch for her brother's birthday on Saturday and invited us and we had a great time. No one spoke English though, so I had a hard time trying to follow the conversation! I tried more Spanish the more wine I drank! The next day we were getting ready to leave on the bus for Valley de Elqui, when Cecilia's brother, Jaime, told us he was cooking the wild rabbit he shot last night for us... so we stayed for that. It was pretty cool to be eating a wild rabbit he just shot, and it tasted good, but about twenty minutes after I ate it, it came back up... not sure what happened there! :)

We got on the bus to go to Pisco Elqui, which is deep in the valley, about an hour and a half. It's such a beautiful ride through the valley. The vineyards are so beautiful contrasted with the rocky hills and mountains. The Elqui valley is the center of pisco production in Chile. We camped there for 3 nights in a really cute campsite at the bottom of the valley. There were hot showers! And only a couple other people camping. We rented bikes in Pisco Elqui and rode 7km to an artisan town called Horcon. There were some serious hills and it took about 2 hours to get there! We stopped at a cute artisan pisco brewery called Los Nichos, where pisco is still distilled and bottled in the old ways. Then on to Horcon. I bought a necklace. The artisan booths weren't all open, there were only about 6 or 7 out or 20 open. But the stuff we did see was really really cool and I could have easily spend hundreds of dollars on gifts there! We had hoped to find a restaurant but everything was closed. We were told there was a shop to buy sandwiches deep in the valley, so we set off on our bikes and ran into a really great little hidden spot – it was actually someone's home cum restaurant and the girl made us some great chicken and rice and salad for $8. We were the only ones there and it was gorgeous and peaceful. Then it was the ride home, which went much faster since we were going down most of the hills. It was really fun. The next day I was so exhausted and we only took a 10 minute bus ride to the next town called Monte Grande, where the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral was born. Her old school was turned into a museum and we visited it for about a dollar.

After Pisco Elqui we took a slightly terrifying bus ride along the valley hills to Vicuna, where we hoped to visit an observatory to see the amazing night skies. But it was too cloudy and we didn't go. But during the day we had visited an house-museum from the 19th century, which belonged to Basque immigrants who got rich exporting Chinchilla leather to France for clothing. It was a very cool house with beautiful furniture from all over Europe. Then we visited the Capel brewery, the most popular and distributed pisco in Chile. We took a tour. Some of the pisco is actually put into barrels make from North American oak. As we were walking back from the distillery we saw a massive spider walking along the side of the road. Massive, as in big, round, hairy body and legs. At least 40cm long and 12 tall. Which was really ironic, because Jesse had wanted to visit the local bug museum anyway! There are some serious bugs in South America that I hope not to encounter!

We wanted to go on a tour that night, of the observatory near town. Which is why we stopped in Vicuna. But there were so many clouds, that we knew the tour would be canceled. We were really bummed out. The stars are amazing, filling up the sky. I used to see them like that when I was a kid and we went camping near the California-Oregon border at Jedidiah Smith State Park. I think that was the first time I saw how many stars are in the sky. Before TV and radio and Iphones, I bet people spent every night watching the stars and planets.

So, we left Vicuna and took a 9 hour bus ride back to Santiago, stayed at Alex and Naoko's again, and then took our stuff to our friend Pamela and Pablo's apartment for them to store for us until July. On Sunday we of course watched the Packers game.

Then we took a 1am flight out of Santiago to Punta Arenas.

Last Day in Apartment

Today is our last day in the apartment.  We have been cleaning and packing all day.  I'm totally exhausted.  We're staying with our friends Alex and Naoko until Thursday, and then we'll go across the border to Argentina for one night to renew our travel visas.  Then we'll leave up to the north of Chile, hitting Pan de Azucar, Bahia Iglesia and La Serena, back down to Santiago over 20 days.  We will be camping along the way, and have bought a little camping stove.  Our flight to the south of Chile is on November 22nd.  We're flying to Punta Arenas, and will take a bus down to Ushuiaia, the southern most city in the world.  From there we'll be bouncing back and forth between Argentina and Chile, camping and staying in hostels, to make our way back up to Santiago and hopefully spend New Year with friends in Valparaiso.   After that, we'll be either flying or busing to Buenos Aires to start the big trek around the continent!  It will be up the Brazilian coast, along the north coast and then down into Columbia and Bolivia, and over to Peru.  We won't be returning to Santiago until our money runs out, which we are thinking will be in July.   I have a family reunion, hopefully the first week of August somewhere in the US, and am hoping to make it back for that.  Hopefully the reunion will be on a lake in Kentucky, which would help me be able to afford it!  But we'll be spending about a week in Santiago in July to see all our friends again before heading back to the US.



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I will be blogging and posting pictures as much as I can! I'm anticipating it being pretty hot and sweaty the whole time!  But looking forward to it.

4 Weeks

Hello all!


The last two weeks have been fun, and tinged with sadness, since we know we are leaving so soon.  I am sad about leaving these great friends we've made, however not too sad about not teaching English anymore.  I don't mind the teaching, it's the traveling that is killing me!  Also, the inconsistency, because when students cancel classes, we don't get paid.  It's too stressful to live with that kind of ambiguity!  So, I'm tired. And ready to stop running around and stressing out. Although very sad to leave the people we've met here.

The weekend after my birthday we went to the horse track.  It's called Club Hipico and is truly an amazing track!  It was built in 1870 and is about 12 furlongs. It runs about 18 races on race days, a very long race day!  We went about 2pm and stayed for about 5 races.  We won $16 on the first race!  And so that covered all our other bets and beers, since we didn't win again... :(  But we came close several times!  The free racing form only gave stats from the horses last race, so there wasn't much to go on!

 

Here is the beautiful paddock.  In my opinion, Churchill Downs has nothing on this!  Absolutely gorgeous.  We are hopefully going again this Friday!

On Saturday we walked around town, sat in the sun and had a few beers, ate some pizza.  Then we went home, and were going to have our friends Pamela and Pablo over for a bit.  But the power went out and no one was sure when it would go on.  I just assumed it was our building, but when we looked out the window, the whole city was dark!  We went up to the roof to look at the dark city. It was pretty cool.  We learned that half of Chile had lost power.  It came back on after about an hour or so.  But we ended up just going to bed.
Then on Sunday, we went to Pamela and Pablo's apartment for lunch. They had just gotten back from Australia and showed us all their photos.  Then we rushed off to our friend Gregorio's house to watch the Packers v. Bears football game!  Gregorio streams it from the internet onto his TV. 

The weeks are pretty normal - just working, cooking, sleeping.  My classes are either ending or dropping, and I can't pick up new ones because I'm leaving.  So I'm feeling a bit useless, as I'd prefer to be making money. 

Last weekend we had people over to our place on Friday to play games. We wanted to keep our spending low, so thought games at the house was a good option!  Then on Saturday we went to a museum that was having an exhibit of gold from Italy.  It began with old Roman jewelry and then had an exhibit of crazy Italian designers gold dresses.  There was also a great photography exhibit by Juan Diego Perez Arais of stunning photos from Ecuador.  On Saturday night we went to Pamela's birthday party at our friend Oliver's bar.  And on Sunday we went to two more museums!  At the Bellas Artes they were having an exhibit of Degas we wanted to see. Yes, the 14 Year Old Dancer was there! 

And then, of course, we watched the Packers game again, which they won again.  So Jesse is very happy.

Birthday and Deiciocho

Somehow I am 32 years old.  It's amazing so much time has passed. Sometimes it feels like ages, sometimes it feels like no time. It doesn't seem that long ago I was driving across the country in my little Chevy Metro with all my stuff, heading for the unknown, and missing the past life of living in London.  During that week I became addicted to the feeling of journeying to somewhere new, with no plans or agenda.  San Francisco  was still the US, and my bigger dream was to live outside the US.  I didn't know exactly how to do this: Peace Corp, volunteering, teaching English, etc.  I didn't know any resources I could ask: How's the best way to get out of the country?  Also, like all obedient Americans, I thought I had to work, and a lot of money was required to do anything.
I knew I wanted to leave the country permanently, as well, so I didn't consider any short term opportunities.  However, now I'm teaching English, it's not so bad.  Yes, I have to go back to the States, but I know of so many other ways to keep getting out now.  Which leads me to another reflection lately, in the midst of turning 32: I wish I could stay young and travel for ten more years.  I have only just found this sense of freedom and courage to take opportunity, that I want more time to enjoy it.  There are such amazing volunteer programs, there are other places to teach English, and there are things like running hostels, or other tourism related businesses.
But after our months traveling, we are heading back to the States.  Jesse wants to get a Masters in History, and I want to apply myself to something academic as well, either a teaching certificate, or a Masters in Literature.  A PhD. in the future? I'm not sure. We'll see how the Masters goes.
The dream is still to live outside the States, and if I get desperate, I know of some quicker options now.

On my birthday Jesse and I went with our friend Boz to watch Chile play Italy in the Davis Cup.  It was great fun, the Chilean fans were so loud, banging drums, blowing horns.  Italy won the first match by a hair, and in the second match the Chilean player hurt himself and forfeited.  I can't remember watching live professional tennis, and it was tons of fun! Then we went to our favorite lunch spot, Cafe del Opera, and had soup and sandwiches and ice cream.  That evening, we just watched a movie because it was going to be a long weekend!

September 18th is the independence day in Chile.  It's when the leaders in the area first met to discuss creating a republic and breaking away from Spain in 1817.  And they celebrate it like crazy here!  All day and night there are "fondas" (kind of like fairs) in the major public parks.  The focus at the fondas is on meat.  Tons of meat on sticks, sausages, ribs, chicken.  It's astonishing!  Then there are the Chilean drinks called Terremoto and chicha - mixtures of wine, juice, ice cream.  We went on Saturday and Monday. On Sunday, we went to our friend David's parents house.  His wife Leslie's parents and sister were also there. It was much like a July 4th celebration, and was really fun.  At one point they all sang the national anthem!  My Spanish was very much put to the test and I spent a lot of the afternoon with no idea what was being said. 

Meat at the fonda

2 Months

September 1st marks the 2 months left mark!  It feels like it will only be a week.  It's sad, yet exciting at the same time.  We are sad to leave Santiago and the friends we've made here. But we are excited to start traveling and seeing South America, which is what we've been saving our money for for the last two years.  I am also tired of living downtown, which so noisy, and the days are just a constant inundation of honking.  The nights are composed of garbage truck noise, car alarms going off, and dogs barking hysterically at each other or while chasing cars.  The apartment is tiny (maybe 420 square feet) and  I didn't pack many clothes or shoes, and am so tired of wearing the same thing all the time!!!

Not too much has been going on these past weeks.  We have been hanging out with friends, eating around town, walking around town.  We saw Planet of the Apes this past Saturday.  I watched San Francisco get taken over by the apes. It was pretty cool.  The American movies here are all left in their original English and have Spanish subtitles. Which is extremely awesome, since I can't watch TV.  The weekend before we went to see Midnight in Paris, a Woody Allen movie.  I love Woody Allen, and this movie proved again why. Really cool, interesting insight into life and living. 

Yesterday we went with our friends Leslie and David to a very popular restaurant here in Santiago.  It's called Las Vacas Gordas (The Fat Cows).  It's a great parilla (grill) and very decently priced.  The first time we went we got fillet medallions wrapped in bacon, a shish kebab of pork, chicken, and shrimp.  It was amazing. This time we started with Pisco Sours, and Jesse and I got a steak wrapped in pancheta this time, as well as another shish kebab (bruchetta).  We spent over two hours eating, drinking, chatting.  Since it was a sunny (yet chilly) spring day, after lunch we walked up the Cerro Santa Lucia , which is downtown, very near where we all live.  It began in the first days of colonialism as a Spanish fort to look out for invaders, and has changed functions several times, but still remains very fort-looking, which is cool. 

On Saturday we had a crepe party in our place with our friends Carrie and Ethan and their two visitors, Alex and Naoki.  Carrie and Ethan were teaching English in Japan and met and came to Santiago together.  Carrie is from New Zealand and Ethan is from Cleveland.  They all went out and got filling for the crepes like crab, shrimp, avacado, cream cheese, three types of sauces, ham and mushroom.  We also had chocolate, banana, kiwi and lemon and sugar for some sweet crepes  (which of course I ate more of).   It was really really tasty, and a welcome break from cooking at home our typical recipes (chicken, pasta, vegetables). 


On Friday night we went to our British friends', Becky and Daniel, house and played Pictionary with them and our Spanish teacher, Romina and her partner.  It was fun.  Jesse and I were doing really poorly, way behind everyone, and kept rolling a one on the dice.  But we caught up and ended up winning!  The winning picture was "neighborhood".   I had had "ragged". I have no idea how anyone could draw ragged.  After Pictionary we played that game where you write a famous person on a piece of paper and then pass it to the person on your left and they put it on their forehead, and then everyone has to ask questions to guess who they are.  Jesse wrote Ernest Hemingway for me and I wrote King Arthur for Daniel.  I never got mine, as they told me he was involved in politics but had never held office. It really threw me off!  Jesse had Leonard da Vinci but he couldn't get his either.  Probably mostly due to the amount of beer he'd consumed!

And now it's Monday again and we have another week of riding around on the Metro and bus all day teaching English.   Hope you're enjoying the start of Fall! It's the start of Spring here, thank goodness!

A Short Summary of Teaching English

Just in case any one is wondering exactly what we're up to here in Santiago, a brief summary of the life of an English as a foreign language teacher:

It's extremely easy to travel the world teaching English.  You just have to decide to go, buy a plane ticket, and get certified as a TEFL teacher. The last one is optional, but does make things a lot easier.  I wanted to get certified in the States, so we would have to spend time or money getting certified in Santiago.  But Jesse found a TEFL course in Santiago online, and convinced me it would be cheaper and easier.   We applied and paid our deposit and bought one-way tickets to Santiago.  Suddenly, we were going!  It was that easy.   Sorting through all your belongings and packing up your life and driving it to a storage unit is not so easy.  The cheapest unit we could find was in Fremont, so we had to keep driving my small car full of stuff out there.   Then there were the other bank, insurance, etc. issues of moving to another country to sort through.  You try and try to think of what other strings you need to sort out and what you'll need, but inevitably, it's impossible to remember everything. 

So we got to Santiago and started our course.  It was four weeks long and there was one other couple in the class with us who were from Atlanta.    It was a really tough course, and our practice teaching classes were graded a bit harshly and really stressed us all out.  Then, graduation, then job-hunting.  Because we had our TEFL, we didn't have any problems finding people who wanted to hire us.  Being a native speaker and having a TEFL is pretty valuable in foreign countries. 

We quickly filled up our week with classes.  All of mine are one-on-one classes and Jesse has two classes of 5 students.  We spend our days going from class to class on the Metro and bus.  The traveling around all day on public transit is rather tedious and annoying and tiring, but the students are all really great.  Of course, the beginners and intermediates say the funniest things.  My beginner, Jorge, was trying to look up "crab" on google because we were talking about seafood, but Spanish speakers have issues with hard vowel sounds, so what he heard was "crap" and he typed that in instead.  Sometimes I just can't help but laugh, and luckily my beginner students are all cool enough to laugh with me.  My intermediate student, Gabriela is always saying funny things, like how she had to go to a "Shopwork" this week so can't have class and how she wears "panties" when it's cold outside (by which she means panty hose).   Nelson, my super super beginner answered the question "How are you?"  with "I am Nelson" for the first 3 weeks.  I had to tell everyone I know because it was just so funny. 

The best is when Spanish speakers say "sheet" and "beach".  They come out "shit" and "bitch".  "Cheater" and "cheat" also come out as "shit".   Gabriella told me her son was a "shitter", which may be true at times, but she meant to say "cheater."   The best moment regarding these words was when Gabriella was trying to tell me that in school she used to make "cheat sheets."  She was pretending to write on her arm and said "How do you call this in English?"

I wish I could record or video the classes because the things they say and the way things unfold are just so hilarious, but I can't remember the details and I can't share in the hilarity with an English speaking person, and it just seems so criminal!  It's honestly like a movie, the level of comedy that goes on.  There is definitely a bond with the student, because it's a relationship unlike any other you've had in your life, teaching someone who doesn't speak your language.  It of course requires a lot of patience, but it makes you feel soft and supportive of this student, because you see them trying and hoping, top executives stumbling over words and saying sentences without verbs or struggling to pronounce something like "vacation" because of the v sound.  The language barrier makes you see further into this person as a person. You have to read their expressions, their energy, their body language.  So you come to know and like them, even when they are beginners and you can't have an actual conversation.  And of course, you strive for and celebrate their smile, because that means they are having fun, and the frustrations of learning another language aren't as bad when they are being taught by you. 

 

Pictures of San Pedro de Atacama

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San Pedro de Atacama

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Wow!!! San Pedro de Atacama is truly unbelievable!  It's simply incomprehensible how beautiful the earth can be sometimes.  The beauty stretches further then the eye can see, and it's overwhelming and addictive.

We left Santiago by plane on Wednesday late afternoon and arrived in the town of Calama after two hours.  We spent the night in a hostel in Calama, and then took off for San Pedro about 1pm the next day.  It was only a one hour bus ride.  We checked into our hostel in San Pedro, then joined the hostel owners for an asado (bbq) and homemade wine from the south of Chile.  They were celebrating their one year anniversary of owning a hostel!  It was a great little place, very clean and cute.  Except for the hordes of young travelers in hostels, they are really great places if you can find a good one.  I think a great idea would be a hostel for 28 and older travelers!  We were constantly awoken by loud drunk kids coming back late.  The hostel also had 7 cats living there.  It was so funny to see cats lounging everywhere when you came back.

On Friday we rented bikes and rode them out to Valle de la Luna, which is so called because the terrain is so dry and strange, like the moon. It was about a half hour to get to the entrance of the park, where we had to pay $4 each to get in, and then it was progressively harder uphill cycling to get into the valley.  We stopped at the salt caves, about 20 minutes in, to walk through them. They were really astonishing!  Rivers had carved deep tunnels through salt rock, and we were able to walk through them. It was super fun. Here's a video:

Then we cycled some serious hills to get further into the valley.  There was a very rare storm at the time, and it rained off and on for short spurts of 30 to 60 seconds. And it also hailed at one point! The wind was pretty heavy as well. It actually made for more beautiful scenery, to see the dark storm clouds.

As we cycled, we saw dogs running alongside other people on bikes.  I was so shocked there were dogs living out there!  There was not another living thing.  No tiny birds, no weeds, no bugs.  One of them, who we named "Brownita" started to follow us.  We felt horrible for her and gave her water and some bread.  She kept up with us for about an hour, even as we started heading back.  But at one of the down hills she lost us. I was very concerned about her!  Until the next day, when I saw her in town, lying on the tile floor, looking content!  Isn't that crazy?  She took herself on a trip to Valle de la Luna for the day I guess!  Did she just wake up that day and think, "I'd like to take a trip today to the valley."   ??  :)  Here is a pic of her in the valley and in town:

At some point, when the road was still not with an end in sight, I told Jesse I couldn't keep going and would sit and wait for them if they wanted to try and find the end.   I was thinking about the return trip, and knew I had to save the small energy I had left.  Also, the wind was really bad at this point, and I just couldn't keep fighting it.  So we turned back.  And boy was I right about the return trip! It almost killed me!  About 30 minutes of it was on a slight incline, but because we were so tired, it felt like a huge incline!  I had previously learned the concept of bike gears (after almost killing myself on the first hill we got to) and had them on the lowest settings.  The wind was bad, my butt was on fire, and I was just repeating to myself "block the pain, mentally block the pain."   At one point I was literally blown off my bike!

We FINALLY got back to town and walked around to find a place to eat.  It is a bit pricey in San Pedro because it's so touristy, and we couldn't afford to eat in the nicer places.  But we found a great place called La Delicias de Carmen: homemade food and it was reallly good.   Joe got the cazuela, which is a Chilean soup of chicken, corn, pumpkin, and potato.  I got the lentil soup, which was really great. I adore lentil soup. I love soup in general, but lentil is one of my favorites.  Jesse got a pizza.   It was so awesome to be off the bikes, have a beer, and eat some great food. We were starving!

After that, the boys took off to go watch the Chile vs. Mexico Copa America soccer game.  I went back to the hostel in search of a hot shower, but only found a warm one.  Then I went and joined them at the only bar in San Pedro, which was, of course packed.  The indigenous people of San Pedro do not like all the tourists and noise, so they don't want to have bars, only restaurants where you have to order food.  There is somehow a bar there, that's been there for 4 years, and only serves beer.  The locals also go there, so it's a great place, breaching two communities.  When we were there one night, the owner (a Finn) asked us to edit some text to introduce his petition to the patrons. It was about how the bar is facing political envy and opposition.  We both signed the petition, and hopefully the bar will stay open!
Anyway, Chile won the game 1 - 0.  Which probably has something to do with the fact that half of the Mexican players were ejected from the Copa due to hiring prostitutes while in Ecuador... yeah.... awesome and hilarious!

On Saturday Jesse and I took a tour on horseback! Which I knew was not going to be good for our butts, but I just love riding horses!  It was beautiful and fun.  We saw some old Inca ruins on a hill, but didn't get a chance to explore them.  Next time!  Before we went on the horses, we ate at La Delicias de Carmen again and Jesse got cazuela with llama meat!  Poor llama!

After the horses we had to have some beers! lol. It was painful to sit!  Then we got an early night because we had to get up at 7am to go on a tour of the salt flats.  The tour went to these massive salt flats where flamingos and 6 other species of birds live, feeding on larvae, and these tiny little shrimp organisms.  They fed us breakfast and then took us to see the Tropic of Capricorn post, which was not very interesting really lol, and then on to a small oasis village called Tocomao, where we bought a wall tapestry and got to pet a llama!  It was adorable!  We got back to San Pedro about noon and got on a bus to leave at 1:30 or so.  In Calama, we ate, then took a taxi to the airport and got back late to Santiago, as our flight had been delayed.  I am still exhausted!  We didn't want to come home because there is so much to do in San Pedro that we didn't have time to do.  We couldn't do the tour of the gysers because they were closed due to snow, which was really disappointing!  So this is why we have to go back to San Pedro! :)  And there were other cool things to see and do, like the ancient petroglyphs which have been dated as old as 5,000 years.

This is a pic of the salt flat:

I will post my pictures of the trip soon!

This weekend Joe and Jesse are in Valparaiso. Our friends Nico and David are going with them too.  Today is really wet and ugly in Santiago, so I hope they at least don't have a torrential downfall of rain all weekend... Jesse doesn't have a raincoat.
I am very excited to be alone for the weekend!!  I am having some girlfriends over tonight for wine and cheese! :)   And other then that I have no idea what I'll be up to!  Some errands, and hopefully shopping, if I can justify spending the money!  hmmm... Don't think that will be too difficult. :)

In other news, we have just gotten our temporary resident visas/working visas! Very exciting. Too bad we aren't staying that much longer!  It would be so easy to immigrate and live here legally going the route of an English teacher...

We have another friend coming to stay the day Joe leaves!  Slightly overwhelming, but we are happy to help him, Jesse's friend Jeremy, who is moving down here to teach English as well.  He's from San Francisco too.

We don't have anything planned for traveling until November 22nd as of now, when we go to Punta Arenas at the very south of Chile.  San Pedro was slightly expensive, and a lot of our classes have been suspended this month because schools are on winter break and people are going on holidays.

Hope all is well with you all in the homeland!

I am writing this from my apartment!!!!!

In the last few weeks, things have still been really busy!  I have picked up yet another class, but it is only twice a month. It's on Friday evenings, though, which is a bummer!  But it's with one of Jesse's students son.  He is really really cute, only 8 years old. He's very calm and quiet, not a typical 8 year old boy!   His dad is paying me cash, so it's a pretty good deal. 

We bought a little electric heater for the apartment last week.  It's gotten pretty cold here, in the 30's I'd say.  And it's going to get colder!  I have a hot water bottle as well, and I sleep with it every night. I love it.  I am always cold, all the time, it's not fair.  Jesse can be sitting in a tshirt, but I'm freezing.

Biggest news of all:  We got internet in the apartment!!!!!!!!   I had my Spanish teacher translate a note to my neighbors for me, asking them if we could pay them to share their internet.   I got an email from a guy living downstairs who said he could help.  Turned out he is a Russian hacker musician!  He plays the French horn in the opera orchestra, which is just down the street.  He came in and spent about an hour cracking our neighbor's passwords!  We have two now.  So we went from no internet to free internet!   I am SO MUCH happier.  I've been able to chat online to friends and use skpe more.  It's great.   And he gave us free tickets to see an opera, Ariadne on Naxos, which was great!!

We have been trying now for about a month to get our work permits.  Each time we go to the notary and sign a work contract, we either found the date was wrong, or went to the Department of Interior, and they told us the amount we are making is not enough.  We have been to the notary 4 times and to wait in line in the Department of Interior three times.  And it's STILL not over.  Right now we only have our 30 day work permit, during which, we need to apply for our temporary residents visa.  It's SUCH a pain, considering we only have five more months in the country, but it will help us to save time and money since we won't have to leave the country again, and our boss really wants us to be on a work permit for legal reasons for his company. 

Since the beach we haven't done much on the weekends.  We went to a new club called Bal de Luc with our friends Leslie and David and Nico,  and two other TEFL teachers came too.  We went to a museum last Sunday, that was focused on old toys!  It was pretty cool.  Last weekend I was not feeling great, a bit of a head cold, so pretty much stayed in bed/couch.  I did go to our friend Michelle's housewarming party on Saturday evening for a bit, and we met some new gringos, which was nice.
 Also, last weekend the water in the whole building was out. There was some type of electrical issue and the water went off. It was off for a bit on Saturday night, then all day on Sunday and half of Monday. The hot water has yet to return fully.   It was pretty annoying!  We had to go out and buy water, and now live in fear that it's going to happen again.  Apparently, some buildings were really affected by the earthquake, and we are thinking this is one, because it may have been built cheaply and quickly.

We are still cooking a lot to save money, and last week Jesse made pupusas, an El Salvadorian dish. They were really good!  We are also making things like shepherds pie, fajitas, chicken soup, spaghetti, stir frys. 

Next Monday is apparently St. Peter's and Paul Day, so no one has to go to work.  Naturally.  I am not sure if all my classes with be cancelled, but I'm kind of hoping they are.  I am getting so exhausted!  It wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't so much walking, Metro and bus riding involved. 

Jesse's brother, Joey, arrives next Tuesday to stay for 3 weeks.  On his last weekend here all of us will be going up to San Pedro de Atacama, the desert, to visit for 3 nights. I'm very excited!  We are flying up to make it easier.

If you have read about the volcano in Chile, it hasn't had any effect on Santiago at all.  I didn't even know about it for a day, since I don't read the papers or listen to the news here.

That's it for now!  Hope you all are enjoying warmer weather!  Lucky! :)




 

Santa Cruz, Birthday and Algarrobo

Since the last post, we have been out of town twice. The first to Santa Cruz, a small town about 2 hours south of Santiago, which is in the heart of wine country in Chile, then to Algarrobo, a beach town, last weekend.

Santa Cruz was nice, a bit nicer then a typical Chilean town. We went with our neighbors, Mark and Jenny, who are from Boston. It's a small, sleepy town. Our hotel was a house that had been converted, and it was really nice. There weren't any cheap options in the town, so we spent $24,000 (that's 24 thousand pesos – about $50 bucks) on our room. We went to a local football (soccer) game the first evening. It was a 3^rd division team, so wasn't very good! Nobody scored. And on Sunday we went to the museum there, which was very good. It is pretty big, and covers a lot of things. There was a room with old cars, which was great. And a Darwin room, since Darwin spent time in Chile. The South American Native Peoples collections were really great as well. We didn't go to any vineyards, which I didn't mind since I've been to Napa a couple times and pretty much know what a vineyard looks like. Plus, we didn't want to pay for the taxi rides out there.

Then we stayed in Santiago for two weekends. The 28^th of May was Jesse's birthday, and we had a gathering at one of our favorite local bars. It has a small basement area, and we overtook it, squishing in. Our gringo friends and our Chilean friends came, and it was a really fun night!

Last weekend our friends David and Leslie took us to their parents beach house in Algarrobo, and our friend Nico came too. It's about 2 hours southwest. We left late on Friday evening and arrived about midnight. When we got out of the car three street dogs came up to us. There was one with a broken leg, and another that was so skinny. It was awful! So the guys went out and got dog food and other stuff. There was another little brown dog that would jump from yard to yard. I have no idea how she did it, maybe she used the roofs. She was obviously using the fenced yards to keep safe from other street dogs.

On Saturday morning Jesse cooked pancakes for the Chileans, and they loved them! Breakfast in Chile consists of bread, butter, cheese and maybe a cold cut. Then we took a short walk on the beach, then went further south to Pablo Neruda's house in a place called Isla Negra. Neruda was a Chilean poet, born in a small, poor town in the south of Chile in 1904. He built his house when the coast there was still wild and rugged, and it is still breathtakingly beautiful. It looks very much like the northern California coast, minus the redwoods, of course. Neruda's house is on the cliff overlooking the rocky beach. He stocked his house with items from all over the world, since he served as the foreign minister for Chile. He has many of the statues that were on the front of ships, many gorgeous shells, masks and musical instruments from all over, as well as antique maps, miniature ships in bottles, and African statues. It's an amazing museum and beautiful house.

We drove on, further down the coast for dinner. Then later that night, back at the house, we grilled up some chicken, pork and sausages. It was an amazing day!

On Sunday Jesse made scrambled eggs and bacon, and then we took a trip to two different beaches. The first was a gorgeous small bay. The sun was out and there were even people swimming in the water! We climbed up to a high rock and sat and soaked it in. Then we drove to another beach and walked along it for about an hour. A storm was starting to roll in, and it made the cliffs and sky look amazing. The houses along the cliffs were really impressive.

We had a quick dinner, then headed back to the city, and it almost immediately started raining hard, which of course meant accidents on the freeway, and slow going. It was the first real rain of the Fall, and has been much needed because the rain helps free up the smog. The smog was becoming really disgusting, and the government had implemented “pre-emergency” days, restricting certain older model cars from driving.

Jesse's brother Joey is arriving on the 27^th of this month and we'll all be taking a trip up north to San Pedro de Atacama, which is a town right on the desert and salt flats. It's supposed to be stunning, so we are very excited.

I have been working really hard, with always 3 to 5 classes a day. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the travel time. There are always so many people on the sidewalks, on the Metro, on the bus, in the shops. It gets exhausting. And I feel like I walk about 5 miles a day. My legs look good, at least! Not having TV, DVD, a CD ROM or the internet is really frustrating, because all I want to do when I get home is watch a movie or the news or surf the net... I've been very on edge about it lately, and will probably have to buy a DVD player because the internet is not going to happen, and I doubt we can find an antenna big enough to catch a TV signal, which is all in Spanish anyway.... It feels like all work and no play.

Luckily we have received a work contract from one of our bosses, and we now won't have to leave the country every 3 months. We just have to go through a ton of paper work and sitting in lines until we get it approved. But as long as we are in the process of doing it, we don't have to leave the country.

Lately we have been talking and thinking about going to Easter Island in November. The photos I've seen of it are amazing, and everyone we talk to says they loved it. The problem is that flights are incredibly expensive, about $500 - $600 each...

So is it getting warm for you all? Hope it doesn't get too hot this summer! I fear that it's nothing but extremes from now on... pretty scary times. There was a volcano eruption in the south here yesterday, but they knew it was going to happen so were prepared.

Until next time, hasta luego, and thanks for reading!

Still in Santiago!

We STILL have not left the city. It's quite stifling to be stuck in a massive metropolis for 2 months at a time. There is so much to do, so much fun to be had, but really, we are longing for the amazingness of travel, and calmness of small towns and villages. This weekend we plan to go to Santa Cruz, which is 2 hours to the south by bus. It's wine area of Chile, so we are hoping it won't be too expensive! There isn't too much within a 2 hour radius of Santiago to go to on the weekends. Our friends and neighbors Mark and Jenny are coming with us. So we are excited!

Things have been pretty normal and routine these past few weeks. Working, shopping at Vega for produce, cooking, riding the Metro, etc. I have picked up some more hours and will be at 19 or 20 next week, which is a full load, but every week someone cancels here and there, so it is best to get about 22 hours to make up for it. We are hoping to save up $2,000 before we leave for the big trip around South America. We both keep thinking about it constantly, and looking forward to it. But I remind myself to savor and enjoy this time living in Santiago as well. I wish I never had to grow up and could keep traveling and being basically almost irresponsible my whole life! :)

My best friend, Emily Hermesch, sent me a big box of books to read!!! I am so excited and have calmed down immediately. :) I was very anxious about not having anything to read, in addition to not having internet or television in the apartment. Our landlord says he is going to have the internet company come and install a modem, but guess what, he hasn't. Since I don't speak Spanish there is not much I can do about it, and have to rely on Jesse to light a fire under his butt, and fire-lighting is not one of Jesse's delicacies. I am shamelessly addicted to the internet, and living without it in the apartment is slowly killing me and turning me into a whining mujer loca. Firstly, there is Skype. I don't call my parents enough because it's hard to find an empty room in the lobby, and the echo in the conference rooms is horrible. But I would also like to call other people, friends, etc. Then there is chatting online. I wish I could spend a few nights a week just chatting to friends online. I feel like I've dropped out of their lives, and I don't want them to think that. Stamps and postcards are pretty expensive, so I doubt I can send everyone a postcard I wish I could. And lastly, I just like poking around on the internet, looking things up, reading articles, surfing Wikipedia, watching videos about how to knit and crochet and other various nerdy things I can conjure up. The apartment is the size of a hamster's walk-in closet, so it's nice to have things to take your mind totally out and away.

The smog here in Santiago is getting worse because of winter time. I have no idea what it is about winter that makes it worse, but so people say, and so I can see. There are the weirdest hazy, smoggy days when you can't see the sun or even buildings in the distance.

Speaking of buildings, Santiago is building the tallest building in South (or Latin, I can't remember) America. They are in such a hurry to become a “developed” nation here. It basically is, except of course for the exorbitant amount of homeless dogs wandering around and the lack of mailboxes on the street corners (and other real things to do with economics, I'm sure ;). But really, I love not being in a “developed” country and I will not love Chile as much once it becomes one. I love not seeing every single person with a car, an iPod, an iPad and an expensive haircut. I love the Latin Americaness about Chile, the drinking in the streets, the trash, the dogs, the ferras, the people selling things constantly on the buses, in the streets, walking into restaurants and trying to get you to buy a pair of clippers. It's just great to see anything that wouldn't happen in the U.S. It makes me feel more alive. The U.S sucks my soul.

In other, less dramatic news, it is Jesse's birthday on the 28^th of May. We are having a celebration at a local bar and have invited almost every person we know in Santiago, which is nearly 40. Not bad! It's so easy to meet and befriend people here! I love it.

He will be 34, the old man. I will make sure to blog about the evening!

Also, our 2 year anniversary is on the 23^rd of May.

Last weekend we cooked dinner for our friends Leslie and David, and then met up with about 6 other friends at a local bar called The Clinic. The bar is called The Clinic because that is the name of the hospital that Pinochet went to in London for back surgery, where he was arrested for crimes against humanity. A group of journalists got together and started a satirical newspaper called The Clinic, where they wrote humorous and serious political articles. Currently, the president of Chile is from the right wing party of Chile, which has not happened since Pinochet. So The Clinic is having a field day making fun of the president, Pinera, who, by everything I have heard, really does say and do the most stupid and pea-brained things.

On a side note, one of my students, Gabriela, went to university with General Pratts' grandson. General Pratts was in the Allende government and fled to Buenos Aires after the coup, with his wife. Pinochet dispatched assassins to follow him and they blew up his car when his wife was also inside. The grandsons life was drastically affected, and when Pinochet died and his body was put on display, he waited in line to view it. When he got to the front he spat on the coffin and sprinted away. Isn't that an amazing story! I like to hear people's experiences of the coup and Pinochet regime, but it is always a sensitive subject and I don't like to ask, but only prod along if people start to mention it. I have met people who detested him/his memory and people who thought he helped the country and saved it from certain communism. When I see old people, I can't help but wonder what their stories are, and wish I spoke Spanish and could befriend some of them to ask.

Things Chileans are Randomly Obsessed With:

1. Hot dogs
2. Smoking
3. Waiting in line
4. Ice cream
5. Smoking
6. Making babies
7. Heavy metal music
8. Soda of all kinds
9. Living at home until the age of 35

Since Mendoza

Sorry it's been awhile! We STILL don't have internet in the apartment. We tried to get an antenna to stick into the computer, but you need a RUT number to set up that account with a cell phone company. The RUT number is a bit like the social security number, but more common, and used to track things like spending. So we are back to square one. Meaning, hopefully our landlord will let us use his RUT number to set up an internet account.

Since Mendoza we have been sticking around Santiago, but having tons of fun. We have hung out with our new Chilean friends several times. They are all so nice! Our gringo friends, the other TEFL teachers we met on the course we took, have not been so nice. They haven't invited us when they were hanging out, etc. Even though we were always asking them to hang out! This must mean we are now too old to be cool enouogh? Lol. I have found the Chileans to be so warm and welcoming and eager to make plans and hang out. It's so refreshing. American social culture does not seem to be so friendly or outreaching.

Last Sunday we went to watch a soccer match at Leslie and David's apartment. They live only 3 blocks from us in downtown Santiago, but they have a nice terrace, and we grilled lots of meat. It was really fun.

Last Saturday Jesse and I went for a hike on the mountain. Santiago is surrounded by mountains, but there is a park on one of them that has trails and other activities. My legs were killing me for days!

The weekend before that was not too eventful. We did meet some nice gringos, Mark and Jenny, that live one floor below us. They are from Boston. We have hung out with them several times.

Last Saturday we went to a Thai restaurant we had seen. We are dying for Thai food! And good Asian food in general. There are tons of Chinese restaurants here, but they all suck. There are no Thai restaurants. We have seen about 2. And probably 3 Indian. When you live in San Francisco good food becomes a given, and then you get addicted to it, and when you move somewhere that isn't an international superhighway, you miss it. The Thai we went to was okay. It was great and it wasn't bad. We got Pad Ke Mao and green curry. We'd go again. At least, until we find a better one! Should that possibly happen!

That evening we went to a new friend's birthday party. The Friday before, we were out with some British people from the TEFL course and a girl from Texas, Katie. I had stopped to pet some dogs on the street, and a Chilean couple stopped as well. Then we got to talking, and we all went to a club together and danced til about 5am. It was a great night! The next weekend we went to the guy's (Gregorio) birthday party at his apartment, which is only a 10 minute walk from our place.

So we have been having tons of fun socializing these past 3 weeks! But this weekend we are hopefully leaving Santiago. Everyone has Friday off work. They have every single Catholic holiday off work. There is one called St. Peter and Paul's Day. ????? They get it off work! Chile is a really relaxed, easy-going, slow place. There isn't this obsession with making money and working super hard. There is nothing to prove to anyone and it's okay to leave work early, etc. Just a much better environment. Not to mention the Happiness Department. Which is real. I teach English at a public, national bank and they have a Happiness Department which sends musicians down the halls and gives away apples, etc. It's really amazing! 

In other news, we have a kitten.  I found it in the lobby of our apartment building and convinced Jesse to let me keep it until I could find it a home.  But we haven't found a home yet, and it's been 2 weeks!  We need to find something before it grows up and isn't as cute.  I am going to sit downtown with a sign that says "Gratis Gatita"  (Free Kitten) and hope that someone wants it!  We can't keep it because we rent the apartment and don't want the furniture to get ruined. Also, it's just too small. The smell of the litter takes over the whole place!

This weekend is a long weekend because of Good Friday. No one goes to work, the supermarkets aren't even open.  We didn't consider that Chileans would be traveling, so we didn't buy any bus tickets anywhere, thinking we could do it this week, but now they are all sold out and we are stuck in Santiago!  Pretty annoying!   But there are more religious holidays, almost every month, so I'm sure we'll plan better next time.