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

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.