Prior to last week I was just getting settled into things, getting used to my classes and painfully studying for my “examenes”. Taking classes in a Spanish speaking country at a top notch university is definitely not a piece of cake, thus I’m not achieving the same level as I have for pretty much the antecedent years of my life. It’s a little bit depressing, but I think my Spanish is improving, and I’ll certainly be glad when it’s all over.
Thankfully I finally received a break and took advantage of it in the southern lakes region of Chile. I and four other girls loaded up our backpacking backpacks and took a 12-hour bus ride first to the city of Puerto Montt. There isn’t much to see in Puerto Montt actually, so after talking to a few homeless people by the harbor, we got on another bus that drove us two hours, and then 15 minutes on a ferry, then 2 more hours to the island of Chiloe. Chiloe is known for its very conservative society. Women walk around in long skirts and their hairs in buns. The entire island is covered with rolling green hills and pastures, surrounded by picturesque ports. We stayed in a hostel in Castro with the most warm-hearted owner named Marta, and got to sit around a real fireplace (burning wood fireplaces are not allowed in Santiago), and played Egyptian war. In the morning, (September 18th, Fiestas Patrias, Chile’s most celebrated holiday), we took another long bus ride to the Chiloe National Park.
Chiloe:
The national park was AWESOME! I felt like I was in completely different continents at different points in time. The entrance was very similar to a Hawaii landscape, with small waterfalls, ferns, and dirt road. We even saw an endangered species called a pudú cross the road. We took a 3 or 4 hour hike through the park (don’t worry, I’ll get pictures up), and went trailblazing, but only slightly. We stumbled upon this beach COVERED in shells, but whole shells, not little broken ones. Leilani and Megan would have a field day. I was so happy just to see the ocean and breath in the air. Once we got back to Castro, we tried to find a fonda, (which is a party on Fiestas Patrias where Chileans drink Chi-cha, eat empanadas and choripan and dance the Cueca), but sadly found none. We went out and found a restaurant that served “curanto”, which is a stew cooked in the ground with native potatoes (long, purplish potatoes), chorizo, chicken, beef, and covered in mussels (Its basically what Chiloe is known for). That was delicious, I love seafood. The next day I got a seafood empanada from a random stand… amazing.Ok, so after Chiloe, we stayed in Puerto Montt for a night. Our hostel experience was very strange to say the least. Apparently the little old lady didn’t know we were coming even though we reserved our room way ahead of time. She gave us slippers to wear. We left before 6 the next morning to take a bus to Valdivia.
Valdivia is awesome. I know I wouldn’t want to live in Santiago more than 6 months, but I don’t think I would mine living in Valdivia. The city is composed of an island and a canal that runs around the island. The town has a German history (and is known for its Beer factory, but we didn’t go there), and therefore had very German like architecture. We walked around the whole day, went to a crazy fish market where the most giant sea lions I have ever seen in my life, just sit on the mini-piers along side the side walk. Pelicans fly around over your head and the grass and graceful willows line the shore. We later went to another park and went on another hike around a pond, where we saw a river otter of some sort. I got very muddy. We took lots of pictures that day, but I left my camera in my backpack, and my friend who took most of the pictures got her camera stolen. Anyways, my friend Lauren’s camera got stolen (and entire purse) later on that day while we were eating lunch, right before we were going to get on our bus for Pucon. After dealing with the paperwork with the fastest talking Chilean Caribinero (Chilean police officer) I had ever met, we took a later bus to Pucon and arrived in Pucon around 1am.
Pucon was CRAZY. The first day that we woke up in Pucon, we went white water rafting. (The rapids were classified as 3 and mostly 4 if anyone cares). It was very very cold, but they gave us long sleeve wetsuits. That was probably the most fun I’ve had in Chile. We went to an Arabian restaurant after that and slept very well, intending to wake up at 6am or so the next morning to climb the volcano (yes active volcano, with smoke constantly billowing out, covered in snow, constantly reminding the town of Pucon of its impending doom, Volcan Villarica if you care to look it up). However it was raining, so they delayed our trek until the next day. We slept in again, until about 11, and then went on this cool little tour of the river and the waterfalls and the termas (natural hot tubs). That was fun, but I would have rather gone canopying, which cost the same, but you don’t have as many options when you travel with 4 other people.
So the volcano came the next morning. Climbing the volcano is literally the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. The entire trek is supposed to take about 5 hours. We drove up a crazy dirt road, took a ski lift to get about 45 minutes of trekking out of the way and started the climb. We were equipped with crazy orange suits, helmets, snow boots, clamp ons (for walking on ice), polarized sunglasses, and a pick-ax, the most important part. Walking uphill in the snow is not very fun. You get very very hot very fast and very very tired. Its pretty much like walking up stairs for five hours, except the stairs keep caving beneath you, and you constantly face the risk of loosing balance and falling down the steep hill. After about 3 hours of hiking I decided that if I got to the top of that volcano, I could pretty much do anything, but we didn’t make it, so I’m still very disappointed. I think our guide didn’t have faith in us, or we ran out of time. But once we got to about 3 kilometers up the side, we met a Hungarian girl and a Brazilian guy that had an injured knee and something wrong with a meniscus. So our guide stopped to help them, and we didn’t get to go on (2 hours more) to the top.
Some people had already made it, and were snowboarding/skiing down (those who brought there snowboards and skis on their backs). I was very jealous of them, but its ok because I get to go snowboarding in Utah later on, hopefully. The volcano is awesome for snowboarding down, because the lava tubes make natural half-pipes. We however, slid down on our butts for most of the way. That was my favorite part. Quite sad considering all the effort we put in to climbing up. It’s also very stressful in that there are no bathrooms on the side of the volcano, so you can imagine when we did. Lets just say that yes, I have urinated on the side of an active volcano at least once in my life. Sorry, that’s probably way too much information. Anyways, after the volcano trek, we got on a 9pm bus for Santiago and arrived around 7 in the morning. I had class at 11:30. So here I am, back in Santiago, filled with bug bites, and sad about some test grades, but my computer is filled with photos containing many crazy memories. I don’t think I will make it to any crazy places in the really near future, but my friend and I are going to Argentina and Uruguay in December, and I might go to Peru or Patagonia in November. (But I’m saving money for Asia ☺ ). The lesson I learned this week is that if you pray enough for sunshine, you might just get it. And the mountains certainly have the same revitalizing power as the ocean (maybe not quite). Ok so that’s all. I really miss you all, and I think about you guys all the time. Again don’t hesitate to talk to me or ask me to pray for something, because I will! Hopefully Fall in the US (or wherever you are) is beautiful! Chao!
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