So...I had to come home for a day after going to Mendoza, because every Monday I have my 7 ½ hour long Ecology class, and every afternoon we have a quiz that can’t be rescheduled. Since we only have two real tests the whole semester, I think that the quizzes are relatively important, so I decided I’d better not miss it. It was probably good, though, because being away from home for over a week would have been a bit overwhelming anyways. I took the bus back from Mendoza and arrived in Santiago late Sunday night, and promptly went to bed since I had class at 8:30 the next morning.
I don’t know what prompted me to check the Ecología class website Monday morning when I woke up, but right as I was getting ready to leave I did, thank God! For some unexplained reason class for that morning was canceled; we didn’t have to show up until the afternoon session at 2:30. Since I was already up, I took advantage of the morning by washing my clothes, getting started packing, organizing things, etcetera. The rest of the day was pretty normal—class, then back home. I made it to bed around midnight, and had to get up at 5 to make it to my flight. One of the sweetest things about living in a city, luckily, is that I only had to pay 8 dollars for an airport transfer service to come pick me up at my house and deliver me to the airport on time. Yes please!
I got to Buenos Aires in the early afternoon, and set out on my own adventure. KellyAnne had told me roughly how her and Rosie (the friend who just moved to Buenos Aires from Santiago) had made it from the airport to the hostel, but they had taken a taxi from the airport transfer service terminal in town to the place we were staying. Thinking that didn’t sound like anything of a challenge, I decided to start off right away learning about the BA subway system…and did, just fine. Yeah for me—before living in Santiago I NEVER would have DREAMED of doing that by myself. I showed up at the hostel without any problems, and KellyAnne was there waiting for me.
Once I ate a little food and used the hostel computers to register for classes (something which I had sort of forgotten was a major priority, and best done as soon as possible since classes fill up…I decided on my schedule on the flight over) we set out into the city. The weather was swelteringly hot; possibly on the verge of deadly for a heat wimp like myself. We spent the afternoon wandering around the area of Recoleta, one of the many “comunas” of the city. We spent several hours in the Recoleta cemetery, and ancient and incredibly creepy city of the dead, where everyone is housed in above ground monuments built by the families. People basically built elaborately decorated alters for their loved ones, and the caskets are entered inside. They’re meant to be visited, and nearly all have doors and windows, and usually the caskets are shelved in plain site. All of them have crazy details, like beautiful expensive stained glass or statues modeled after the deceased. While some are in very good condition, the majority aren’t even close, some even with broken windows and dead birds inside. I don’t really know how to describe it, so I’ll put up some pictures as soon as I can. Many very famous Argentineans are “buried” there, including Eva Peron, who’s tomb we visited.
Later that afternoon we did some more wandering around the downtown area of Recoleta, but I was exhausted as I’d only gotten 5 hours of sleep and it was intensely hot, so eventually we just went back to the hostel and made dinner.
Our hostel situation was actually pretty cool; there were probably 25 or 30 other people there the entire time we were there, all of them our age and all of them except for us backpacking across South America. It was really a fun environment to hang out in, and we ended up spending the rest of the night there just talking, getting to know each other and relaxing. Being in the hostel for the whole week kind of felt like living in the dorms again, which was nice.
It’s funny, because KellyAnne and I both agreed later, after talking to them, that we feel like it really is important to live somewhere as opposed to just visiting it if you want any kind of real perspective for where you are. I mean sure, you can go look at Iguazu falls for example, which all of them had done, but none of them really understood the reasons or implications of the falls being unusually dry, which is related to politics between Brasil and Argentina. It’s certainly possible to enjoy their beauty without understanding everything at work behind controlling them, but I think it makes for an entirely different experience if you have a more holistic perspective of what you’re seeing—in Spanish there are two different words that you can use for going to visit a place – “ver,” which means “to see,” and “conocer,” which means “to know.” I’ve pretty much decided that since I now know there’s a difference between the two, it won’t really be worth my while to just “ver” things anymore.
The next day was Wednesday, and it was raining rather hard all day. We went shopping almost all day, although we didn’t really buy much—everyone in Argentina is anorexic (seriously, they have the highest rate of anorexia in the world) so we couldn’t really put on any of the clothes. That makes for a fun day of shopping…
That night we went out to a play, and it was really fun to go to a play that was obviously entirely in Spanish and to understand everything that happened. I haven’t talked much on here, I don’t think, about all of the PDA that goes on in Chile, but it’s pretty substantial. Enough so that the teacher of my “Chile, Chilenos y su Cultura” class actually spent a fair amount of time talking about the reasons behind it one day. I won’t go into all of that, but I can tell you that coming from the US it’s very shocking to see not only teenagers but also grown adults making out in pretty much any public place you can imagine—the metro, parks, street corners, restaurants, whatever. Even though I’ve been here long enough to be relatively accustomed to all of that, the extra show we ended up getting at the theater is worth mentioning. KellyAnne and I were in the second to last row in the theater (it was pretty small, so it didn’t matter) and seated in front of us was a couple probably in their mid thirties. Unfortunately distractingly for us, they spent almost the entire show loudly and passionately kissing. It was pretty ridiculous, and made it difficult to pay attention to the show at times, but also funny enough that I thought it was worth mentioning.
I don’t exactly remember what all we did the next day, although I know it included lots of walking around because by the end of the day my feet were dead. That’s pretty standard for us—just walking around the city so we can see the various “sites” that aren’t touristy or exciting at all, they’re just part of life there, until we’re so exhausted it’s almost impossible to think. In addition to walking around a lot, we went to the museum of Eva Peron’s life, which was very interesting, and went to the Plaza de Mayo in the afternoon. Every Thursday afternoon since the military dictatorship mothers and grandmothers of “the disappeared,” victims of the government’s kidnapping and murdering tendencies, have protested the losses of their children. We went to watch their protest, which was kind of a strange experience. Here were these women, most of them probably in their 70’s, marching around the Plaza square holding pictures of their children while a big crowd of tourists watched them. Not only that, but before and after they sold t-shirts, which apparently went to fund the cause of their organization which works on social justice projects nationally. It just seemed odd that something as intimate and personal as the message each of these women was sending – that she desperately wanted to know what had happened to her missing child – had kind of been reduced to a tourist attraction. I couldn’t quite decided how I felt about it—on one hand, I guess you could look at all of the people who showed up to watch them as supporters, but on the other hand I can’t say that I personally did anything to actually support them aside from being there and watching, and I don’t know if that counts or not. It was a strange experience, anyways.
Well, even though that’s only the first little bit of what I did while in Buenos Aires, it’s 11:30, I’m exhausted and I have a test tomorrow. So…that’s all you get for now. Sorry!
Monday, October 30, 2006
Monday, October 23, 2006
Pictures from Mendoza
All of these pictures are from the last day, because I didn't want to take my camera rafting, of course. Katie has a few pictures of that day, though, so if I ever get them from her I'll add them in.
Chiloe and Puerto Montt...pictures, finally!
Here's a slideshow of pictures from Chiloe and Puerto Montt...if I have time I'll make one from Mendoza today, too, although I didn't take many pictures so it won't be terribly exciting.
Weekend in Mendoza
So…I spent this last weekend in Mendoza, Argentina. I originally wanted to take off on Thursday night and go to Buenos Aires, skipping the entire next week of school and getting a feel for Argentina, but my ecology professor wouldn’t let me reschedule a quiz so I had to be in Santiago all day today, Monday. Bummer. Luckily Mendoza is just barely over the border, only about a 6 (ish) hour bus ride, tickets are cheap getting there and back, I’d wanted to go check it out for a long time and Argentina is dirt cheap. I happened to mention to a fellow American classmate, Katie, (she studies at UC Davis) that I was thinking of going but wanted a travel companion, and she was very excited about the idea of going with me. All right, it all seemed to be working out!
We initially thought that we would leave on Friday morning, early, because everyone says that the trip over the mountains is well worth being awake for. However, we ended up finding a bus that left at 10:30 Thursday night, which would put us in Mendoza around 5 the next morning and give us the full day to explore. Of course when we got to Mendoza that morning we didn’t have a hostel arranged and we were completely exhausted, but it ended up working out all right. We found a really beautiful, posh hostel that’s way nicer than anything I’ve stayed in so far (pool, bar and restaurant, tons of people our age, free amazing continental breakfast…) that only cost $8 a night. Oh, Argentina, you amaze me! We crashed for a little nap that morning, and then got up and started planning out weekend’s adventures.
Let me just say, to start with on something positive, that there were redeeming features of traveling with Katie. Well, one, anyways. Because they make and drink a lot of wine in this general part of South America, I’ve recently decided that I need to become much more educated on the subject. KellyAnne, our friend Rosie and I decided to start a little self-education project, where each week one of us would research a wine, buy a bottle of it and share it with the others while teaching them about it. A fun way to get started, anyhow. We had a day of monsoon rains last weekend, and instead of doing real studying I spent some time online learning (and forgetting) a million different things about wines and wine tasting. It was pretty fun, and it got me excited to go wine tasting and learn some stuff. Luckily, Katie lives around Napa Valley and has taken 3 college courses on wine and wine tasting. Additionally, the valleys around Mendoza produce 70% of Argentina’s wine, so it’s a good place to start. The local wines are dirt cheap and very good, so Katie and I made a point to buy wine with all of our meals and then she would dissect it for me as we ate. It was very fun, and the last day we were there we went on a wine tour (for only $10!!! A chauffer picked us up at our hostel and drove us around the valley to different wineries where we got complete tours and tasting and everything! Katie’s mom came to visit her last month here in Chile, and they did the same sort of thing but only got to visit 1 winery, and it cost them $50 each!).
However, I’m afraid to say that the rest of the experience traveling with her was a bit of a disaster. KellyAnne and I do a very good job of being reasonable about spending money when we’re traveling together; that was clearly not a focus of Katie’s. I don’t know where all of her money comes from (I kind of get the impression that beyond the ATM, she doesn’t, either) but she spent spent spent spent spent! Sure, Argentina is way cheaper than Chile, but only if you don’t go to all of the fancy boutiques and buy ridiculous amounts of super stylish clothes. It doesn’t really count as saving money if you still $40 on a shirt that you wouldn’t have bought if it wasn’t in Argentina, but whatever. Not only that, but she was incredibly rude to people—for example on the bus ride over to Mendoza the two of us were talking, probably a bit loudly, and it was around 11:30 or 12 at night. One of the people sitting behind us asked us to please speak a little softer, and instead of the reasonable response of “Oh, I’m so sorry! Of course we will!” Katie snidely remarked in her very poor Spanish with a terrible gringo accent “Fine. All you have to do is ask, geeze!” She even threw in one of those “Cccchhhhaaa” disgusted exhaling sounds people make between their teeth and their lips. I was mortified. That’s a pretty solid example of what her behavior was like for the rest of the trip, and I’m not even going to get started with the incredibly embarrassing way that she threw herself at every pretty boy that we saw, making very obvious and over-the-top comments about whichever part of their body she happened to find particularly attractive. Needless to say, I don’t have any plans to travel with her again.
Luckily, at the very least her craziness drew attention to my sanity, so I suppose in the end it probably only helped me meet people and make friends.
Anyhow, with all of that said, the first day she spent shopping (I just kind of followed along) and enjoying the cheap, incredible steaks and wines. The next day we got up early and went on an all-day river rafting excursion, which was AWESOME! The rapids were all class 3’s or 4’s, which I guess is on the medium-large-ish size scale, but it wasn’t ever wild or crazy or scary so it gave me desire to try something bigger. Our boat was quite an international mix—besides Katie and I there were three French boys (one of them half French half English), our guide who was a guy just a little older than us from Mendoza, and another guide who was on his first day on the river here in Mendoza, just arrived from Italy where he guides all summer up there. He actually was really interesting – he spends the northern hemisphere summers in Italy, where he’s from, guiding, and the southern hemisphere summers traveling to various rivers around the world river raft guiding there. Last summer, he was in Uganda! Anyhow, we had a lot of fun, and got back to the hostel around 6 exhausted. Of course, that didn’t stop us – there was a huge artesian fair in the plaza two blocks from our hostel, so we walked down there and spent several hours looking at and buying all of the cool stuff. Artesian fairs like that are so amazing here in South America –it’s like Saturday Market in Portland, with all of the neat, funky, unique handicrafts, but it’s all dirt cheap here.
Probably the craziest part of the whole trip was a strange strange encounter that happened while we were at the artisan fair. I happened to just be wandering through the booths when who did I happened to run into but Robert, the fellow American we met on Easter Island!!! It was so hilarious to see him again, especially there in Argentina!!!
After the fair, Katie and I went out to dinner (I had a thick, tasty stake cooked in Roquefort sauce and side dish and a drink all for about $7. I think I might move to Argentina.) We returned to the hostel for a bit, then our river rafting guide from that day came to meet us and we went out for drinks. We hung out for a while, and eventually Katie decided she wanted to go to a discothèque, so she headed out with some other people that we met and I made my way back to the hostel (it was like 3 in the morning at that point and our wine tour started at 8:30 the next morning.) She ended up staying out all night, getting back right as I was packing my things to leave, and slept through a solid portion of the winery tour that day.
While on the tour, we met two lady doctors from Cordoba who studied in Buenos Aires; they were in Mendoza for an international conference on diabetes. They were incredibly friendly and nice, and asked for our email addresses to stay in contact with us. I told them about some of the various directions I’m considering taking my life after I finish at Carroll, and they were very enthusiastic about helping me find connections of any type in Argentina. I’m sure that as you’re reading this, Dad, you’re either panicking or fuming, but I feel pretty confident that my future holds some sort of project in Argentina. Senior research project to write an honors thesis with next summer, perhaps? Or working in a public health clinic for a year before going on to a professional program, maybe? Only time will tell….aren’t you excited for me that I’m so interested in broadening my horizons and exploring the world? (I already know the answer to the final question is “No.”) What’s more, I could get any sort of job for a tourist agency while I’m there, since I speak Spanish and English—maybe even at a winery!
Another exciting part of the wineries tour is the fact that we went to a small, familiar-style winery (“Cavas de Don Arturo”) that only sells bottles directly in their bodega and on the international export market. I bought a bottle of Malbec and another of Cabernet Sauvignon for 9 dollars total. Why is that special, you ask? Well, my friend, each of those bottles is in the $90 + range in the US!! Ohh yeah.
And that’s pretty much that…Katie wanted to stay and shop one more day but I had class this morning, so I went to the bus station to head home. Getting tickets to Mendoza is a breeze, so I wasn’t too worried about getting back to Santiago, but unfortunately all of the trips until 10:30 that night were booked up. Crap. Once again the fact that I speak Spanish was crucial in being able to get everything worked out (and I hate to say it, but unfortunately in these machismo countries the fact that I was wearing a skirt might have had something to do with it, as well); I explained to a bus driver my situation and they ended up finding me a seat, even though it was the middle front bench seat in a mini-bus/van type thing, so I made it back to Santiago last night.
You may remember from earlier in this post that I had wanted to skip a week of classes and go to Buenos Aires for several days, but had to come back for a bio quiz. Well, have no fear, dear reader, because I wasn’t about to give up on that idea. I’m back in Santiago right now, yes, but at 8:30 tomorrow morning I’ve got a flight to Buenos, where I’ll be until Sunday. Don’t worry; I didn’t pay too much for my plane tickets, in case you were wondering. GOL Airlines, a Brazilian company, has incredibly cheap tickets that I just had to take advantage of. Why would any particular Brazilian airline have insanely cheap tickets right now? Just take my advice and don’t think about it too much-you’re probably happier without the answer.
We initially thought that we would leave on Friday morning, early, because everyone says that the trip over the mountains is well worth being awake for. However, we ended up finding a bus that left at 10:30 Thursday night, which would put us in Mendoza around 5 the next morning and give us the full day to explore. Of course when we got to Mendoza that morning we didn’t have a hostel arranged and we were completely exhausted, but it ended up working out all right. We found a really beautiful, posh hostel that’s way nicer than anything I’ve stayed in so far (pool, bar and restaurant, tons of people our age, free amazing continental breakfast…) that only cost $8 a night. Oh, Argentina, you amaze me! We crashed for a little nap that morning, and then got up and started planning out weekend’s adventures.
Let me just say, to start with on something positive, that there were redeeming features of traveling with Katie. Well, one, anyways. Because they make and drink a lot of wine in this general part of South America, I’ve recently decided that I need to become much more educated on the subject. KellyAnne, our friend Rosie and I decided to start a little self-education project, where each week one of us would research a wine, buy a bottle of it and share it with the others while teaching them about it. A fun way to get started, anyhow. We had a day of monsoon rains last weekend, and instead of doing real studying I spent some time online learning (and forgetting) a million different things about wines and wine tasting. It was pretty fun, and it got me excited to go wine tasting and learn some stuff. Luckily, Katie lives around Napa Valley and has taken 3 college courses on wine and wine tasting. Additionally, the valleys around Mendoza produce 70% of Argentina’s wine, so it’s a good place to start. The local wines are dirt cheap and very good, so Katie and I made a point to buy wine with all of our meals and then she would dissect it for me as we ate. It was very fun, and the last day we were there we went on a wine tour (for only $10!!! A chauffer picked us up at our hostel and drove us around the valley to different wineries where we got complete tours and tasting and everything! Katie’s mom came to visit her last month here in Chile, and they did the same sort of thing but only got to visit 1 winery, and it cost them $50 each!).
However, I’m afraid to say that the rest of the experience traveling with her was a bit of a disaster. KellyAnne and I do a very good job of being reasonable about spending money when we’re traveling together; that was clearly not a focus of Katie’s. I don’t know where all of her money comes from (I kind of get the impression that beyond the ATM, she doesn’t, either) but she spent spent spent spent spent! Sure, Argentina is way cheaper than Chile, but only if you don’t go to all of the fancy boutiques and buy ridiculous amounts of super stylish clothes. It doesn’t really count as saving money if you still $40 on a shirt that you wouldn’t have bought if it wasn’t in Argentina, but whatever. Not only that, but she was incredibly rude to people—for example on the bus ride over to Mendoza the two of us were talking, probably a bit loudly, and it was around 11:30 or 12 at night. One of the people sitting behind us asked us to please speak a little softer, and instead of the reasonable response of “Oh, I’m so sorry! Of course we will!” Katie snidely remarked in her very poor Spanish with a terrible gringo accent “Fine. All you have to do is ask, geeze!” She even threw in one of those “Cccchhhhaaa” disgusted exhaling sounds people make between their teeth and their lips. I was mortified. That’s a pretty solid example of what her behavior was like for the rest of the trip, and I’m not even going to get started with the incredibly embarrassing way that she threw herself at every pretty boy that we saw, making very obvious and over-the-top comments about whichever part of their body she happened to find particularly attractive. Needless to say, I don’t have any plans to travel with her again.
Luckily, at the very least her craziness drew attention to my sanity, so I suppose in the end it probably only helped me meet people and make friends.
Anyhow, with all of that said, the first day she spent shopping (I just kind of followed along) and enjoying the cheap, incredible steaks and wines. The next day we got up early and went on an all-day river rafting excursion, which was AWESOME! The rapids were all class 3’s or 4’s, which I guess is on the medium-large-ish size scale, but it wasn’t ever wild or crazy or scary so it gave me desire to try something bigger. Our boat was quite an international mix—besides Katie and I there were three French boys (one of them half French half English), our guide who was a guy just a little older than us from Mendoza, and another guide who was on his first day on the river here in Mendoza, just arrived from Italy where he guides all summer up there. He actually was really interesting – he spends the northern hemisphere summers in Italy, where he’s from, guiding, and the southern hemisphere summers traveling to various rivers around the world river raft guiding there. Last summer, he was in Uganda! Anyhow, we had a lot of fun, and got back to the hostel around 6 exhausted. Of course, that didn’t stop us – there was a huge artesian fair in the plaza two blocks from our hostel, so we walked down there and spent several hours looking at and buying all of the cool stuff. Artesian fairs like that are so amazing here in South America –it’s like Saturday Market in Portland, with all of the neat, funky, unique handicrafts, but it’s all dirt cheap here.
Probably the craziest part of the whole trip was a strange strange encounter that happened while we were at the artisan fair. I happened to just be wandering through the booths when who did I happened to run into but Robert, the fellow American we met on Easter Island!!! It was so hilarious to see him again, especially there in Argentina!!!
After the fair, Katie and I went out to dinner (I had a thick, tasty stake cooked in Roquefort sauce and side dish and a drink all for about $7. I think I might move to Argentina.) We returned to the hostel for a bit, then our river rafting guide from that day came to meet us and we went out for drinks. We hung out for a while, and eventually Katie decided she wanted to go to a discothèque, so she headed out with some other people that we met and I made my way back to the hostel (it was like 3 in the morning at that point and our wine tour started at 8:30 the next morning.) She ended up staying out all night, getting back right as I was packing my things to leave, and slept through a solid portion of the winery tour that day.
While on the tour, we met two lady doctors from Cordoba who studied in Buenos Aires; they were in Mendoza for an international conference on diabetes. They were incredibly friendly and nice, and asked for our email addresses to stay in contact with us. I told them about some of the various directions I’m considering taking my life after I finish at Carroll, and they were very enthusiastic about helping me find connections of any type in Argentina. I’m sure that as you’re reading this, Dad, you’re either panicking or fuming, but I feel pretty confident that my future holds some sort of project in Argentina. Senior research project to write an honors thesis with next summer, perhaps? Or working in a public health clinic for a year before going on to a professional program, maybe? Only time will tell….aren’t you excited for me that I’m so interested in broadening my horizons and exploring the world? (I already know the answer to the final question is “No.”) What’s more, I could get any sort of job for a tourist agency while I’m there, since I speak Spanish and English—maybe even at a winery!
Another exciting part of the wineries tour is the fact that we went to a small, familiar-style winery (“Cavas de Don Arturo”) that only sells bottles directly in their bodega and on the international export market. I bought a bottle of Malbec and another of Cabernet Sauvignon for 9 dollars total. Why is that special, you ask? Well, my friend, each of those bottles is in the $90 + range in the US!! Ohh yeah.
And that’s pretty much that…Katie wanted to stay and shop one more day but I had class this morning, so I went to the bus station to head home. Getting tickets to Mendoza is a breeze, so I wasn’t too worried about getting back to Santiago, but unfortunately all of the trips until 10:30 that night were booked up. Crap. Once again the fact that I speak Spanish was crucial in being able to get everything worked out (and I hate to say it, but unfortunately in these machismo countries the fact that I was wearing a skirt might have had something to do with it, as well); I explained to a bus driver my situation and they ended up finding me a seat, even though it was the middle front bench seat in a mini-bus/van type thing, so I made it back to Santiago last night.
You may remember from earlier in this post that I had wanted to skip a week of classes and go to Buenos Aires for several days, but had to come back for a bio quiz. Well, have no fear, dear reader, because I wasn’t about to give up on that idea. I’m back in Santiago right now, yes, but at 8:30 tomorrow morning I’ve got a flight to Buenos, where I’ll be until Sunday. Don’t worry; I didn’t pay too much for my plane tickets, in case you were wondering. GOL Airlines, a Brazilian company, has incredibly cheap tickets that I just had to take advantage of. Why would any particular Brazilian airline have insanely cheap tickets right now? Just take my advice and don’t think about it too much-you’re probably happier without the answer.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Chiloe and Puerto Montt
Oops…I’m terrible about keeping things updated here…I hope no one minds.
The weekend before last, KellyAnne and I went down south, to Puerto Montt and Chiloé. We didn’t have school on Monday the 9th because it was Columbus Day (Día de la Raza, here), and we never have class on Friday, so we jumped on a bus (for 14 lovely hours) and headed south. Puerto Montt is basically the biggest and most important city south of Santiago, as far as I can tell, and Chiloé is a relatively large island right next to the mainland.
We spent the first three days of our trip traveling around Chiloé and seeing the sites, which basically are the exact same as the sites on the Oregon coast. The only difference is that the hills and mountains are a bit more impressive, because the entire area was created by volcanic activity and as a result of that there are deep valleys and great big cliffs. The island itself is known for having a distinct culture as compared to the rest of the country, although I sort of feel like presently it serves more for tourist value than anything else. The island is also famous for its giant wooden Catholic churches, most of which are several hundred years old. Apparently in the 1700’s a delegation of priests sent from Spain had the job of making a boat trip around the island every year (lasting most of the year), stopping regularly to perform masses in the towns along the coast. We met some very nice and interesting people, and had a great time even though there was rain or at least overcast conditions most of the days we were there.
The last day we spent down south, Monday, we returned to Puerto Montt, where we had previously met a lady who owns a tour company at the bus station. We’re not exactly sure why, but she offered to let us join in on one of her tours leaving that day for half price, which was only $10 per person. Usually we sort of shun tours, thinking we can it all by ourselves thank you very much, but all of the places her tour went were rather spread out and difficult to get to, as well as being high on the list of areas around Puerto Montt we wanted to see.
This particular area is right in the heart of the “lake region,” and we got to take a tour around the largest of the 7 lakes, Lago Llanquihue, as well as driving up to the top of a volcano on the edge of the lake, Mount Osorno. Additionally, we got to drive up the River Petrohue to Lago Todos Los Santos, an absolutely breathtaking national park on the border with Argentina and right at the base of the Cordilleras. There, we took a boat ride across the lake to a cabin, where we were served a lunch of fresh caught trout from the river and enjoyed an incredibly view of the lake and volcano. (I actually bought a postcard here in Santiago that has a picture on in which couldn’t possibly have been taken from any place other than where we were eating.) After that, we drove back down the river, got out at an amazing set of waterfalls created by ancient lava flows, and then headed back to town. It was an entire day’s worth of touring, from 11 in the morning to 8 at night, for only $10!
After that, we jumped back on a bus and rode another 14 hours back to Santiago, arriving downtown around 9:30 am on Tuesday. Lucky for me, I happened to have a class starting at quarter to noon, so I had to hurry home, take a quick shower and walk a half an hour to the university campus. It was a long day, to say the least!
Anyhow, that’s the quick version of our trip, because I’m too lazy to write out all of the details, but luckily I now have an easy method of sharing pictures so I’ll try and get a few of the good ones up right away.
The weekend before last, KellyAnne and I went down south, to Puerto Montt and Chiloé. We didn’t have school on Monday the 9th because it was Columbus Day (Día de la Raza, here), and we never have class on Friday, so we jumped on a bus (for 14 lovely hours) and headed south. Puerto Montt is basically the biggest and most important city south of Santiago, as far as I can tell, and Chiloé is a relatively large island right next to the mainland.
We spent the first three days of our trip traveling around Chiloé and seeing the sites, which basically are the exact same as the sites on the Oregon coast. The only difference is that the hills and mountains are a bit more impressive, because the entire area was created by volcanic activity and as a result of that there are deep valleys and great big cliffs. The island itself is known for having a distinct culture as compared to the rest of the country, although I sort of feel like presently it serves more for tourist value than anything else. The island is also famous for its giant wooden Catholic churches, most of which are several hundred years old. Apparently in the 1700’s a delegation of priests sent from Spain had the job of making a boat trip around the island every year (lasting most of the year), stopping regularly to perform masses in the towns along the coast. We met some very nice and interesting people, and had a great time even though there was rain or at least overcast conditions most of the days we were there.
The last day we spent down south, Monday, we returned to Puerto Montt, where we had previously met a lady who owns a tour company at the bus station. We’re not exactly sure why, but she offered to let us join in on one of her tours leaving that day for half price, which was only $10 per person. Usually we sort of shun tours, thinking we can it all by ourselves thank you very much, but all of the places her tour went were rather spread out and difficult to get to, as well as being high on the list of areas around Puerto Montt we wanted to see.
This particular area is right in the heart of the “lake region,” and we got to take a tour around the largest of the 7 lakes, Lago Llanquihue, as well as driving up to the top of a volcano on the edge of the lake, Mount Osorno. Additionally, we got to drive up the River Petrohue to Lago Todos Los Santos, an absolutely breathtaking national park on the border with Argentina and right at the base of the Cordilleras. There, we took a boat ride across the lake to a cabin, where we were served a lunch of fresh caught trout from the river and enjoyed an incredibly view of the lake and volcano. (I actually bought a postcard here in Santiago that has a picture on in which couldn’t possibly have been taken from any place other than where we were eating.) After that, we drove back down the river, got out at an amazing set of waterfalls created by ancient lava flows, and then headed back to town. It was an entire day’s worth of touring, from 11 in the morning to 8 at night, for only $10!
After that, we jumped back on a bus and rode another 14 hours back to Santiago, arriving downtown around 9:30 am on Tuesday. Lucky for me, I happened to have a class starting at quarter to noon, so I had to hurry home, take a quick shower and walk a half an hour to the university campus. It was a long day, to say the least!
Anyhow, that’s the quick version of our trip, because I’m too lazy to write out all of the details, but luckily I now have an easy method of sharing pictures so I’ll try and get a few of the good ones up right away.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Amnesty International
Yesterday I did something kind of cool--I have a friend (she lives in the same residencial as KellyAnne) who's from France. Apparently in the program they have at her university, all of the students have to spend their 3rd year in externships, and she chose to come here and work for Amnesty International. Apparently Amnesty International has an worldwide campaign (get it...they're international) that's been going on for a while (I remember hearing about it at school last year) petitioning the UN to change arms trafficking laws. Apparently they'll be a UN meeting in a few weeks, and this is supposed to be one of the issues on the table.
Melanie (this friend) organized a demonstration to gather petition signatures, that will eventually be presented to the UN, in the incredibly busy centro yesterday. Apparently every minute worldwide someone dies from a firearm, and she had four people lying in bodybag type things with labels on them explaining this, and some giant posters, and then we handed out pamphlets and gathered signatures. I wasn't orginially supposed to be a part of the project, I just kind of showed up because I happened to be at her house when the other people (the ones who layed in the body bags) were heading out toward the centro, and they invited me to come along.
However, with all of her previously organized volunteers in bodybags and another Amnesty worker who failed to show up, Melanie needed help gathering signatures. I spent the afternoon explaining the cause to people, handing out informational flyers and asking them to sign our petition. It's a little bit silly, really, that with just a few seconds of prep by Melanie I commenced acting like I knew exactly what the whole issue was about when talking with people, but I guess that's what a bit of extemp/debate background does for a person. (Makes them a great bluffer? Is that a good thing?)
It was pretty fun, and it forced me to speak Spanish to strangers, which is good for me. I was surprised at how much attention our demonstration attracted; people are always doing demonstrations of some sort in that general area of town. As a matter of fact, exactly opposite us on the other side of the street was a group trying to get people to adopt homeless pets, and they even had puppies to play with and everything, but we still had a much huger crowd. It kind of surprises me that anyone still stops and pays attention! I guess the "corpses" in body bags were a pretty important touch; people thought they were really dead!
Anyway, it was pretty fun, and then they invited us to go do some more Amnesty stuff today, which we did...however, it's 2 in the morning and I'm tired from everything I did today so you'll have to just wait until I write about it tomorrow or something. Tough luck for you.
Melanie (this friend) organized a demonstration to gather petition signatures, that will eventually be presented to the UN, in the incredibly busy centro yesterday. Apparently every minute worldwide someone dies from a firearm, and she had four people lying in bodybag type things with labels on them explaining this, and some giant posters, and then we handed out pamphlets and gathered signatures. I wasn't orginially supposed to be a part of the project, I just kind of showed up because I happened to be at her house when the other people (the ones who layed in the body bags) were heading out toward the centro, and they invited me to come along.
However, with all of her previously organized volunteers in bodybags and another Amnesty worker who failed to show up, Melanie needed help gathering signatures. I spent the afternoon explaining the cause to people, handing out informational flyers and asking them to sign our petition. It's a little bit silly, really, that with just a few seconds of prep by Melanie I commenced acting like I knew exactly what the whole issue was about when talking with people, but I guess that's what a bit of extemp/debate background does for a person. (Makes them a great bluffer? Is that a good thing?)
It was pretty fun, and it forced me to speak Spanish to strangers, which is good for me. I was surprised at how much attention our demonstration attracted; people are always doing demonstrations of some sort in that general area of town. As a matter of fact, exactly opposite us on the other side of the street was a group trying to get people to adopt homeless pets, and they even had puppies to play with and everything, but we still had a much huger crowd. It kind of surprises me that anyone still stops and pays attention! I guess the "corpses" in body bags were a pretty important touch; people thought they were really dead!
Anyway, it was pretty fun, and then they invited us to go do some more Amnesty stuff today, which we did...however, it's 2 in the morning and I'm tired from everything I did today so you'll have to just wait until I write about it tomorrow or something. Tough luck for you.
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