Trip to the South

Lo siento [I'm sorry] that it has taken me over a week to post about my trip! It has been a busy, busy week- I had two papers due and a full week of service learning. I haven't been back in my normal routine for what seems like a long time! This week we have another History of Chile lecture in Valparaiso, which I am very excited for! We will be going to La Sebastiana, Pablo Neruda's home in Valpo- finally! I will be paying very good attention to where we go, because my Dad's trip to Chile is coming up! This is my last full month in Chile, I cannot believe how fast time has flown!



So about my trip to the South- it was many, many hours on a bus, but we got to see a LOT of Chile! I don't have photos of everything we did, but the highlights are below. [Sorry if the map is small, you can click to enlarge it]

Saturday, our bus leaves from Vina at 8pm.

Sunday, 11am, we arrive in Puerto Montt. This is the port town to get to Chiloe, so we stopped here for lunch. We had some delicious mariscos (shellfish) and scoped out the artesanias. This area is known for the llama and alpaca wool- it is everywhere! Gloves, sweaters, jackets, hats- you name it. Then we got on the ferry to Chiloe and got our first taste of the Chilote countryside. We decided that it felt like Ireland- so green, hilly and rainy!


This is a view of Chiloe, from our first stop there. We went to an agrotourism farm, where half of our group ended up staying. As a group, they made us a traditional meal of curanto. Curanto is meat, shellfish, potatoes and balls of dough cooked in the ground. According to wikipedia, "It is traditionally prepared in a hole, about 1.5 meters, which is dug into the ground. The bottom is covered with stones, heated in a bonfire until red." There was a small band that played music for us as well, people danced and it very entertaining! After the meal, a group of about 10 girls and I went to our sleeping quarters for the next two nights, another agrotourism site. We were the lucky group and our place was much newer, nicer and had really warm bedrooms, which after our long, wet days was quite nice.

Monday, we went to the Parque Nacional Chiloe and made a few stops along the way. Above, we stopped to marvel at the homes on stilts, called palafitos. And below is a very old church. On all walls of the church were small, colorful places to worship. I think that this is very intersting and I'm not sure if this is a typical style of Latin American churches or simply in Chiloe. I'm taking Theology in Latin America next semester, so I will find out!

These are some photos from the national park. Instead of Ireland, I felt as though I was in the Amazon jungle! It was so green and just gorgeous! This was my highlight of Chiloe. After our time in the park, we went to Castro, the capital of the island. Here we all indulged ourselves in some llama-ness. I bought myself a pair of mittens and a hat, which I used throughout the whole trip, because it was generally cold throughout our time. After that, our group parted ways again, and we returned to a delicious, hot meal at our farm! I had merluza, which I just found out is hake, a white fish. Mmm! Did I mention that the best part of the farm was our breakfasts? We had great home-made cheese, whole milk, freshly baked breads and marmelades. YUM. I really enjoyed the agrotourism thing, I wish we could have stayed there longer.

The girls on our farm! And the incredible view from it.

Tuesday, we left Chiloe, crossed on the ferry and drove to Puerto Varas. Pto. Varas reminded me of a cute mountain town- it had a breathtaking view of a volcanoe over a huge lake. We lunched there and then moved onto two more incredible places!

This is incredible place number 1: the cascada [waterfall]. Look at the color of the water! There was also a great view of the mountains.

This is just one view from incredible place number two. We went on a boat tour on the lake and got to spend some time on the beach after. Those mountains are technically in Argentina, if this gives you a reference point as to where we were. After this, we returned to Pto. Montt to stay in a hotel for the night.






Wednesday, we drove a few hours to Valdivia, an important town because of the role it played in the Spanish inquisition. We got lunch in the main area and then headed to the Kunstmann cervezeria. This is a German beer that is very popular here in Chile. Valdivia is known for its German influence. We ran into some German travelers later that day and they said that that the beer and food was the closest thing to real German cuisine in their 3 months in Chile. We toured the factory and then got to sample it. I've decided that I really don't love beer! Even if it is higher quality, it's not my favorite.

After the Kunstmann factory, we went to a Spanish fort and then another historical museum. It was pouring rain that day, so none of us were in great spirits to be herded around in our group of 30. Having tours of these kinds of places are quite hard in our big group, no one can hear everything, nor is everyone interested in what the guide is saying. Oh the joys of traveling in huge groups! After these, we drove a couple more hours to Villarica- a town outside of Pucon. Pucon is a touristy area because it has a fantastic location- with a huge volcanoe and lake. The sporty-types come here to ski in the winter and partake in hiking and water sports during the summer. Unfortunately for us, it was still raining and all activities (including trekking up the volcanoe and ziplining) were cancelled. This was quite a disappointment, but it was no one's fault but Mother Earth.

Thursday, we were able to sleep in for the first time. We stayed in private cabins, with 4-5 people in each cabin. It was so much fun to have our own spaces for our first time in Chile! We had a small kitchen and living room in each cabin. Then about half of our group opted to go to some thermal hot springs to get out and away. We drove there, and enjoyed the hot springs very much! It was still raining very hard, but the sensation of the cool rain drops and the warm springs was unbeatable. Also, there was a wire bridge that we found, so of course, we walked across! I did something very similar when I went to Belize, so I was excited to find another rickety bridge to cross in a foreign country! :) After the hot springs, we stopped in Pucon for dinner and had the most delicious, warm meal ever! Hot food had never tasted so good.

Friday, we spent the majority of the day on the bus, driving north towards Vina. Our stop for the day was in a small town outside of Concepcion called Lota. Lota had a famous carbon mine that was open until 1997 and made a large footprint on the economy in the past. Chile has a rich mining history, from success in nitrate in the late 1800s to copper and carbon in the 20th century. On the way to the mine, we watched a Chilean film called Sub Terra, which is based on a historical fiction story. The conditions in the mining town were awful. We learned more about the mine once we arrived. We geared up for our drop into the mine, helmets with a flashlight were definitely necessary.

We spent a few more hours in the bus after this and stayed the night in Linares. Linares has absolutely nothing in it, so it was a boring night!

Saturday, we awoke and yes, you can guess it, more hours on the bus! We drove through a wine region with great views of the mountain range. We arrived in Santa Cruz and spent a couple hours at a really interesting museum! I don't remember the name, but it is the largest, privately-owned museum in South America. It was huge! With exhibits on Latin American history, automobiles, dinosaurs, etc. None of us were too thrilled to be going to another museum, but without a tour guide, it was a great experience to meander around. We got lunch after that and then drove back to Vina! It was about 6 more hours to Vina, and we were very ready to be away from a bus for a LONG time!

La Roja

"Chi Chi Chi Le Le Le- Viva Chile!"

"Vamos, Vamos Chilenos! Esta noche, tenemos que ganar"

Last night my CSB/SJU group went to the Chile v Ecuador game at the Estadio Monumental in Santiago! Chile qualified for the World Cup last Saturday, so this game was not crucial to win, though still very exciting to be there! I'm hoping for a Chile v USA World Cup final, so we will have to find out next summer. Chile does not play until June of 2010, and we got to see them in action!

The sides of our jerseys say 'Sudafrica 2010'

The national team is nicknamed La Roja [the Red]

Chile wins!! 1-0! I loved seeing the torches!

Argentina

Hola a todos! We had Monday off of school due to a holiday in Chile, so a group of 7 other girls and I decided to head to Mendoza, Argentina for the weekend! Mendoza is about a 6 hour ride from Santiago, not including stopping at customs at the border.

We left Thursday evening, bussed there overnight and arrive at about 5am Friday morning. After locating an ATM, we caught a taxi and went to our hostel to sleep a bit more. Then later that morning, we got some breakfast from a nearby supermercado and made our plans for the day. We went on a biking tour of the vineyards in a nearby town called Maipu. The climate in Mendoza reminded me a lot of Colorado in the summer- hot, dry and elevated! So we got our bikes and chose a vineyard to go tour!

I took this photo along the way! Does it remind you of the Sound of Music? Because I felt like there should be children swinging from the trees in their curtain-clothes!

This photo is from a bodega called Carinae. We got to try many different kinds of wines, my favorite was the Malbec. I really like red wine, I've decided!

The photo on the left was from our next stop, another winery+restaurant. It was such a cute restaurant and we had a coupon for free wine with purchase of an entree. I had a great quiche, which tasted good after my bike ride. The food I had in Argentina was all fantastic, and a lot of it was suprisingly different than Chile's food. It is quite obvious that Argentina has a European influence, particularly from the Italians.

Our next stop was a fabrica de dulces- 'sweet factory'. We paid 10 Argentinian pesos, which is about $3 and got to try different chocolates, mermelades and liquers. I bought some pumpkin and cinnamon mermalade for my Chilean family and it is so great. I wanted to bring back chocolate too, but I knew it would be gone in a heartbeat. This was definitely the cherry on top of our day!

We ended our bike tour around 5 pm and then had to figure out how to get back from Maipu. Taxis are easy to catch in Mendoza, but apparently not the rural towns! We walked for about 20 minutes along the main road and not a single taxi went by us. Upon leaving the bike place, the lady in charge asked us if we wanted change for the bus ride back. We thought that wasn't necessary, as we'd take a taxi, but boy- we should have listened to her! We asked a few different people about calling for a taxi, and then decided the public bus would be the best way to get back- but you have to have coins to pay for the fare. And coins, or monedas, are NOT easy to come by in Argentina. They are very stingy about giving you change, it is bizarre. So finally we stopped at this restaurant, seeing if we could get some change and a bunch of people offered us their money [it didn't hurt that we had some blondes girls with us, the Latino men just love the blonde girls here!] It was nice of them and a much-needed surprise, because at that point we were worried about how to get home! Traveling in a foreign country in a foreign language always proves to be interesting.

On Saturday, our group split up for the day! Three of my friends went skydiving, while the rest of us went rafting on the Mendoza River! It was about $30US for transportation from Mendoza (about 1 hr each way), the gear and rafting! This is one plus to studying in South America in general, prices are cheap! We had a great time rafting! Our guide was from Iceland- pronouncing water 'vater' and what not! He had arrived in Mendoza only two days before us, fresh in from Japan. This guy is truly a world traveler- he was very interesting to talk to. While rafting, we saw a dead alpaca body decomposing--it was so gross and cool! After we finished, we ate at the restaurant located where our rafting was and enjoyed the beautiful scenery for while.

That evening, we went to Plaza Independencia- a huge park in the city that has a lot of really cool artesanias and cute cafes. A lot of the artesanias had very different things than the ones I've seen in Chile! Argentina is known for it's good meat, and thus also leather! There was a lot of leather and neat gourds to drink mate out of. Mate [ma-tay] is a South American tea, the national drink of Argentina! I didn't get to try any, but you see a lot of people drinking it out of these elaborate straws. One time in Chile I saw my friend Beth's [Chilean] dad drinking mate out of the gourd and I thought he was taking an illegal drug, or something! Fortunately it was only tea! :) After the Plaza, we went out to a bar and then a local discoteche, to check out the Mendoza night life! We tried the local cerveza, Andes, and I thought it was pretty good (though I think I like wine more!)

Plaza Independencia (in the daytime) is below

Sunday was our day to explore the town of Mendoza! One thing we forgot was that almost everything is closed on Sunday! Chile does not uphold this custom quite as much, so that was poor planning on our part. We were able to see some of the other nice parks in the area, and ended up returning to Plaza Independencia to make some purchases and enjoy the nice weather! I bought a cool turquoise bracelet that I am excited about! It was about 30 pesos, less than $10! On a side note, as you might notice in the photo, one aspect to Argentina that I absolutely love is that there are no stray dogs in the streets! In Chile, they are everywhere you look and they are often sick, limping, blind and just gross! I did not see one in Mendoza, and that was so nice!

That evening we packed up our stuff and then went out to eat at this fantastic Mexican restaurant! We Americans had all been craving chips and salsa like none other and this place just hit the spot. Sarah, a friend of mine, mentioned that she is turning 21 soon to one of us, and the restaurant surprised us with free margaritas! That was really fun, a good way to end our time in Argentina!

And then on our way back was the fateful 13 hour ride back. Was it supposed to take 13 hours? Absolutely not! Our bus was stopped for a protest about 90 mins outside of Mendoza for awhile and then once we arrived at the border, we were stuck in the bus for about 4 more hours. It was terrible! It was a holiday weekend, so there were a lot of people trying to get through. Also, getting into Chile is much harder than getting into Argentina, because Chile is very stingy on what they let into the country. A friend bought a wall hanging that had un-torched wood on it, and they cut the wood off her piece of art!

The bright side of the day was the gorgeous scenery through the Andes mountains, as you can see below! Overall, I am very glad that I had the opportunity to go to Argentina. It was such a fun weekend and I had a fantastic time with the girls!