I'm a survivor (what) de los andes (que?): How Beyonce has it all wrong.

(NOTICE: This post is actually for yesterday...yep, already falling behind)

The single most important piece of information about Valdivia was disclosed to me today: Hay lobos del mar en el rio. Let me say this again: LOBOS DEL MAR. what are lobos del mar you may ask? Well let’s break it down…lobos, well that definitely means wolves (yeaaah reppin’ the pack in the southern hemisphere wut up!) and del mar means ‘of the sea’. This must mean one thing and one thing only: SEA WOLVES. Woah. Mind blown? I think yes. Please reference Figure B below to fully understand the animal that is…the sea wolf.

Figure A: Not a Sea Wolf.

Figure B: Actual Sea Wolf

SEA LIONS. And bigguns at that. I am officially making a trip to go see them.

In other news, I woke up this morning, and made myself a delicious breakfast of homemade bread and homemade rose hip marmalade (Marisol’s specialty). Marisol works in quality control at a flour factory ( I think… she told me that she works with, ahem, well let me just replay the conversation for ya: “Trabajo en control de calidad en una fabrica para…oh en ingles es la misma de flores!! Entiendes Kelly??” Then I said “flores? Como flowers…?” and she said “si si si!! Y por esto, tenemos pan!” this followed by a wave of my understanding “ahhhhh flour. Got it.”) Anyways, Marisol comes home with bread she makes at work almost every day, and its quite sabroso. Following my breakfast and cup of instant coffee (ground coffee or “café para los gringos” is very expensive here so its only made on special occasions) Rodolfo told me that he had to go downtown for some business and to pick Valentina up from school and he asked if I would like to go. Let me check my schedule…ah, yes I can squeeze in a trip downtown I believe…um anytime. Yep. Let me just clear out my calendar til September, oh wait, its already clear. Perfect. 

So we head downtown, Rodolfo maneuvering his clown car of a Suburu through the Valdivia city streets in such a manner that I found myself with a death grip on the “oh s***”  handle above the passenger seat. (Sidenote: Josh, if you EVER say ANYTHING about my driving again, put yourself in a stick shift clown car smack dab in the middle of downtown Valdivia and THEN we can talk.) I’m starting to gather that protesting is a rather popular phenomenon in Chile, because no sooner did we reach downtown than did Rodolfo sigh almost exasperated and mumble “Los taxistas…” to which I realized that all of the taxi drivers in the city were protesting! And apparently, not for the first time. Their cause: gas prices, but more specifically the taxes on the gas prices. These are called ‘especificos’ and apparently the taxi drivers aren’t big fans. Mind you, gas here runs around 800 pesos per kilo, the equivalent of $1.50. Yes, that’s correct; there are protests about gas being $1.50. Can you say celebration? That’s what I would be doing if gas was that cheap! Cross country road trip? Well yeah! Gas is only a buck fifty!! Anyways it was actually a rather unbelievable site, the taxis were lined up end to end, forming a complete blockade of the main ‘cuadra’ downtown whilst honking their horns incessently. This not only stopped traffic but required a full force of policemen or ‘carabineros’ to come and DIRECT the traffic, NOT to break up the protest! This was crazy to me, these taxi drivers were causing a serious problem but they were allowed to continue on their route. These Chileans really like their protests, that’s for sure, and no one every really thinks twice about it. 

Well we finally arrived at our destination, a parking area downtown where Rodolfo has a reserved spot. He walked me to a photo shop where I was to have some pictures taken for my school ID and then casually nodded across the street to a large department like sporting goods store, Chile’s version of Dicks or something, and he said “La tienda de mi papa y tio”. OH? So the family owns a very successful sporting goods store. Good to know. Hey if I decide to start playing soccer again, at least now I know where to pick up a pair of “botas”. Rodolfo went to run some business related errands and I wandered around the galleria (a little strip mall type of place) for a bit, until he called me (yep, I am fully equipped with a super sophisticated cell phone now…circa  2000 at best). 

From there, we went to pick up Valentina from school, the Windsor School, which apparently Marisol also attended. Two of Vale’s friends jumped in the car as well and I was exposed to my first taste of Chilean Spanish: teenage girl style. “miramiramiraaaaaaquelindahoyenclasenorecuerdanadadellibroy…..oyyyynoooomedigaasss!!!!quienesssssss????” with a dash of “hola   Kelly   como    esta   usted?” and then more of “enquecarreraestudiasuestudiantedeintercambiovaleeeeee.ellatienepelarubiaaa!creesqueesnatural?verdaddddddd?yaaaamitambienn” Anyways, point made? Good. Rodolfo (who apparently gets quite the kick out of me…) started recounting things I had said earlier that day(in scratchy radio attempted Spanish of course): “Rodolfo, why are the taxistas protesting gas prices by driving around and using gas? Shouldn’t they be walking? Its kind of ironic no?” cue minor laughing fit by Rodolfo. Or “Rodolfo, why are the policemen called carabineros?”

This last question promoted some thoughtful silence until I was received with “ahhh Kelly!! Que buen pregunta!! Buen buen buen pregunta!!” hmmkay? Apparently, back in the day (as in like a couple hundred years ago or something), the policemen used to carry large guns called “carabinos”. So, naturally, when the masses entered the clown car, Rodolfo asks the gaggle o girls if they know why the policemen are called carabineros- this question greeted with a resounding “ahh noo…no se” (I don’t know) or even better “ahh no me importa” (I don’t care). He tells them anyway, and says how proud he is of his ‘american daughter’ for asking such thought provoking questions. Yep that sounds pretty accurate…I’m a super thought provoking type of person. I’m pretty sure I just asked why they weren’t called police…but hey, I’ll take what I can get  I suppose. He also quizzes me along the ride as to where the major landmarks in Valdivia are, which I get mostly right. My retention is received with gleaming pride and a genuine “que buen trabaja mi hija, que buen trabaja”. 

We finally arrive home and enjoy a lunch of Artichokes and some type of ravioli.

During the day I brushed up on a bit of my Chilean history (mainly the essentials, and by this I mean Pinochet) and Rodolfo, being the history buff that he is (he’s actually a buff about everything I’m starting to gather…he’s one of thoseee. Haha) told me all about Chile’s independence (critical dates included) the wars and the movies that I will have to watch (also a movie buff, go figure!).

I met up with Katherine and Erin just before dinner to take the ferocious Fritz for a walk. When I tried to explain what kind of dog Fritz was to Marisol I said "como un salchicho" which means "like a hot dog" and then she told me another name for it (which i forgot...I need to start writing this stuff down) I then told her that we call them "weiner dogs" in the states and Marisol said "weiner? como un campion?" (weiner? Like a champion?" confused and then suddenly realizing I said "weiner como...pues como un campion" haha! The way that I said 'weiner' is the same way she says 'winner'. I stopped myself before I could say, no weiner, like a...well...you know ;) We walked down to the park near our homes, Parque de Santa Ines, where Erin fell in love with a big tree, she better be careful, she’s gonna get her heart broken. Ha. 

And then I returned home to a dinner of tuna served on an avocado and some corn on the side. Yum? Yeah dude. Mucho yum.

During dinner Rodolfo played storyteller and told me ALL about los sobrevivientes de los Andes (The Survivors of the Andes). He was shocked that I hadn’t heard the story. Cue hour long in depth description of the trials and tribulations of los sobrevivientes de los Andes. Our dinner table was transformed into a stage where glasses were mountains, a bowl was the caldera, and two pieces of some type of green Chilean pepper were stuck together to represent a plane. Rodolfo began the story by telling me that there was a Rugby team from Uruguay that was bound for Santiago, but that the flight was miscalculated somehow. The pilot ended up flying the plane into the Andes right outside of Santiago. There was a lot of fog and, naturally, the pilot didn’t see the mountains (which I find kind of funny in the first place…Chile’s eastern border is a mountain range, so wouldn’t it just be best to assume that there are mountains…well…everywhere?) Anyways, the plane crashes, and according to Rodolfo, in the world’s most dramatic way possible: First the pilot clips off one of the wings on one mountain (Rodolfo bites off one of the pepper wings) THEN spirally out of control, the plane crashes into a mountain on the other side which knocks off the other wing (NOM goes Rodolfo), THEN the plane is clearly bound for destruction, a torpedo essentially bound to hit a mountain straight on, when all of a sudden, a caldera appears! The plane crash lands, but not before the tail breaks off (NOM goes the tail). So, in all there are 16 survivors- and a search party commences, but for a month or so, no luck. The survivors are not found, despite the fact that they have a radio. This may be due in great part to the fact that it was winter time and many of the roads, and even skies, are impassible. To top it all off- there is an avalanche (told you this was a dramatic story…) and that kills two people. So wait, maybe there are 16 survivors post avalanche. I can’t remember. I’m sure you can google it. ANYWAYS, so there is this doctor/ med student at the time named Canessa and he pretty much says “listen yall I know this sucks but we are out of food so we have to eat the people who died in the avalanche. Cannibalism is still acceptable in some social circles I hear.” So they take a vote and 2 people say “no way jose…well…roberto. (his name was Roberto canessa) This ain’t the Donner party”. And then those two people die. Which is sad, but yanno, the doctor told them they would starve if they didn’t eat their friends. Sucks to have morals I guess. JUST KIDDING. Anyways, so they send out some people who travel for a whole day through the Andean winter, until they reached a river where they saw a rancher guy herding cattle! RESCUE!! But no. (OH the drama) the river is too loud and the rancher can’t hear what they are saying! They can’t cross the river either! So, says Rodolfo, because the rancher was a Chilean, and thereby intelligent, (porque los Chilenos siempre son muy inteligentes) he ties a paper and pen onto a rock and chucks it across the river to the sobrevivientes where they write down who they are and that there are more survivors! So in essence, Chile saves the day, because even though the search had been called off the Chileans saved the los sobrevivientes de los Andes. True story. And apparently I’m going to see the movie soon, so I’ll let you know how that goes. It was an especially gripping story, especially with Rodolfo telling it and Vale was rolling her eyes because I was just encouraging him with my over zealous laughter at the destroyed pepper plane and my occasional gasp and “no. me. Digas. NO ME DIGAS!!” haha, all in good fun.

I read by the fire for a little bit and Telma (mi gatita preciosa- the family cat who is actually named after the gray cat in Garfield...although I was under the impression that the grey kitten in Garfield is actually named Nermal, and that its a boy. But I guess these are just details...) came to sleep on my lap.

Marisol was so taken aback because she said that she has never seen Telma sleep on anyone! And to be friendly with someone that she doesn’t know? Apparently es muy raro. A natural affinity with animals you say? Sure, why not. 

Y con un dia muy satisfecho, yo fui a dormir.