30 Agosto 2011- yes I know I'm behind the times as this entry is from last Thursday to yesterday...
Gettin’ Classy
So- finally- we have a solution to this whole ‘national strike’ thing that has been making things inconvenient for us. Okay, maybe that’s the understatement of the year. But really, we do have a solution, well… kinda.
Let me rewind for a hot second: Last week, we had a meeting and were presented with the rather traumatizing news that classes may not start until middle of October- earliest. Maybe not even November or December. Or ever. These words echoed as our exchange student coordinator slung them around. What. not possible. A semester just can’t up and be cancelled. Okay candid camera? Punk’d? Something? I know this is a joke. Well not so much. So the following day, with the exception of a very successful cookie baking operation, was pretty much organized chaos- sans the organized part. We were in a frenzy. Skyping our exchange coordinator from the States, discussing our options for transferring to other programs, and just whining all day about how much this sucks. In short, we were pretty much convinced that we would be on a plane out of Chile within a couple of days, and our final destination? Anywhere from Ecuador to Scotland, from Costa Rica to England…we really didn’t know. Just as we thought our little happy worlds were about to implode due to a serious case of reality, the vice chancellor of academic affairs came to the rescue! We had a meeting with all of the other exchange students and he informed us that the university would be creating special exchange student classes to, well, pretty much save us from panic attacks and aneurisms. So now, we are conveniently (within one day’s time) presented with 10 class options of which to choose from. And I can breathe again…it’s a miracle. We really have been dodging, not just some bullets, but some serious kind of enemy fire since we’ve been down here. And I can attribute to nothing but luck. I don’t know how we pulled it off, because to be honest- for those of you who know me- I’ve always got some kind of drama I can’t control going on. And I really expected this to be it for this semester…looks like I have some type of unforeseen drama in store for me after all. Yay.
This is what really amazes me though guys, 10 classes in lit-er-ally 24 hours. Student ID cards? Nowhere to be found. Truly an incredible feat.
So with our drama being, well, for the most part sorted out. Let me correct myself…with the understanding that we could not physical make any more progress on this issue over the weekend…yes that’s far more appropriate. We picked up our packs and headed to Pucon: outdoor adventure destination of the south.
And so we arrived in Pucon about mid-day, arrived at our cozy hostel, and started to brainstorm possibilities for the day since many of the tours had already began or since been completed. I asked the young girl managing the hostel what we could do, and she looked up at me and said “drink?”. At least we know what else there is to do in Pucon. Instead of a mid-day doozy we upped and headed to the lake and then the various artesanias throughout the city. Meanwhile, me lecturing the girls about how its ridiculous that they haven’t had a pisco sour yet! It’s the national drink of Chile for Pete’s sake! And if it’s not the national drink of Chile, it most certainly is the national drink of Rodolfo. HAHA. I finally got them to cave and so that night we headed out very early- being around 11pm- to a local bar and ordered a round of pisco sours, only to discover that we were getting a drink special because it was still happy hour. Good God. What is this place? How is 11pm happy hour? But hey, we will take what we can get when it comes to good deals! After the piscos and some serious laughing at how much Erin doesn’t like sour things- thus making this drink a borderline form of cruel and unusual punishment- we headed back to the hostel.
We awoke the next morning to the startling…aka not so very startling…discovery that our canopy tour reservations had been cancelled due to the weather. My thought process: this is always what the weather is like…are we expecting sunny with highs in the 80s anytime soon? No…so why even allow people to make reservations? Just another bone I have to pick with this whole Latin American efficiency thing…Instead we decided to do a simple day hike to a nearby waterfall that the group of Americans who was staying with us in the hostel had recommended. We hopped in a collectivo, told the driver exactly where we wanted to go. He dropped us off and said to walk 1km and we would find the trail head. Perfect. More than 2.5km later…no trail to be found. Dear LORD I could punch someone. Not having enough time to continue our search for the elusive falls, we headed back into town. Turns out the collectivo driver had not the slightest idea where we wanted to go and had pretty much dropped us off on the opposite side of town and said “deuces suckaahs”. How lovely. My frustration with another half-day lost was soon under wraps following a filling dinner.
Sidenote: Throughout this trip I was listing off my golden rules to Katherine and Erin. Things that I typically live by and phrases that I am often found repeating. I just thought of a few more so I thought I would list them:
- 1. A nappy Kelly is a happy Kelly. Aka: if I have a nap I’m good to go
- 2. Things are only awkward when you make them awkward.
- 3. If you aren’t living life on the edge, you are taking up too much room.
- 4. Tough things only happen to tough people.
- 5. Give a Kelly a snack (preferably a Snickers) and she may not strangle you today.
I’m sure there are many many more so if you would like to contribute to the list, please feel free to do so.
Retains train of thought: That night, we headed to the geothermal goodness of hot springs. Dee-light-ful. Although at first glance one may have taken the screaming girl in the bikini running towards the pool to be quite…distraught, the reality is she was quite content. After a couple hours and several prune-like extremities later, we headed back to the hostel with plans of waking up early to try the waterfall again.
The relative word here being ‘early’. It appears as though we slept through the alarm, and not only that, I spent an extra cozy night with the hostel’s resident black lab cuddled up by my feet. Do I miss my Brandi? Yes, admittedly, probably more so than I miss most people. I skype with my dog more than my brother. Okay. That’s it, I confessed. Don’t judge me. So instead of braving the elements (oh yeah another sidenote- our trek up the volcano had been cancelled due to inclement weather…surprise! Yeah, not so much), which included a rather beastly hail storm, we stayed in and read and played chess and watched a movie. With the majority of our plans for this weekend being shot down, only one not so very appealing option remained for this Florida girl. For those of you who know me well enough, we can pretty much already establish how whiney I get when I’m cold. And that’s when we decided we would go white water rafting. And admittedly, it was a decision I championed, but inside I was making that whiney sound that my dear friend Steph Horvath is pro at… “waahhh”. Haha. (love you steph!!)
And so a couple hours later we find ourselves in a sardine packed van with fellow adventuristas who had no other option for the weekend. Let’s be real- who would willingly go rafting, in the winter, in the South of Chile, in 40 degree air temp and by all lengths of the imagination…some kind of freezing water temps. Honestly? Who does that? We do that. Yep. So we arrived at the river bank, were tossed some wet suits- which was actually funny in a not funny kind of way because they were actually WET. Super. I want to put this on SO bad right now. Chyeah. No. After I very dramatically slipped on the less than figure flattering wet suit, I also dawned a far too thin splash jacket and purposeless shorts, along with a pretty darn sexy helmet. We were all kinds of style to say the least.
Cue safety presentation. Hi I’m Kelly and I’ll be the assistant today. I should have realized this would happen because I am always ‘that girl’, the one that gets called on to ‘volunteer’ without actually VOLUNTEERING. So, in rather broken English, the river guide explains the safety information and how to float should we fall out of the raft. Seriously good stuff. He then points directly at me and asks for my name, to which I reply “um…I’m the girl that is NOT going to fall out of the raft”. Attempt at humor? Some things get lost in translation I suppose…So he asks me again for my name to which I finally answer “Kelly…” Your dear Kelly was then dragged into the presentation, asked to be the drowing/floating/river victim and the life-like prop for how to execute a proper entrance back on the raft following said disaster. The guide tells me to grab the rope on the side of the raft. Then he turns to the attentive audience and instructs them how to pull the damsel back into the boat. He says “You NO grab by hel-mat!”…YANKS my helmet… “You NO grab by nose!”….STEALS MY NOSE…. “You grab by life yah-ket. Shoulders. Like dis”…ABSOLUTELY YANKS me into the raft and it really appeared as though I was going to clear the other side for a second. I stand up. Rather flustered…and glance down to see that my stylish splash shorts had fallen down…to which the guide questioned “OH nooo. Wha happened bay-bee??” oh dear. This was going to be a fun ride.
So we split up into groups of five and we rallied around the raft. Our guide, Teo, asked how many of us have not rafted before. My hand shot up, only to discover that I was the only one. So Teo pointed straight at me and said “Okay you…here.” Front right. I thought nothing of this until AFTER I was demolished by the rapids, bouncing across the raft on several occasions, flying through the air so often that my paddle was barely able to reach the water, side swiped and pretty much knocked senseless by the frigid winter river water. Splash zone? Maybe. White water rafting v-card taken? Oh. Absolutely. And the funny thing is that I would do it again in a heartbeat.
We returned home on Monday night and I was still pretty chilled to the bone, I mean, it had even hailed on us while we were on the river. Once I had restored feeling to my fingers and regained the sensation in my toes, I cuddled up in bed and slept well.
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