Gambling with Patience

Tuesday was relatively uneventful- just another meeting with the exchange students about the classes we wanted to take. That and a crash course in Chilean history by our Chilean Language and Culture Professor. A lot to take in for one day, but at the very least we were relieved that we would be starting classes and that there were no other foreseeable obstacles preventing this. Whew. Now, Erin attributes this stroke of luck to divine intervention. But to me, the funny thing about divine intervention is that it only seems to happen (for many people, not talking about Erin here just for the record) when they are thankful that things are going right. Erin thanks God for helping us to stay in Valdivia and I totally respect that because she may well be right! But, I’m just curious to know why God was screwing with us in the first place. Will someone ask Him and get back to me. I'd really appreciate it. Geez. For those of you who know me, I'm not a 'woe is me' kind of person. I never play the sympathy card and I'm very much so a realist when it comes to weighing out the positives and negatives of a situation. More pointedly, I'm not asking for a religious debate of any kind. Honestly. Please don't plague me with such things. I have more important things to worry about like Bachmann's influence on society...But, to come to my main point. I honestly think that sometimes, you just get lucky, and the hand of God has nothing to do with it, unless you have a Full house and he has a pair of twos.

Today- I almost blew a gasket. We went to the Student mobility office to pick up our LONG AWAITED student ids to find that these spectacular masterpieces of man…were actually a piece of card stock, folded in half, our name typed on them with a stamp, and a picture glued to the front. WOW really? No wonder they freaking took 4 weeks to make! This was a freaking ARTS AND CRAFTS project for the children in KINDER at the local colegio for CRYING OUT LOUD. Not only this, we were also informed that we had to go to the library to get a barcode which would allow us access to the library and internet. THEN we had to go downtown and get it laminated. I was calm…very calm…UNTIL we got lost in the library. And then I flipped, and I should apologize to Katherine because she was probably a little traumatized. I went off about WHY we had to get the barcode, WHY they didn’t do it for us, WHY our IDs are a piece of CRAP, WHY we are lost in the library because no one even had enough COURTESY to show us where to go, WHY we have to get it laminated, WHY- with the knowledge that a regular student ID card takes 2 months to process- couldn’t we have just gotten one of those, WHY we are going to have to wait ANOTHER day because the man at the library was too darn LAZY to give us the barcodes TODAY, WHY DOES THIS SYSTEM SUCK HAVE THESE PEOPLE EVER HEARD OF EFFICIENCY AHHHHHHHH!!!!!

That being said. We headed downtown. I got a snack (see Kelly’s golden rules…) and I calmed down substantially. We picked up some postcards and grabbed some stamps from the post office and we walked by the lobos and life goes on Kelly life goes on…

I’m obtaining a level of patience living here I think…My no nonsense attitude has had no choice but to sit by the wayside and accept things that I cannot control. But I’ll tell you what. This wayside place- it sucks.

Rant is complete. I’m off to go start my second Jeffrey Archer novel- for a conservative, he writes pretty darn good mystery novels. JUST KIDDING y’all.

chao

Keepin' it Classy...but really, we have some Class...and Pucon

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.

Let’s play catch up: another one of those long entries to compensate for my lack of bloggage attentiveness

Let’s play catch up.

The girls and I took a quick day trip to Niebla. Chile is still on strike. And I went to Pilates class.

So first the Niebla trip. 

Well you see, first the original plan was to go to Curinanco, another small coastal town and then Niebla. However, this plan was shot down when we got to the bus stop and I asked one of the bus drivers when the Curinanco bus was coming. Having missed the first bus, and not wanting to wait, we jumped on the bus to Niebla and saved Curinanco for another day. The bus to Niebla cost us 400 pesos….less than a dollar and it would have been cheaper if we had our student IDs…which we don’t because we aren’t in the system yet…don’t EVEN get me started…Anyways, we hopped off at the last stop, and since the bus had taken a different route than Marisol had I didn’t exactly know for sure where we were. So we pretty much walked in a circle, me periodically asking people for directions, until we arrived at the Fort! 

The fort at Niebla was amazing, much cooler than the one in Ancud in my opinion, due in great part to the fact that there was a museum on the grounds. A small museum, but a museum nonetheless. We spent some time in there reading up on local history: Niebla, Valdivia, the Spanish conquest, the earthquake, etc etc. Until we were finally singled out by the man working the museum. He could tell that we were gringas (I sometimes wish it weren’t that obvious. I swear the next time I get asked ‘do you speak english’ I’m just going to say ‘No, I’m a chilena’ holy smokes…) But this man was sweet and very helpful and he gave us a complete low down of the history of the fort, and other forts like it in the area. I was shocked to find out that three of the other forts were completely destroyed and unable to be restored even in the smallest part due to the earthquake (sidenote: I was really throwing around where I could get some dive gear- how cool would it be to dive the sunken spanish forts??? um. lemme answer that...it would be AWESOME. and equally as awesome would be diving the two huge ships that sunk completely in the river as a result of the earthquake too! Where's my Uncle Billy when I need him? :) ). And this is the part where I get torn: so much history absolutely demolished in one earthquake, one singular seismic event (albeit the largest registered earthquake in the world), but then I think about the power of nature. It makes me start philosophizing a little bit about the balance of power of man and nature and who will eventually come out ‘the victor’ and maybe even what ‘victory’ will be…does it mean ultimate destruction in one way or the other? Either we go or the Earth goes? Ah, maybe I shouldn’t care, I’m not going to be alive long enough to see the end of that fight anyway…and yet of course I care, it’s a debate I’m shaping my life around. Or maybe it’s shaping me. Who really knows for sure? That question I can answer- not me. Anyways, I learned a good amount at the fort, a lot of which my historian of a host dad has already told me, but nonetheless I had a good time walking the grounds snapping photos, and making comments to myself about how ironic forts are, especially these. They were meant to protect the spanish conquests from invasion. Lot of good that did them when that whole 'war for independence' thing popped up.

After the fort, we walked some with plans of walking all the way to Los Molinos. By this time it was well after 2 and Erin and Katherine were pretty much starving children in Africa. With about an hour or so length of pavement ahead of us, I glance back at the girls and thumbs out it is. We are gonna hitch a ride down to the beach if its the last thing I do. Eventually a kind Chilean couple picks us up, the husband works at the university, and they drive us the few minutes down the road to Los Moblinos. After graciously thanking the couple,  so we walk to a little beach side restaurant and order a heaping plate of empanadas, pure (mashed taters but better), and French fries. After a long lunch and a walk along the black sand beach littered with...well...litter, and some kelp, we catch a taxi back to Niebla and then hop on the micro back to Valdivia. Easy squeezy lemon peezy.

So the other exchange student who will be living with my family, Cathy, is officially here all moved in and what not. We took her for a tour of Valdivia the other night and she almost fell asleep in the car! She had a long trip from Santiago that was delayed because of ash from the volcano, so her tiredness was more than warranted. Well, that night we went out to Kuntsmann Brewery for dinner. This ‘cerverseria’ has been around for a longggg time (well not this exact one because the original was destroyed in the earthquake…but you get my point). It has been a family owned business since the 1800s and really shows the German influence in the area. While we were there I got to try a sample of one of each kind of the brews, but they were just so strong and I have got to be honest- beer isn’t really my thing. I’d take a pisco sour over a beer any day of the week. Haha! We had some traditional German food for dinner which consisted of various types of sausage. And lots of it. Stuffed full of good food and the smell of hops and barley in my hair, we head home with Rodolfo and his newly reacquainted Harvard English Professor personality. All in all, a good day.

In other news, we succeeded finally in getting our carnets (woo. bout time. and i didn't even have to yell. The whole process was really frustrating because we were told that our cards would arrive anywhere between the day we applied for them and the 17th. We assumed the process would be simple and efficient. But when you assume...), we also saw our first dubbed movie in theaters (The Green Latern- mind you Erin had a sufficient amount of trouble deciphering the meaning of ‘entrede’ at the ticket counter until I came to the striking realization that the girl at the counter is saying ‘en tres d’ …in 3D….wow. no further comment on this chilean spanish thing.Also. Ryan Reynolds, second only to Hugh in my book, is quite the Minito in this film. and if you want to know what that means...well just go see the movie.). 

After the frustration en masse that we have all experienced with classes and the university, today almost resulted in an aneurism. We went in to talk to the exchange student coordinator who gave us the freaking run-around like always. "Don't worry girls", she says, "enjoy your free time". I ask her when we are having orientation because the last time we talked to her she said there weren't enough students here for orientation her response: "oh I'll send you an email. maybe next week. we will see. It depends. There is this meeting tomorrow and....." trails off. She probably didn't trail off. But I'm tired. I'm tired of the BS. I'm tired of people telling me to wait, and things will work out, I'm tired of pulling at straws. and when I say I'm tired, we ALL know that means I'm ACTUALLY angry. More like pissed beyond belief. Of all people I'm not going to be the one to sit there and drink the darn kool-aid and act like a good little girl while I know they have the power to do something. They can give us contact information for professors, they can give us a course catalog, they could have the DECENCY to give us a freaking TOUR of CAMPUS!!!!!! holy smokes. Let me NOT tried to get worked up again....but really its ridiculous. Erin writes it off as cultural differences, and trust me, I try to understand that. but what this boils down to is pure laziness. We do not have our student ID cards due to the fact that someone is not doing their job. Anyone out there in NC State land want to tell me how long it takes to get a student ID at State? Anyone? I'll tell you...less than one minute. And that's not counting the 5 minute walk to the West Dunn Building....Or better yet, at freshman orientation where you get your ID in 30 seconds in the DINING HALL and then you go and eat your lunch. We submitted our student info the first week we got here, still waiting on those IDs. I'm sure the ID lady must have a LOT to freaking do what with having SO MANY STUDENTS on campus right now....not. there is NOBODY on campus. What else is she doing? That's what I want to know. I'm plum thrilled about this if y'all can't tell. I KNOW we are sitting ducks and I know someone is trying to pull the wool over our eyes, and I'll tell you what, I'll be the last one to stand for that nonsense. And you can hold me to that. 

As you can tell, I am a little bit more than fed up, but luckily right after the meeting with the coordinator (I literally was almost pulling out my hair and had to count to ten before I said anything to anyone...at least I counted in spanish. ha.) we talked with our saving grace: ximena spooner (Rodolfo’s sister). Rodolfo has been encouraging me to get up with her, but I kept heading to her office with no luck, she was nowhere to be found. Bad timing I thought, actually I was just knocking on the wrong door. Of course the office that says "Ximena Spooner" isn't actually her office...gotta love it. Anyways, we talked about the intricacies of the university system: ie: we are not yet officially students, nor registered for classes (not like there are any), the office of movilidad estudiantil has not given us a tour, orientation, or even so much as a one sentence email regarding the state of the university since we arrived…oh I dunno…three weeks ago, oh yeah, and we don't have student IDs! Let’s just say she was a little outraged and that she is on a mission to fix this for us. She is going to make us appointments with the department heads and probably arrange a bunch of other things for us too. Hey Ximena- can you fix the whole ‘nation on strike’ thing too? That’d be great. K thanks pumpkin. But really, maybe she will really be able to help us- we will see. At the very least she told me that she could help me with info about the soccer team here, which is great news considering the fact that I have no Chilean friends to speak of and could really use a change of pace around here…anyways. Patience Kelly patience. 

Moreover, today Marisol invited me to pilates class with her. I was glad to get out of the house so of course I agreed! I threw on some tights and a tshirt and jumped in the car. She drove us to Club Phoenix for her pilates class. There were 5 of us in total, 6 with the instructor in a small work out room with one mirrored wall, abandoned exercise machines, and a wood stove type heater like the one in our house smack dab in the middle of the room- albeit not alight. This pilates class was very different from the ones that I had been to before at the Y or Bally Total Fitness or whatever, I would describe it more along the lines of yoga. There was a lot of stretching, a little abdominal work, but nothing too crazy, and more stretching. Nothing super cardio like I’m used to, but I still enjoyed myself. I kept thinking about mom and me and Willis at those exercise classes back home- the zumbas, the spinning, the falling asleep yoga…and I couldn’t help but smile. Although I wasn’t quite following every movement of the instructor, which Marisol made very clear at the end of the session, she was impressed with how fast I caught on. I just laughed at this and thought, well in my world of Dena fartleks and fitness circuits, you either catch on fast or get screamed at. I wonder if it’s good or bad that I am conditioned this way? Either way I am satisfied with my newly stretched out muscles and may even be encouraged to engage in exercise in the near future. But don’t get your hopes up.

Speaking of which, I really want to go climbing on that wall- maybe tomorrow I’ll go. But those girls haven’t called me back or gotten up with me. One of them is in my exchange student class so maybe I’ll call her out on it. Make her go with me! It would be good to go with someone…Maybe I’ll get R-daddy (that’s what mom calls Rodolfo) to take me, at least the first time. Maybe I’ll make him introduce me to the random boys playing soccer all the time by campus. He prolly doesn’t know them but he always acts like he knows people anyways. Just like mom. And come to think of it, if I wanted to go play soccer with the boys, my mom would walk right up into the middle of the field and stop the game completely and say “listen boys, my girl wants to play, and she will, and she may kick all of your butts- so just be aware” then she would kiss me on the head and say “have fun sweetie” and walk away as I awkwardly stand there waiting for the shock to wear off of the boys’ faces. I love my mom. So much.

It's late, I write too much. and I'm sleepy tired as my Willis says. 

With that, I bid you good night

Chao

Better Late than Never: Chiloe

Here is the better late than never entry about Chiloe:

So we upped and went to Chiloe. We left on Thursday and headed out in the morning for Castro, the capital of this Chilean island. We arrived in Castro with just enough time in the day to do a quick walk through of the city, in the rain of course, as suggested by our guide books. No, its not suggested to do a walk through in the rain…it is suggested to hit up some of the main attractions such as the artesania, the water front, the port and the eye catching fishing boats, in addition to the main plaza and the quintessential church. Naturally, it was pouring so we hurried into the church, Iglesia San Francisco- apparently one of the most striking wooden structures in all of Chile. Great! So we hurry in, failing to take notice of any of the signs outside of the church and we walk right in, me leading the way of course, and plopped down in a pew in one of the last rows. Whew, out of that rain huh guys? I look over to see the church, striking as it is, full of people…both dead and alive. It appears as though we have casually invited ourselves to a funeral service. Oh. Dear. That explains the glares. So with our colorful rain jackets, admittedly not very inconspicuous in a sea of black clothed mourners, we rushed out of the service, stifling our laughs and truthfully our embarrassment. We were those tourists. You know the ones I’m talking about. The ones that have no regard for what’s going on and start snapping photos before they realize…oh… this is a funeral. Woops? We made a quick retreat to the waterfront side of town and checked out the artesania with your basic hand made goods.  The rain sucks, but the cool thing about it is that with rain, comes rainbows. 

Waterfront in Castro

After walking some along the water front, catching a glimpse or two of some palafito type structures, we headed back to the plaza for round two with the church.  Service being over, we entered, albeit cautiously, and it was indeed all it was cracked up to be.  Following this, we felt our tumblies a rumbling so we made a quick stop at our non-heated hostel (yes I could see my breath while inside…freezing? More like frozen petrified Kelly can’t move kind of cold) to ask the recommendation of the woman who ran the place of a cheap and good place to eat. She referred us to the hostel next door where its respective owner cooked us up a delicious meal of salmon filet, choritos, salad, soup, and even threw in a shot of pisco with coffee to help warm us up! This was Erin’s first real alcoholic drink. And I got kick out of it mainly because she doesn’t drink alcohol or coffee…and this was both. What a champ! I’m so proud! Even though she wasn’t exactly thrilled at the prospect. Peer pressure remains the victor yet again, and in her words “ I couldn’t say no to the Mohawk!” ( the hostel guy had a mohawk…hahaaaa). After this dinner, which cost us all of ~$5 USD, we were all pretty beat and headed back up to our icebox of a hostel, caught the end of the Spanish version of Love Actually, and hit the sack.

Get "Happy"!!

We headed out early the next morning to Chiloe National Park. This park was beautiful and I was fully intrigued mainly due to the fact that I had never bore witness to ecosystems such as this. Truly remarkable. Mountains on one side, the pacific ocean on the other and tons of new cool trees, plants, flowers, and cats (cool cats- that would be us…) in between! We headed out to the beach side of the park and I lead an off trail expedition to the ocean, successfully navigating through land mine filled cow pasture and the sporadic body of water. Katherine, the horse whisperer, made a new friend and it started to torrentially down pour the second we reached the coast. Gotta love these Chilean winters. Rainjacket? Check. Rainpaints? Check. Umbrella? Check. It looks like I never change my outfit because I’m always donning my raingear. Style forgone in the name of dryness. Not too surprising. 

Flores de Mechay

Oceano Pacifico: Parque Nacional Chiloe

Katherine the horse whisperer!

I don't know what this is...but it looked cool :)

Flores de Pelu

Sunken boat, Parque Nacional Chiloe

After the national park we, jetted back to the same Castro hostel food guy and enjoyed a delicious home cooked meal of seafood lasagna: salmon, choritos, and a creamy seafood sauce. Heaven in a pasta dish hopped on a bus to Ancud and crashed at a much nicer hostel. While the warm showers and beds were a pleasant change, we were met with the disastrous news in Ancud that the penguins that we had pretty much planned this trip in an effort to see, would not be migrating to the island until September. This is not a joke. Please don’t cry. I was really upset too, but we are going to make it through this together. Aka: I’m going back to Ancud and I will see pinguinos before I leave this country. Nuff said. So instead of heading off on a penguin expedition, the next morning we did a brief walking tour of the small fishing town, checked out the local museum and the Spanish colonial fort. The weather was beautiful  which made me really like Ancud. The weather was super craps in Castro- and that could have a great deal to do with why it’s not my favorite place. 

Anchor chains: Museo de Ancud

Moving on: so from Ancud we hit up the next spot on our list: Puerto Montt. The chef hostel guy warned us that Puerto Montt sucked, and he was right. Oh all knowing hostel chef dude, please forgive us for not adhering to your words of wisdom. So upon walking, briefly, around Puerto Montt and checking out the artesania and closed museum…we decided to pick up another bus ticket to the neighboring Puerto Varas. While a little touristy, Puerto Varas in the winter time was beautiful. A small town feel and yet so many things to do! We touched down at our home base hostel and headed to a great local spot for dinner, and while we may have splurged a little, it was so worth it. The food was great and the dish I ordered was literally called “Salmon in butter”. Good decision? Absolutely. Ice cream topped off the night and we fell asleep in warm beds for the second night in a row. What a relief.

The next morning we woke up, made our own Chilean breakfast- fruit, bread and manjar (dulce de leche), and cheese. We then set off for the town center to see if we couldn’t pick up a tour to the stunning natural areas around the city. The city is in such close proximity to two major volcanoes and borders the second largest lake in all of Chile! After much searching, we couldn’t seem to find any tours on Sunday (due to the fact that life shuts down in Chile on Sunday…)and I claimed that “we may or may not be kicking a dead horse here guys” until, all of a sudden, an opportunity presented itself! We stumbled upon a small tourism office and the woman advised us that only one company does tours in the winter on Sundays and she wasn’t sure if they would be operating today because it was a holiday weekend. With brochure in our hand we rushed to the tour office and much to our surprise there was one, and only one, tour option for the day. A van ride up to Volcan Osorno. It was going to cost us around $30USD, but it would be a 4 hour deal…so we said why not! Before we bought our tour tickets, we found the bus terminal and secured a night return trip to Valdivia. We then hit up the artesania which sported a lot of Lapiz Lazuli jewelry, which if I am correct, is a precious stone that is only found in the Andes. Following this, we had a spectacular lunch at a local café, Danes, and headed back to meet our van tour.

Iglesia Sagrado Corazon de Jesus: Puerto Varas

Lapiz Lazuli: Artesania, Puerto Varas

We eagerly took our places among a couple from Madrid and a family from Brasilia and headed off toward the volcano. We stopped once along the way to take pictures while the tour guide showered us with information about the local area, its development, industries, history, and fun facts about the volcano (one of which was that Teddy Roosevelt encouraged the Chilean government to create a park to protect the volcanos! Go teddy! You da man!). So as we approach the volcano our original thought that we would be just turning around and heading back to the city went out the window. Our van started climbing the switchbacks, bordered with snow banks, until we reached a quaint ski area near the top! Our guide announced that we would have an hour and a half here before heading back.

Cumbre de Volcan Osorno

Me: thrilled to be up close and personal with a volcano (Vocan Calbuco in the background but I'm standing on Volcan Osorno)

Of course, I flipped. Yes, it’s true. I am like a 5 year old when it comes to snow. Florida girl born and raised, I never had much of an opportunity to get sick of snowball fights, sledding, and the like. So my first instinct was to bolt out of the van and begin gallivanting through the untouched powder. And by this I mean, it was untouched because it was 3 feet deep. I sunk right in. and I loved every second of it. We made snow angels, I rolled down the hill like an idiot, and I was happy as Santy Claus. Winter wonderland. On a volcano. In Chile. Let that sink in. It was so much fun and although I was soaking wet and shivering, it was so worth it. And the $30.

Snow bank love <3

Heading back down the volcano

Volcan Osorno, Puerto Varas

A night time bus ride took us from Puerto Varas to Valdivia, where I was thankful to have the next day off. Thank goodness for that Virgin. Or in the words of Erin “Yeah, I’ll take the Virgin”.

La Virgen

Overall- fun trip, but I still wish it were summer time.

In other news: nothing too exciting to report. I had my first Chilean language and culture class and it’s good to have something sound on the schedule every week. Although, there is supposed to be another march tomorrow so I don’t know how very set in stone this class schedule is. Our professor even told us “Also class, if we have another event where there is tear gas has affected campus, which is likely, then we may be meeting downtown somewhere.”

Good to know that location, time, and frequency of class is variable. All things that I’m still growing accustomed to.

Marisol took me for a drive around Niebla, the small little coastal town about 17km outside of Valdiva. The views were breathtaking because the beach is about the opposite of what I’m used to. No white sand, beach volleyball, or surf shops. Instead there are cliffs, black sand, and fresh seafood empanadas. The best part is that Niebla is so close that the Micros go there. This means that it would cost me a little more than a dollar for a round trip ticket to the beach. Gotta love it. I can’t wait for the warm weather so I can go on the weekends. There is also an old colonial fort that I am itching to explore. And by explore I mean do some bouldering. Marisol told me that sometimes people climb the walls of the fort. I assume this to mean top roping because a few of the fort’s walls are natural cliffs…aka they are very tall. At least a pitch. Prolly more. Anyways, our drive was a sunset drive and I got to see the sunset over the Pacific. I didn’t have my camera with me but I did have my flip video camera so I did the best I could with what I had.

In today’s breaking news: Still haven’t gotten our carnets.  I was really close to blowing up at the guy at the Civil Register place the last time we went. We are going tomorrow, so hopefully they are there. If not, I’m going to yell in English until I get my way. You all have been given fair warning. Once we get them we can start doing big girl important things. Like being temporary citizens of Chile. Wooo!

Now registering for classes? That’s a whole different giant entirely….

That’s it for now.

Ciao

Some pics of the river near our neighborhood and the city of Valdivia at dusk

Flores de Pelu

Flores

Rio Cruces

Fritz: el Regalon

Valdivia in the winter. All of the smoke is from the wood burning stoves in the houses