Chiloé

The island of Chiloé is magical, mysitical, misty, green forests, sandy pacific beaches, shingled houses, fish fish fish, cultural festivals, campfires and vino. It is a place where you can truly escape the gringo trail and spend an evening around a campfire with Chileans, learning local slang, finding out where to go out to eat in Valparaíso, dancing to reggeton, and laughing until two AM. Here there are small port towns where you can sit on the pier eating bread and jam, walk for miles down the beach, venture around the ruins of old rotting fishing boats, and never see a sign of tourism. Ferrying across the salt water to a nearby island we saw dolphins with dark fins gliding over the water and sea lions stunning their freshly caught fish against the crashing surf, teasing the gulls with the scent of food. The sun kindly shown on us for our entire stay, lighting up the orange bark of the local trees, the blue lips and tongues of giant barnacles, and playing in our hair as we road standing up in the back of a pickup down winding dirt roads.

Chiloé was distinct from the rest of our travels thus far in its quaint nature and distinct culture. It is far less westernized than other places we have visited, and gave us the sweet taste of real life here, away from the built-up fabricated nature of tourist spots. We stayed two nights in the small pueblo of Chonchi, on the island´s east coast, one on the west coast in el Parque National de Chiloé, and the final night in the island´s capitol, Castro. Our last day there was spent at el Festival Costumbrista de Chilote, a huge local fair bursting with delicious foods, local traditional crafts, music, dancing, and crowds of smiling, happy Chileans. I ate my first empanadas de mariscos (seafood; i´ve decided to be pescaterian while in south america, since tofu and cottage cheese are hard to come by) which was incredibly savory goodness, fresh and hot. It was a joyful place and a great end to our travels.

Now I am back in Santiago, steamy and hot even at 11 pm. Tomorrow the study abroad program begins, though we have orientation, regestration, and moving in with our families for a week or two before school begins. Yet another adventure!

The Glory of Paine

Back from a week in los Torres de Paine, and finally clean, well fed, warm, and dry. We hiked 100 km in 7 days (25 of which we did in one. my feet were pretty pissed off by that point.) and it was painful, glorious, and one of the most spectacular experiences of my life. Theres too much to tell in detail, but I´ll give you some hilights.

- being surrounded by mountains like none i´ve seen, great spires and castles of tan and chocolate rock
- ankle deep mud
-hiking a pass in a snowstorm
-winds that literally blew us over (picture it: 50 pound backpack, eyes slits against the stinging snow, crouching on a steep slope that tumbles down to an enormous glacier, laughing with the ridiculousness of the situation and fighting not to be blown away)
- two avalanches (from a very safe distance away)
- 50 people, 6 languages, 20 campstoves, and a cloud of smoke crammed into a small yert made of tarps in an attempt to get out of the rain
- tent poles bending in the wind
- jumping from boulder to boulder across a river
- climbing down a slippery, sketchy ladder into a canyon full of piles of landslide-ready rock (some of it was breaking away as i descended)
-dodging by 1.5 feet a rock twice the size of my head that was bouncing down the mountain (never want to experience that again)
- washed out trails
-breaks in the clouds that exposed Los Cuernos del Paine, shining silvery and massive in the sun and looking 100% surreal
- rainbows rainbows rainbows!

I was quite the adventure. We didn´t get to see the Torres up close due to the rain, but sill saw some breathtaking views. Every time i´d look up and see the mountains or los cuernos i would be shocked with their beauty, despite the fact that i´d looked at them 10 times in the past half hour. Its beauty never ceased to amaze. After my first view of los cuernos, i had the halleluja section of the messiah running through my head for hours. Despite (and perhaps partially thanks to) the rain, we had an amazing journey.

Now we go further south to Punta Arenas where we´ll see penguins (huzzah!) and will, hopefully, make it down to Tierra del Fuego.

It was well worth the bus ride

We are nearly at the end of the world, in El Calafate. In two hours we get on the bus to go to Puerto Natales, and Friday, we venture out into Los Torres Del Paine for a 10 day trek.

The 26 hour bus ride down here, though exceedingly long, was gorgeous. We drove through wide valleys that wound between an endless range of mountains, jagged ridges outlined black against the sky, cotten puffs of clouds grazing their peaks. The clouds, more varied then any i´ve seen, were art in themselves, streching across the sky in puffs, weaves, dots, horsetails and cotten candy formations all at once. In the pink glow from the setting sun, their beauty was intense. I was bouncing in my seat the whole way down.

We also drove though the flattest place i´ve been (in the second half of the ride) and i longed to stand alone in the center of the circle of earth beneath the perfect dome of deep blue sky. For 360 degrees there was nothing: no roads (save the one we were on), buildings, houses, trees, people. We did see the occasional sheep and horses. And Alpaca!! And Emus, herds of wild emus!

Today we visited El Glaciar Perito Moreno. Thirty km long, five wide, and 60 meters tall, it was quite unlike anything i´ve seen. It flows down from some impressive snowy mountains into an enormous glacial lake, its frontal face a sheer wall of ice, riddled with cracks and crevasses of vibrant glacial blue. I tried to imagine how big a person would appear standing at its base, but couldn´t quite manage. Cruize boats that took tourists through the lake for a closer look were dwarfed, even by the floating icebergs that had broken off of the glacier itself. And then there was the sound! The background noise was that of constant flowing water, winding its way down the glacier through its crevasses. This was puncuated by gunshots and booming thunder: the sounds of chunks of ice breaking off and crashing into the lake. I sat, stared, and listened for an undisrupted hour, completely content to watch this living wall of ice. When big chunks (bigger than a house) would sluff or fall off you could almost feel it, and the water would be white with frothe and bubbles for minutes afterwards as the ice bobbed back up to the surface. Truly spectacular. Especially considering that it might not be there any more in a couple of decades, if we as a planet keep going with our current carbon craze.

Last night Roxanne and I went out with some people we met on the bus: Frederico (from Bs.As.), Matt (from Canada), and Paige. We talked to Frede off and on during the bus ride down from El Bolson, which was great since he is learning english and we are learning spanish. Interesting to see his use of the english language and how it made logical sense, given our understanding of spanish. He shared his mate (meaning the tea, pronounced mah-tay) with us and we reciprocated by sharing our bottle of wine with him (which cost 4.90 pesos; $1.50 usd. cheaper than water!). We went to a cozy bar, drank local beer, and chatted for a few hours. When we got there at 10 pm, the place was deserted. It was starting to fill up at midnight when we left, but Frede said that at 1 AM it would be packed. Argentinians are night owls. They eat dinner at 9pm at the earliest and don´t go out until 1am. In Buenos Aires, according to Frede, people don´t go out until 3am!! I suppose this is a good reason for having siestas.

I bought my first mate and bombilla yesterday! Mate is the container out of which you drink the yerba (tea). The bombilla is a straw with a filter at the end. Traditionally, you completely fill the mate with yerba, pour in hot water from a thermos, drink all the tea, refill it with water, and pass it clockwise. The only thing I can think of to relate it to in the U.S. is weed, except mate is legal. Everywhere you go, be it a mountain hike, a boiling day at the beach, outside of the supermercado, at Perito Moreno or on the bus, people are drinking and sharing mate. It really fits with the social and incredibly kind nature of Argentinians.

And now, we go into the wild!