and so it begins

It is upon us! A time when entire countries become vastly less productive in order to watch a group of their compatriots battle against another country. That's right, the MUNDIAL (World Cup)!!

I'll admit openly that I have never really understood the need to watch sports. They are boring and just an excuse to yell for hours. (I have been forced to go to enough football games in my life, that I feel I have the right to make these bold statements.) But here in Chile, I am all about the experience. About a month ago I went to my first fútbol (soccer) game in Chile and I was hooked! It was such a new experience. Never before had I been to a sporting event with flares, barbed wire, and the national guard. I decided right then and there that I might have been judging sports a little too hard. Maybe there is something to it after all.

There are two teams in Chile, el Colo Colo and La Universidad de Chile. I am a proud hincha (fan) of La U. see?

The most exciting part of the fútbol, for me, is the chanting. All of the fans know the same, intricate cheers and they all sing them together the entire game. It's beautiful. The cheers can get rather racist and sexist as they yell things at the other team or the other team's fans, but if you just ignore that small percentage of the cheers (89%), you will find that the rest of the cheers are really uplifting and the fans even cheer themselves on. With spirit like that, who needs cheerleaders?

As you can see, people actually do care about soccer in some countries. And here in Chile, they have been gearing up for the world cup for weeks. It has been all anyone talks about. The first game for Chile was yesterday at 7:30 in the morning. I have a class at 8:30 in the morning, so I figured I would just have to miss it. Ooohoho no. Evidently, fútbol comes first. It's like going to a catholic school on holy days. You may not be catholic, but you sure like those saints when the half days come around. Yeah, here everyone, even those that don't care about fútbol, fought to get the class either cancelled or moved back. And it worked. But it wasn't only that class. The library was closed, and all of the other classes that morning were moved back. Even the elementary schools and high schools were closed until around 10am.'Esteemed patrons: We inform you that Wednesday, June 16th, the library will open it's doors at 10am.'

Seeing the preparations for the game, I knew it was going to be big. A couple of my friends from the class that was moved back until 1:30pm invited me over to stay up the entire night and watch the game in the morning and of course I was down. We managed to stay up until around 4, but then the sleepiness set in and we passed out for a few hours.

I awoke at 7:40 to the sounds of the fútbol game on the television in the next room. I quickly ran in and settled in to watch the game. We blew up balloons and drank coffee while we watched. I'll save the blow by blow for another post...meanwhile...look it up: Chile vs. Honduras and we won 1-0. Woot Woot!! This was the first time that Chile had won a game in a mundial for about 70 years! Even though we were dead tired, my friend, Max, and I decided to go to Plaza Italia where all of the celebrating goes down.

The police were redirecting traffic because there were so many people in the Plaza throwing confetti, drinking, spraying foam, and cheering. "¡¡¡C-H-I (CHI) L-E (LE), CHI CHI CHI, LE LE LE, VIVA CHILE!!!"So much happiness all gathered in one place. And so much nationalism. There were a ridiculous number of Chilean flags everywhere and I'm pretty sure I was the only one not wearing a lick of red. There was even a point when a little boy was being thrown in the air on the chilean flag by a large group of men......no worries, i'm sure all safety precautions were taken.

By this time we were starving, so we ducked into a diner that was showing the Spain vs. Switzerland game. Let me remind you: this was at 10 in the morning. So I feel like it is normal that I was a little bit surprised that EVERYONE was drinking beer. I felt like a wuss ordering water. hah. But I managed to sneak a pic of some guys at a booth next to us complete with beers and festive hats.perfection.

Anywho...we ate huge sandwiches like this one: and then we started to see people running away from the plaza. Evidently the police had decided that it was time to open up the streets again and they were using whatever force was necessary. Oops...i had almost forgotten we were in Latin America. Thanks for the reminder. So we decided that it was as good a time as ever to leave and we walked calmly to the car. Meanwhile, people around us were running with their children dressed from head to toe in red and blue from the cops who were now spraying people with guanacos (big trucks that spray water at people...they are called this because they spit like a llama aka guanaco). I didn't find out until later that 81 people were arrested. It really got out of hand.

That was only the first game. Now there are two more and I imagine that those will be even more intense because they are against harder teams and they are at normal times of the day. Guess we'll just have to find out...(1313)

there's no place like santiago *click, click, click*

So to refresh the memory, I am in Sucre, I just found out that I have to wait another day for a bus to go to Argentina, I have very little money, and I have just met a woman that will let me stay with her for free.

We walked to the market because she needed to buy some corn and cheese to make humitas (kinda like tamales only drier and just with cheese inside). I got to see real market bargaining in action. Now, I am normally all for bargaining. But this got to be a little bit ridiculous. She was buying from an indigenous woman sitting on the street with all of her corn strewn around her. And she was almost yelling at the woman to give her a better deal as she went through EVERY single piece of corn to make sure it was big enough. We were buying 50...needless to say, we were there for awhile. But we finally made it back to the home of her parents.
(this is a random picture of me on an eiffel tower-like thing that was in a park in sucre)

I was feeling really sick, so after peeling lima beans with her dad and having some tea, I slept the rest of the day away. I woke up that night and sat with the woman who invited me to stay (i've completely forgotten her name...oops. let's call her Maria.) and her mother. Let me just give you an idea of what this looked like. The grandma was laying in bed obviously in pain from her cancer, María was talking about her grandma's great pain and about how the doctor should have been there hours ago, the grandpa was sitting playing guitar and singing to himself by the window, and I was sitting uncomfortably watching images of the earthquake's destruction in Chile on the news. It was kind of strange. And then the grandpa brought me a wall calendar of sucre to remember my trip by which was really cute. Only he didn't speak to me at all. He literally, WHILE I WAS IN THE ROOM, asked Maria and his wife if they wanted the calendar...if they had anyone that they wanted to give it to at all. When he found out that they had no use for it he then continued to ask them to tell me that he was giving it to me as a gift. And he handed me the calendar. It was a nice gesture...but i can understand spanish...and had just been speaking to him earlier that day. huh.

Luckily, Maria told me that her kids were going to come by and pick me up so that we could go out that night. Little did I know this night was going to turn even more awkward, but I started to get the feeling when her kids showed up and one of them was literally my dad's age. SUUUUUPER AWKWARD. Ok, to be fair, he was actually only in his thirties and the daughter was 29, but still. And then it got weirder when we went out and got in a tiny sports car...in bolivia. Going from seeing tons of indigenous people everywhere, to sitting in a sports car? weird. I'm not going to lie and tell you the night ended up being a lot better than i had thought. Picture a young traveling poor girl wearing a llama fur sweater sitting at a table with working age professionals in leather jackets and even one guy in a suit. I can't stress enough how weird this was. However, we ended up going to two different bars and the most popular discoteca in sucre, so culturally, it was an experience.

The next morning I woke up in a huge house that was decorated really nicely. It even had a garden with all kinds of fruit trees. I spent the day writing in my journal and talking to a different grandpa in the beautiful garden (he actually talked to me). I tried an igo which is a fruit that looks like a little eggplant, but tastes...sweet. It was really good. I reveled in the fact that i had, most likely, just happened to come in contact with one of the richest families in Sucre. The dad is a doctor, one of the sons graduated and is a banker, another daughter is studying to be a doctor, and I haven't even mentioned all of the cars they had in addition to their sports car--an old-fashioned volkswagen bug, an suv, and one other I can't remember. It was interesting to see the other side of things and I was really grateful that they let me stay with them. I just couldn't believe that, even when escaping from Chile to Bolivia, I managed to end up on the wealthy side of town when all I really wanted to see was how the normal, everyday person lives. Oh well.

That day I left for Mendoza and at the border early the next morning. Upon crossing into Argentina, I was worried that I would be made to throw away my coca leaves, but the customs guy lifted the flap of my bag as he was asking me where I was from and put the flap back down. And that was argentina's customs. Really strict.

When I arrived in Mendoza later that day, I was unsure of what I wanted to do. I didn't want to ask my dad to send more money, but the bus tickets had also cost more than I had bargained for and I only had 40 argentinian pesos left (about $12). I had been saving my money and since the previous day had only eaten a bag of animal crackers and water from a bottle which I was only able to refill when I was willing to pay to use the restroom. I figured out that I could order bus tickets online using my dad's credit card and then even be able to spend a bit of time seeing the city. Just having arrived in Argentina, I was still unused to the prices, but I was definitely not expecting it to so closely resemble Chile. I spent about 2 hours walking around downtown looking for a place to stay, but was unable to find anything for less than 40 pesos aka everything i owned. I decided to buy a ticket back to Chile for that night and after frantically using every form of contact that I have with my parents (email, facebook, my sister's fb, best friends that could possibly call my parents from the US' fb), I finally got ahold of them. I hurriedly put the information in online to buy the ticket as it was getting dark outside...but it didn't work. I literally entered it about 10 times and it didn't work. I went to the bus terminal and asked for help, but evidently they don't run the website and couldn't help me. I went to every company that had buses going to Santiago, but none of them would take a card without having the physical card.

So now it is almost midnight, I am sitting outside of the terminal in a city that I barely know, and I have enough money to buy food OR a place to stay for the night. One, not both. And to top it all off, despite all of my hard work and budgeting and not eating, I was still going to have to ask my dad to send more money. fml. This was probably the lowest point of my entire trip.

To make a long story short, I stopped feeling sorry for myself on the bench outside of the terminal and decided that no matter how hungry I was, the terminal was not a good place to spend the night. I ended up going to a hostel that I had found earlier that day and was happy to find the nicest hostel I had stayed in on my trip along with free homemade wine and a nice, fat, talkative man who offered me potato chips. (Come to find out later that these were the potato chips of a group of Europeans that had gone out on the town. They came in and found me eating their chips...whoops.) This was actually the first real hostel that I had stayed at my entire trip where i had to share a room with 6 other people, but I didn't mind it. It was actually nice because I was able to hang out with other travelers my age and I met a lot of cool people.

The breakfast at this place was amazing--homemade bread out of a bread machine with butter and strawberry jam and as much coffee or tea as I wanted (or potentially wine...which was always available in a big barrel on the counter). It, along with hearing about other people's traveling adventures at the breakfast table, rejuvenated and made me ready to explore Mendoza, stress-free.

I was really happy that I was going to be able to enjoy Mendoza a bit, because the day before I had walked past so many cute cafés and restaurants, but had no money at the time. Mendoza was nice. It had a lot of plazas in the center which helped me to orient myself and, as always, they were full of people with artesania (hand-made jewelry, etc.). Another interesting tid-bit that I learned is that the McDonalds in Mendoza sell little bottles of wine with meals. No lie! I hate McDonalds, but I've got to give it to them...changing their products to fit each country is a good idea. (In Chile the McDonalds sandwiches have avocado on them.) But despite how much I liked Mendoza, to me, it was just a stop on my way back to Santiago. Nothing more. I hung out with some people that I met at the hostel, but at the same time, I was just ready to be back in my own room. Not to mention the fact that school had already started back in Santiago.

Before catching my bus, I met up with one of my good Chilean friends, Seba, who had just arrived in Mendoza, and we shared our ridiculous stories of our travels. It had been over a month since we had seen each other so it was nice to catch up. He told me that he could tell that my spanish had gotten better which is like the best compliment i could ever receive (i mean, i'd better improve after 2 weeks on my own in a spanish speaking country).

And then I got on the tiny bus to drive through the Andes Mountains and back into Santiago.
It was one of the most beautiful bus rides I've ever had and we only had minor glitches (a woman had to be written up because she was bringing in ridiculous amounts of hair products. obviously to sell them.) and then I was home. I arrived to find my room filled with cracks from the earthquake, but I was happy nevertheless.

mines, markets, and madness. (bolivia pt. 3)

Day 15. I arrived in Potosí at 6 in the morning to rain and no vacancies. Rain that early in the morning is never good, but when you have to search for a place to stay with a huge backpack on your back and when you have just gotten ripped off by a taxi driver (he charged me over $2 to get into town...waaaay too much), it is even worse. My plan was to find a hostel, see the sights, buy a bus ticket, and leave early the next day.

I finally found a hostel and ate breakfast at a wonderful market right outside of it. The breakfast area of the market was like a bunch of little kitchens, each with their own table. Each of these small kitchens had just enough room for one woman (i am not being sexist...there were just no men there) to stand behind the counter and hand out the food to the people who came to sit at her table. I had coffee and two pieces of pan amasado (homemade bread) with jam for a grand total of $0.45--that's my kind of breakfast. I then found a bus to the mine. Potosí is an old mining town thus pretty much all of the tourist attractions have to do with mines. I took the bus up to a plaza and then started walking toward what I hoped were the mines.

And then I realized that it was Sunday.

One of the few things that I literally hate about Latin America, is the fact that NOTHING is open on Sunday. nothing. It is so frustrating. and to make it even worse, I have to live this frustration every week because I somehow, throughout the course of the week, forget this horrible fact about Latin America and get my hopes up time and time again.

Someone offered me a ride up to the mine and I of course accepted, because it was free. He then offered to give me a bit of a tour around Potosí which I accepted...until he suggested we buy a bottle of rum for the road. Not okay. It was rainy the rest of the day...actually it rained almost the entire time that I was in Potosí (an omen? perhaps). Thus, the rest of the day I spent writing in my journal and reading and responding to facebook messages regarding the earthquake which really made me want to be back in santiago. That evening I also ended up going into a church as mass was starting...so i stayed.

Day 16. The next day I got up early and took a bus all the way up to the mine. I knew there were tour companies that take groups down into the mine, but I was lazy and had been told that i could find someone to give me a tour at the mine itself. Also, I figured a tour company would be more expensive. And boy was i right. A kid that was about 12 years old came up to me right when I stepped off of the bus (how he knew that i was a tourist, i have no idea) and offered me a tour for 25 bs (less than $4). I automatically took him up on the deal and he led me and two other guys (both latin american) quickly up the hill (too quickly. i had to stop because I couldn't breathe at one point. the air is super thin because everything is so high up. I walked really slowly everywhere and the instant that I thought my head might be starting to hurt i would pull out my coca leaves to chew on). We walked past the tour groups of blond people putting on white mining suits and helmets and going over what i imagined to be safety procedures, to a tiny house on the side of the hill. There we were given helmets with lamps as a little girl offered to sell us precious stones.

And then we entered the mine. Somehow, when imagining 'going down into a mine,' I had created this vision of getting lowered DOWN into a mine. What i really did was walk about 10 minutes into a large hole on the side of the hill and then turn around and walk back out. Admittedly, inside the hole it looked mine-ish, but so did that ride in disney world and...i mean...i'm pretty sure that wasn't real. Once inside the mine there was a cave-like space in which there was a "tio" which are these god-like (i'm really into the hyphenated words this paragraph) figures that can be found throughout the mines. They keep them happy by putting cigarettes, alcohol, and coca leaves all around them.There were little flags and confetti around el tio as well because they had just finished their carnaval. Overall, the mine was a bit disappointing, but for less than $4, what was i supposed to expect? It's not like i could fill out a complaint card or anything.

After the mine i decided to see the other tourist attraction in Potosí. El Museo de la Moneda. Everyone I talked to told me that you can see the foot marks of the slaves that worked there...but i wouldn't know, because it is closed on mondays. Potosí fail. And then I fled to Sucre.

Day 17: Sucre is a university city. I stayed in the center and there were constantly tons of college and school-aged kids around. My hostel was right across from a market where you could buy vegetables, fruits, toiletries, jewelry, or meat (i literally saw a skinned cow's head...the only skin left was on the tip of the nose. definitely one of the most disturbing/nauseating things I have ever seen).(http://www.panoramio.com/photo/123278)

My favorite part about this market was the juice stands. These worked basically like the breakfast tables at the market in Potosí, only here there was no table. There were a few chairs and if you were lucky, the newspaper. I literally went here every single day for a late breakfast of jugo de chirimoya. Absolutely delicious. And oh so cheap; for about 50 cents I could buy a glass of juice and she would refill my glass with whatever was left in the blender when i had finished my first glass. It was magical.

I enjoyed my first day of Sucre looking around the mercado central and the center. Sucre is very proud of the fact that they have dinosaur tracks, but paying money to ride in a dinosaur tour bus out to the desert to see them really didn't sound fun to me. Instead, I decided to go to the Castillo de la Glorieta. It was the castle for a man and a woman that owned an orphanage and the kids lived next to the castle.It was really pretty and, architecturally, it was a weird mix of cultures. Not to mention the fact that they had made the orphanage area of the castle, which was directly across a small creek, into military barracks and all of the land was training ground for the military. It was a bit odd to say the least.

I got to the castle in the middle of a tour, so i saw the last part of the tour first and then went for the first half of the next tour with another group. The second tour was with a group of older missionaries from Iowa and only one of them spoke any spanish, so I got to help translate a bit for the tour guide. It made the tour a lot more interesting. And on my way out the guide had asked the lady at the front desk to get me to write some of the words that he had forgotten down in English. Good deed for the day? Check.

After looking around the city a bit more, I felt satisfied that I had seen enough and went to buy my bus ticket. My plan was to go back to Santiago by making my way through Uyuni and the salt flats and then into Calama, Chile and back down. When I went to buy the ticket to Uyuni, though, I was informed that there were no buses going out. The bus stations are filled with many different bus companies that each have only a few destinations, but they each have someone standing out in front of the company's stand yelling where the next bus is going...which normally turns a trip to Oruro into something like this: "Orurorurorurorurooooooo." It took me a few tries until someone finally explained to me that there was a nationwide bus strike taking place and that the buses wouldn't be running until friday at the earliest. It was tuesday...and I was pissed. This meant that I would have to waste more money on hostels and food than i had been planning on. I had literally been keeping a budget, but this threw things completely off. I just kept trying to look at the bright side: at least i wasn't stuck in Potosí.

That night I decided that I would attempt to meet someone to talk to (i had been basically alone for 3 days and was already tired of it...and seeing as how i was going to be stuck in Sucre for a few more days, i wanted someone to hang out with). I walked to the center, or the town square, where all of the hippies gather, and happened upon a show. There was a man in the center of the square doing tricks and when i stopped to watch some kids offered me a seat on a bench. We began to talk and I found out that they were two bolivian freshmen studying engineering in sucre. It was interesting to talk with them because they were both from a small town near the border with brazil, so they knew a bit of Portuguese, but at the same time they were quite from the rest of the world. They didn't even have email addresses or know how to type. We got to talking about what religion we are and when I told them that I still am not sure, one of the guys, Leonardo, literally said, "So you don't believe in God? Hasn't anything bad ever happened to you?" I couldn't help but laugh as I thought back over my trip. Oh Leo, if only you knew.

Day 18: The next morning I found out that when they say national bus strike, they mean every single bus in the nation has stopped functioning...even the city buses. I didn't have money to spend on a cab, so I was stuck in the center of town which I had already scoured pretty heavily the day before. I decided to ask some college students how to get to La Recoleta, a place that looks out over the town. It just so happened that one of the guys owns a motorcycle and offered me a ride. So instead of walking the eight blocks up the hill, I just hopped on the back of his moto and we were there in a jiffy. Sometimes I love being a gringa.

La Recoleta was absolute perfection. It was just a place to look out over the city, but I fell in love with the view and the serenity of the area. It was perfect to just spend time writing in my journal and I would have enjoyed soaking up the sun there...had my entire body not been peeling for the second or third time from my horrible burn on La Isla del Sol...STILL.There was even a nice restaurant area looking out over the city with reclining lawn chairs and tiramisu. I was almost glad I had lost my debit card, cause I know i would have been all over that had i had any money on me.
(p.s. i stole these sucre pictures from paualvar on viajeros.com)

Later that night I went to eat dinner at the mercado central. I was tired of the lack of meal variety in Bolivia. I loved Bolivia, but the food was not my favorite. I would have given anything for a tasty pupusa from El Salvador. It was literally impossible to continue my semi-vegetarian thing that was so easy to stick to in Chile. It was either eat fried chicken and french fries for every meal or eat cow. There was no in-between. So i gave in and started eating meat again which made me sick (at least i think that was what was wrong with me...). The sad thing is, the meat was not even worth it to eat. The meals at the market basically consisted of chewy meat with mote and ensalada or soup with a chunk of meat in it. I did however enjoy the bolivian version of the hamburger and french fries. It was odd, but there was never a hamburger stand without the option to add french fries to said hamburger. Normally you would come away from the stand with a hamburger topped with sauteed onions and four french fries.

Anyway, while I was eating dinner at the market, I met a Peruvian and a Colombian who were supposedly traveling and had met each other randomly. This would be totally believable, except they were oddly old and 'normal' to have dropped everything to travel through bolivia randomly. Turns out that they were really working in Sucre though and didn't have a work visa so it had to be on the DL. One of the guys was 'an author.' He told me all about the book he is currently writing and even gave me one of his books full of cliché, plot-less, moral-at-the-end short stories. Not my favorite book, but a good souvenir none-the-less.

I also met an Argentinian guy in my hostel. He had just graduated from law school and was traveling a bit before finding a job. We walked around the town together and went out at night to some of the touristy places where all of the tourists and wealthy Bolivians congregate--I was just along for the ride. He only spoke to me in English, but I didn't really mind because it was the first time in over two weeks that I had spoken English. Not to mention his English was perfect, so it was hard to insist that we slow down the conversation so that I could stumble my way through forming sentences in Spanish.

Day 19: This day I went to La Recoleta again with the intent of writing in my journal, but upon my arrival I found a group of guys playing soccer in the courtyard (they hadn't been able to go to work because of the lack of buses). Every once in a while the ball would be kicked over the wall and down the hill and someone would have to run after it so that it didn't roll all the way to the center of town. It added a bit of excitement to the game...and when this happened a few guys that weren't running after the ball would come over and talk to me, asking me questions about the US, etc.

I think it is so interesting to find out how people from other countries view the US. In Bolivia, I found that most people that asked me about the US thought that it is all big cities filled with big buildings and they were sure that we have a lot more natural disaster than they do. I'm serious. It was always..."Oh, so you must really like all of the nature here. What is the US like? You have a lot of natural disasters, right?" I'm not really sure where they got the whole natural disaster thing from. I wanted to point out the fact that CHILE just had a really bad earthquake...but i let it go.

Day 20: I woke up at 7 so that I could get to the bus station at 8 to buy my ticket to Mendoza (I had decided to go back through Argentina because, 1. i had heard it was cheaper than chile and 2. i wanted to see something new out the window of the bus). Upon arrival, I immediately regretted not getting to the station earlier. Evidently there is only one bus company that has a bus going to Villazón, which is the last town in Bolivia before crossing into Argentina, and there was already a line filling a good part of the station at this bus company. Every other company was empty, but mine had a huge line. Figures.

I started talking with the woman in front of me and we each told each other why we needed to get a ticket for today. I, because I am running out of money and I really want to get back to Santiago, and she, because her daughter needed to get back for her medical residency in Córdoba, Argentina. When we got up to the front of the line, all of the buses for that day were filled and the bus for the next day was almost completely filled. I had to buy a ticket for the very last seat in the bus. I was very frustrated because now I was going to have to waste even more money on a hostel that I didn't want to be staying in, but the woman that I had been talking with earlier invited me to stay with her. I knew there were ulterior motives, I had gathered that her daughter wanted to study abroad and I figured she wanted me to practice english with her or something of the sort. That's a small price to pay for a place to stay, so I took her up on the offer.

To be continued... (i promise i'm almost done with this bolivia trip)

officially chilena...?

I interrupt this long drawn out saga of my trip to Bolivia with the quick story of how I became Chilean. Otherwise known as being assaulted--it's pretty normal here...kinda like in St. Louis. Hah. But really. Okay, let me set the scene for you.

Characters:
Me--looking particularly gringa with my cute jacket, scarf, and chalas (flip-flops).
José Miguel--skinny and wearing plaid...slightly hipster aka not threatening at all.

Scene: On a park bench in a large median downtown that separates two main streets of Central Santiago which is like a long park complete with trees, statues, and said park bench. This median is located in-between the metro stops Los Heroes (the stop for my University) and La Moneda (the Chilean White House). I had my purse with my cell phone, my new camera, and my wallet which had my credit card, my fresh-off-the-press pase escolar (a pass that lets me ride the metro for 1/4th of the cost), $4, and lunch tickets (worth $5 each...i had a months worth).

José Miguel and I had been sitting in the park for a few hours and failed to take into account the fact that all of the people had cleared out and it had gotten rather dark as it was now about 11:00pm.

Enter 4 tipos (unknown guys).

It seemed like they came out of nowhere. They surrounded us and in lowered voices ordered us forcefully to give them our cell phones. José Miguel began by trying to calmly talk them out of it. Yeah, that was a fail. Two guys started feeling up José Miguel and two were focused on me. One of them was standing directly in front of me and the other had sat down on the bench beside me. It was like the typical good cop, bad cop thing. Only this time, they were delinquents. After I handed over my phone, the guy in front of me grabbed my purse, leaving it hanging around my neck, and started feeling it.

"She has more money, she has more money," he spit angrily.

I was just super worried that they would find my camera that I'd had for a total of two weeks. You know, or that they'd pull out a knife.

Good cop saved the day, though, by insisting that I could show them on my own if I had any more money. He then turned to me and tried to calm me down, as i was obviously a bit nervous--shaking and blubbering whatever i could remember in spanish.

"Calmly, calmly. We don't want any problems. Just show us what you have. Calm down."

I took out my wallet and as I did so my keys fell out of my purse. I begged them not to take my keys and they gave them back to me. I then immediately handed over the 2 mil ($4) that i had in my wallet. Bad cop was still not happy. (That's what you get for robbing poor people, saco e weas.) So i showed them everything in my wallet. All of the cards that I have in there and even shook it to show that there weren't any coins inside. When i did that, an argentinian coin fell out, so to show them i meant business, i offered them the coin as well. They didn't want it.

After essentially giving José Miguel a rub down, they finally found his cell phone in his pocket and were satisfied that they had found everything of value that we had. They then ran across the park, crossed the street, and hopped on the bus. I was left stunned and we sat for a few seconds in silence. I was literally shaking still and my heart was pounding. Then José Miguel hopped up and told me to follow him. Evidently we were going to try and catch them...

We ran to the group of taxi drivers that were hanging out in the park and asked if one of them would help us try and catch the bus full of robbers that had just left. Surprisingly, one of them told us to hop in and we took off. Once inside the car, we realized that we didn't have a cell phone to call the police anyway so it wouldn't matter. I was over it and wanted to go home, but I think José Miguel's macho pride was hurting a bit. So...we kept following the bus until we saw a police car going the opposite way. José Miguel ran over to them and when he came back he said that they were going to turn around and come help us. We thanked the taxista profusely to make up for our lack of money and then we waited. On the side of the street. In the place where we were just robbed. The policemen never came and I was sooooo ready to go home, but I was not about to leave José Miguel. Admittedly, he hadn't been much help, but I still felt more safe walking with him than alone.

We saw another police car and walked over to it. And then I felt ridiculous. There was a guy laying on the ground bleeding from his mouth. That's what happens when you don't hand over whatever they ask you for. We got lucky.

We were robbed by probably the worst robbers ever--they didn't get the most expensive thing on me (my camera) and most of them were about as nervous as I was, which makes them even scarier because you never know what they will do. Before this incident, I had always thought about how I would handle myself in this kind of a situation. Weirdly, I was always a lot more put together and tough in my daydreams.

I have never been particularly scared of going out around the city by myself or anywhere for that matter. I think that if you avoid doing things because you are scared, you are not living, so I live and figure that if something happens, at least i enjoyed my time here. (had to tell myself this a few times on buses in bolivia) Unfortunately, after being robbed by these men, I am completely changed. I am markedly more nervous when going out at night and always consider getting robbed a real possibility. I don't let this stop me from going out, but I notice the difference in myself and it saddens me. For the first week after getting robbed I was even more careful during the day--I looked at the people around me as potential robbers, only left the house with what I absolutely needed, and kept my pase escolar and any money i had hidden in my back pocket. Now, three weeks later, I feel much more comfortable, but I do get nervous when in a bad part of town which wouldn't have happened before the robbery.

But at least now I can call myself chilean...because you aren't chilean until you've gotten asaulted in santiago.

arriving in la paz...por fin (bolivia pt. 2)

Day 4 (continued). At this point in my altitude sickness I wasn't able to think in English...let alone in Spanish. I left Juan Pablo and Soledad to find a new bus to take us to La Paz. We found one and were soon on our way, once again, to La Paz. I will spare you the details of this horrible bus ride, but I will tell you that my first view of the beautiful La Paz was from the bathroom window of the bus.

Let me quickly explain La Paz to the three of you that read this. La Paz, the highest capital in the world, is located in the the valley of a bunch of mountains and is separated into two cities--El Alto y El Bajo. They are called this because one is literally located in the valley with the buildings spreading quite artistically to cover the sides of the mountains surrounding it (El Bajo) while the other part of the city overlooks all of this from higher up on a mountain (El Alto). The view of El Bajo from El Alto is literally one of the most breathtaking views I have ever seen. The houses and buildings are almost all brick and are stacked precariously all over the mountainsides. At night the lights of the city look like a fallen christmas tree because of how the buildings are spread out to the different mountains from the center valley. I spent most of my time in El Bajo, though I did go to El Alto a time or two to demand a refund from the bus company or at very least my blanket (i never got anything. let's not get started on the incompetency of bolivian bus companies).
I stole this pic from Juan Pablo...it doesn't begin to portray the real beauty of La Paz. Also, it is taken from El Bajo, so it is not a good representation of the awesome view from El Alto that I described, but it'll do. All I had was a disposable camera, so my pics aren't the best either.

Though I had so much bad luck with the bus, I was really so lucky to have become friends with Juan Pablo, because his dad is a policeman in La Paz and was able to get ahold of the bus company so that they would leave our luggage at the bus terminal (which is really a busy street lined with a bunch of bus companies). Also, Sole and I didn't have to find cabs or hostels. We hopped into a car with Juan Pablo and his family right when we got to the terminal and after driving to find our luggage, we went straight to their apartment. I was still really sick. I literally threw up/dry heaved out the window of the car of this family that I just met...SO humiliating (sorry for the gross details...i had to live it). Also, I didn't talk at all in the car ride to the apartment (i was concentrating on not being sick), so I'm absolutely sure that they thought I was this poor little gringa who couldn't speak or understand Spanish and somehow ended up in Bolivia alone.

Once we got to the house, I drank mate de coca and chewed a wad of coca leaves until I felt a lot better. I then slept until later in the night when we went out on the town (I wasn't about to let altitude sickness keep me from experiencing my first night in Bolivia). Juan Pablo showed Sole and I the night life of La Paz and it was radiant. We ate vacios which is basically meat. In Bolivia, instead of buying your own drink, it is very common to see tables sharing small pitchers of a mixed drink each with their own tiny glass. Also, many of the drinks had coca leaves floating in them instead of mint, etc. (see what i said about it being a normal part of their culture?) The only complaint I have about the night life was the music selection. Two reasons: 1. 70% of the music was in English...ugh. 2. They played a song with a refrain where everyone shouts "GRIN-GO GO HOME" and Juan Pablo sang along to it a bit too animatedly. jaja! But really, I was super glad that I was with Juan Pablo and that he showed us these different places. It was so much fun and we didn't get home until 6:30 the next morning! (not too ridiculously late for South America, i am finding, but still, considering my state earlier that day, I feel rather proud of myself.)
Stole this one from Juan Pablo as well...


Day 5. (3600 m) Juan Pablo showed Sole and I El Mercado de las Brujas (The Witches' Market). I think this is when I officially fell in love with La Paz. This market is located in the center near the cathedral and it is filled with artesania crafts and clothing and hippies selling jewelry on the side of the street. You can find all of those things in any part of Bolivia, but this is a bit different because here they also sell things for witchcraft and ancient indigenous rituals. For example, in El Mercado de las Brujas you can find dust to make someone fall in love with you, amulets to bring good luck, little packages of candy and toys to burn (for the gods i assume), and so much more. They even sell dried baby llamas...or llama fetuses if you prefer. I was going to buy one for reggie, but i couldn't bring myself to touch them...and thinking about putting one in my suitcase gave me the willies. They also sell pieces of a cactus that is well known to be used as a hallucinogen...on the street...in plain view. oh bolivia.

Soledad and I also went to a market called Las Alasitas which is only in La Paz once a year. It is filled with tons of miniature things. They sold miniature bookstores, restaurants, car repair shops, important documents (ids), foreign money, etc. They also had (this i found odd) everything that you could ever need to build a house in miniature--shovels, bags of cement, lumber, wheelbarrows, etc. While here, Sole and I decided that we should try a food that was truly from La Paz. Thus we sat down at a restaurant and ordered El Plato Paceño. We ended up with meat, habas huge lima beans still in the pod, mote monstrously huge corn on the cob, and fried, extremely salty cheese all piled on top of each other. It was quite an experience trying to eat this without making a mess, but we did our best.

Day 6. (3850 m) Sole and I said our goodbyes and caught a bus to Copacabana which is close to the border of Bolivia and Peru and on the lake that both countries share Lago Titicaca. I had made sure to ask Juan Pablo if there would be an atm in Copacabana and he was sure that there would be, so i didn't withdraw money in La Paz. Of course...Copacabana has ONE atm and it is only for Bolivians. This was a serious problem, because I had very little money left. Sole generously offered to pool our money together until we returned to La Paz, but that still meant that we only had 150 bolivianos, roughly $21, which had to last us for two days of food, lodging, and sightseeing.

They were still celebrating Canaval which was interesting to witness. There were two different bands playing in the town square at the same time and all of the people dressed up in their colorful outfits were dancing, drinking, and spraying silly string and water at each other until 6 in the morning at least. It was kinda bizarre. Though all of this was going on in the town center, the rest of the town was rather quiet. We ended up running into some "hippies" and they invited us to come along with them and listen to them play music in a cafe. We went along and the small group quickly turned into a street full of about 20 people playing guitar, singing, and dancing. I loved it. Though...I was a bit of an outsider because I knew absolutely none of the songs. We got kicked out of the street because we were making too much noise, so we all moved to a small bar and I ended up dancing with a Peruvian who actually taught me to dance instead of simply telling me to follow him. He was so good at leading and making the steps clear that, for once, I actually felt like I could dance!

Day 7. The next morning, we packed our breakfast/lunch/dinner (trying to save money) and got on a boat at 8am so that we could go to La Isla del Sol (which ended up living up to its name). 3 1/2 hours later we landed on the shore of a tiny island with about 7 houses and 2 shops. Sole and I didn't have enough money to go to the ruins so we explored for a bit and climbed a rock hill (for lack of better term). This is the view from the top of the hill which a woman walked up very easily with her goats...not sure how. There was also a small waterfall there. After our climb, Sole and I went to the beach. My first time on a warm beach since I've been down here. The beach was covered with tents of people that had stayed there over night. We enjoyed sun bathing while hogs walked past and little local kids played in the lake (which seemed like an ocean it was so big) speaking Aymara, the local indigenous language. I actually learned one word from one of the kids there...Guniyamastasa = Hola.

We were enjoying ourselves so much that we decided that we wanted to stay and not use the round trip tickets that we had bought to go back to Copacabana. We sold our tickets to some guys on the beach and bought a bed to share in a hostel for $2. We stayed in the sun for about 2 hours and I got the WORST sunburn of my life. I didn't think about the fact that being 3850m in altitude means that you are that much closer to the sun. Seriously felt like I might die that night because I had such a bad fever and was so dehydrated. I gave up my worries about drinking the water in Bolivia and filled my water bottle from a spigot in the hostel because we didn't have enough money left to buy bottled water. The wonderful time we were planning on having on the island quickly turned to a day of sleeping, as Sole had also gotten a sunburn.

Day 8. This was a day of traveling-- back to Copacabana and then back to La Paz where Soledad and I eventually had to separate. I was/am obsessed with La Paz and had decided to stay for another day to explore it a bit more but Sole moved on to another town in Bolivia.

Day 9. I ate lunch with Juan Pablo and his family, went to a mirador and simply took in as much of the beautiful city as I could.
This does not in any way capture the beauty of La Paz...but it gives you an idea.

I made sure to go to the parts of the city that I had most wanted to see. I went to the national art museum and plaza murillo, which is where the president is. Plaza Murillo was a wonderful experience because it is filled with pigeons. They sell birdfeed in the square and there are tons of people feeding the birds...it is a wonder they can still fly with how much food they are given. I of course had to take part in this and ended up being covered in birds. At times I had three or four birds sitting on my arms eating out of my palm and more on my shoulders, not to mention the flock of pigeons surrounding my feet. I enjoyed myself.

That night I felt slightly more ready to leave La Paz than I had been before, so I bought a ticket to Cochabamba. I was all set to continue my Bolivian adventures...and then I realized that I didn't have my debit card anymore. Of course this had been the day that I had bought everyone in my family something from El Mercado de las Brujas and I had bought myself a few things as well, so I literally had 35 bolivianos ($5) left. That's all. Needless to say, I didn't go to Cochabamba. They refunded me half of the ticket price so that I was left with a whopping $7 in total. And then I went back to beg for mercy at Juan Pablo's door.

They of course took me in and let me stay there for a few more days. I seriously don't know what I would have done without Juan Pablo and his family. I felt bad, because it is not like they have a guest room. I offered to sleep on the couch...I have slept in worse places when staying in hostels and i pay for those...but they wouldn't let me. Instead Juan Pablo gave me his room and he shared with his mom. Speaking of...his mom was a beautiful person. The whole time I was there she acted like a mother to me. She fed me and worried about me and when it was finally time for me to leave (meaning when I had received money from my dad so that I could continue on my trip) she actually cried. It was surprising but super cute.

Day 10-13. I was stuck in La Paz until I received money from my dad, so I looked at it as a chance to get to know the city a bit more. I have always wanted to live in Latin America and La Paz quickly jumped to the top of my list of possible cities to live in. It has that Latin American vibe that I have been missing from Chile. The majority of the population is indigenous and it is very obvious as there are people in their traditional garb everywhere you look. Women walk around with their cute little bowler hats and their babies hanging off of their backs in rainbow colored material.

I loved the chaos. The streets are absolutely crazy and jam packed with buses and cars. I, personally, could not see any sign of driving rules other than honk as often as possible. There were no lanes really, but people changed non-lanes whenever they wanted and without any sign that they were going to do so. It was like a video game. Sole described the people inside the bus like a tetris game because the buses are like vans with 3 rows of seats behind the driver. The person collecting the money sits by the door and yells out the places that the bus will take you and opens the door for you. Meanwhile, if someone in the back wants to get out everyone has to quickly file out and then fill back in once they are out. It is quite an experience. Also, I really wish I had taken a picture of this, they have people dressed up as zebras to help pedestrians cross the road (it is a play on words of crosswalk in spanish). I never really understood whether this was because people cross whenever they want or because the cars just don't ever stop...both are very likely possibilities...nevertheless, super extraño (strange). jaja! oh bolivia.

Something that I noticed right away in Bolivia is that they are culturally polite. Most Bolivians when getting in a taxi or a bus with other people will always say "buen día" (good day). Also, when leaving a restaurant, multiple times people, as they passed my table, said "buen provecho" (enjoy your meal) even though I had never spoken to them before in my life. It was really nice.

Another thing that I really liked about Bolivia is that if you buy a glass bottle (coke, fanta, juice, etc.) you have to drink it at the stand because they have to return the bottles to be recycled. Beautiful. Also, an observation...people don't eat while they are walking. There are tons of food stands along the streets, but people that buy from there always eat standing in front of or near the stand. The same goes for juice stands. They peel the fruit and make the juice in front of you, but you have to drink it there because they serve it in actual glasses which they wash and reuse after you leave. It was interesting.

Then I woke up to hear about the Earthquake in Chile. Horrible. Reading the updates online and watching the news with Juan Pablo and his sister, I was horrified. Over the next few days the death count just kept going up and up. I felt so loved from all of the messages I received on fb, though I had not even felt a tremble, and I quickly found out that my Chilean family was fine, but at the same time, I was just ready to go back to Santiago. I felt guilty enjoying myself in Bolivia while Chile was in crisis. I decided to hit some of the towns on my list while making my way back to Santiago (I had payed $135 to enter Bolivia...I wanted to get my money's worth).

My next stop? Potosí. But that will have to wait for the next post...

everything happens for a reason...

...or at least that's what I kept telling myself throughout my trip to Bolivia.

First of all, on my trip, everyone asked me why I decided to travel by myself...to Bolivia of all places. People thought i was crazy. But here was my reasoning: I had already traveled with friends to the south of Chile and, though that was a good experience, I was looking to get a different kind of experience from Bolivia where I would speak in Spanish all of the time and meet tons of new people. Also, over the years, when I have heard about people traveling on their own, I have felt this urge to experience that for myself. I just wanted to know what it is like. I honestly wasn't worried about my safety, I was just worried that, although i enjoy time by myself, I'd get lonely after 2 weeks of alone time, but I wanted to experience it none the less.

And now I'm just going to start right in on the saga...
Day 1. (altitude: 520 m) I left Santiago on a 24 hour bus to the north by myself. (Chile is much longer than you would think...it is as tall as the US is wide.)

Day 2. (2400 m) I ended up in Calama and the bus company that I had found on the internet evidently had not existed for about 6 years...no big. I found other bus companies, but their buses to Bolivia didn't leave til the morning and my plan had been to leave immediately. I decided to take advantage of the fact that I was only about an hour away from San Pedro de Atacama by taking a bus out there and seeing the sights. San Pedro is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Chile and it is basically desert, mountains, and salt flats. After walking around for awhile in the small town full of whitewashed and adobe buildings that are almost all dedicated to some form of tourist agency, I rented a bike and rode out of town to try to find a mirador to look out over all of San Pedro. I ended up in Valle la Luna (named for its likeness to the surface of the moon). I never would have thought that mountains and sand could be so beautiful. I rode for a few hours and ended up at a place where you could hike through the mountains.

stole this pic from http://www.mapasdechile.com.ar/blog...but it really is exactly what I hiked through.
I would have liked to stay for a bit to go to the mirador to watch the sunset, but I had to get back to town to catch a bus to Arica which is even further in the north of Chile (because the next bus going straight into Bolivia wasn't for 3 more days). It was a really good day, though, and I enjoyed biking and hiking by myself through the awesome emptiness that is San Pedro de Atacama.

Day 3. (12 m) I arrived in Arica at 6 in the morning and immediately started to look for buses to La Paz, Bolivia. I had been warned beforehand and by a man that I met on the bus to Arica not to travel with the Bolivian bus companies, but when I arrived, all of the buses were sold out until the next day, and I wasn't really feeling the whole 'stay in Chile for the entirety of my BOLIVIAN vacation' thing. Soooo...I met a Bolivian guy, Juan Pablo, as I was looking for tickets and we went together to the Bolivian terminal and ended up buying the last tickets to La Paz. I figured if he was Bolivian, surely he knew what he was doing. While buying our tickets, we also met a Chilean girl, Soledad, who was traveling to La Paz on the same bus we were. The bus ride was going smoothly and Juan Pablo was giving me advice for things to do in La Paz, when all of a sudden the bus stopped and we were told that we would have to turn around. Evidently, due to the fact that there had recently been a horrible bus crash on this road, they were only allowing buses that were 10 yrs old or less. Ours was 12. Perfect.

So instead of bringing us a new bus, we had to drive all the way back to Arica. Soledad, Juan Pablo, and I wanted to take advantage of the beautiful day, so we changed our bus tickets for one later that night and went to the beach. We spent the entire rest of the day on a beach covered with crab carcasses...which sounds gross, but was actually kinda cool. Later in the night we walked further down the beach to a carnival they were holding and ate completos before heading to catch our bus at midnight.

Day 4. (4400 m) I'm going to warn you now...this was not a fun day (aka i'm going to complain a bit). I woke up at 3am to Juan Pablo telling me that we would have to wait in Chungará, the border between Chile and Bolivia, until 8am when the Chilean customs opens. What he failed to tell me was that in the course of about 3 hours we had gone from sitting on the side of the ocean (in other words...altitude of 0 m) to being 4400 m above sea level. I attempted to sleep until 8, but my stomach and head hurt so bad, that I wasn't able to get more than 15 min here and there. Not to mention it was freeeeeeezing. There was a line of about 8 buses waiting to go through customs and at 8am they started allowing the first ones to go through.

We immediately got up and bought some mate de coca. Mate is like a tea made from leaves and herbs, in this case it is made out of coca leaves...yes the leaves used to make cocaine. This is where I started to see one of the great cultural misunderstandings between the US and Bolivia.To the US, coca leaves = cocaine. To Bolivians, coca is a leaf that has been used throughout history by campesinos and miners to combat altitude sickness, headaches, and hunger. It is so commonplace that it is sold in little green bags along the street...and people aren't buying it to secretly mass produce cocaine (I mean, there are people that do that, but they probably grow their own coca...). Instead, they are buying it to make mate or to mascar (chew). It is a huge part of their culture and we (the US) need to start taking that into account when putting restrictions on Bolivia's coca production. *carefully steps off soapbox*

Unfortunately, even after two cups of mate de coca I was still feeling really sick. We didn't leave the Chilean customs til about 11am and by that time I was vomiting every half an hour or so. We got to the Bolivian customs and, being the only Estadounidense, I was the only one who had to fill out paperwork and pay to enter. Soledad and Juan Pablo waited for me because I was so sick. (I literally had to throw up in the middle of filling out my paperwork...luckily they let me use the 'nice' bathroom. I pride myself on most likely being the only gringa who has ever thrown up in that bathroom. The small things in life, the small things.) Once I had finally finished filling out papers saying that I wouldn't sue if I got yellow fever, the three of us walked out to get on the bus. To our great surprise, the bus was GONE. Gone. As in...it left us on the border between Bolivia and Chile where the only civilization to be seen is the customs building and took our luggage along with it.

To be continued...

mwahaha. How's that for a cliff hanger?

a jaunt through the south of chile

I am back from my trip to the south for a few days before I head to Bolivia, so I figured I should write about my trip before I forget everything. Enjoy these pics because my camera got stolen yesterday and I'm too cheap to buy another one down here before I go to Bolivia by myself. Electronics here are crazy expensive, though...literally twice the price, for the exact same camera. No thank you. Okay, onto the actual post...
I traveled with three girls that I met in my program, Jackie and Sarah who go to Boston College, and Bri who goes to Loyola Chicago. We had been told by everyone that the south was really cold, but I was thinking that it was just cold compared to Santiago which is currently in the 90s. I was thinking, I can deal with weather in the 60s. Unfortunately, while we were down there, it rained a lot and got down to 11 degrees celsius...or 52 degrees. It was cold...at least for a summer vacation. We had planned on going all the way down to Patagonia, but realized that we just weren't prepared for that kind of cold, not to mention the length of the bus ride (about 42 hours from Santiago). What we did see, however, was really beautiful and we had a lot of fun.

First, we went to Pucon which is a little town that is perfect for the outdoorsy type. There were tons of tourist agencies that would take you rafting, kayaking, etc. We opted for canopying (zip-lining through the forest) and going to the termas--pools of hot water that come out of the volcanoes.I'm not going to lie, I was extremely scared about canopying down the mountain, but once i got there, I realized that it seemed relatively safe. Also, i wasn't going to let any little kids show me up.
In Pucon we stayed with this woman who had some open beds. It wasn't a hostel, but we aren't picky...and it was cheap. Only $10 a night compared with the $14 at other places. It was a bit flaite at first, but ended up being the best decision we made on the entire trip. Veronica and Joel were amazing hosts and we enjoyed their company so much. We even had an asado (barbeque) with them! Veronica watches a lot of shows in English with Spanish subtitles, so she would ask us any questions that she had about words that she didn't understand. One night I walked around the town with her and we talked until 3am. In the south of Chile, lots of people drink mate which is like tea only with about half of the cup filled with different herbs. Veronica let me try some and it was amazing! I am going to have to buy some before I leave...if i have any money left.

While in Pucon we also went to a national park. After riding a bus for about an hour, we reached the park and realized that it cost $8 to enter. So....we turned around and walked down the path that the bus had driven up the mountain. jaja. I'm pretty sure we had about the same experience as we would have had in the park and we definitely had just as much fun. After we had walked for hours, we were just waiting for the bus to pass back by and pick us up and talking about hitchhiking. I pointed at a truck as it passed by, saying that we needed something like it...and it stopped. So...we rode back to Pucon in the back of a pickup truck...for free. Win! He dropped us off a ways out of town and we decided to actually try to hacer dedo (hitchhike) this time and a van stopped! A white van...with tinted windows...two men...and a mattress in the back. Ummmm...yeah. We lived, though, and made it back home to Veronica safe and sound.

After Pucon, we went to Puerto Montt. Not really much to say about it. It's a port town and we only stayed for a day. But Guillermo took some nice pictures there, so I thought I'd at least mention it so that I could post them.


The Isla de Chiloe was our next stop. We went straight to the largest town in Chiloe which is Castro. I loved it. It is also a port town, but a lot more quaint than Puerto Montt. This was the view from our hostel.

The town was really relaxed and I enjoyed walking through neighborhoods and along the shore by myself. I just thought the fishing boats and the houses on stilts were so cool.


We also went to a national park in Castro. This time we actually went in. Unfortunately, it was misting the whole time, but we had rain jackets, so it wasn't too bad. The trail we went on was so interesting that it was totally worth it.

First we walked up a hill through forest/rainforest-like vegetation and then through a flat swampland to finally get to a beach with sand and seaweed and everything. It was rather bizarre. By this time we were soaked from literally wading through the swamp, so we just went into the ocean with our tennis shoes and all.

Even though we got back to Castro completely soaked, we had a lot of fun and still managed to go out for Jackie's birthday later that night!

From Castro, we took a bus and a ferry back to the mainland and went up to Puerto Varas. This is a smaller town close to Puerto Montt. We got there late at night and somehow found a hostel for 3 mil pesos...about $6. It was dirty and we had to buy our own toilet paper, but it was significantly cheaper than anything we had found before and we are all about cheap! Unfortunately, it wasn't until we were about to go to bed at 3am, that we realized that there was a thin blanket and NO SHEETS. Pictures couldn't capture how truly disgusting this place was.

It was freeeeeeezing so we took the blankets off of two of the beds and shared two of the beds between the four of us. I was wearing four shirts, two jackets, jeans, and two pairs of socks and I was still cold. It was absolutely ridiculous. But wait, there's more. As we were sleeping...or attempting to...planks from under the mattress kept falling out. 3 to be exact. I was sure that I was going to fall through the bed.
We learned a valuable lesson at this hostel--cheaper is not always better, especially when you do not get what you wanted from your money...in this case: sleep. We only paid for the two beds that we slept in though, so I guess that was nice.

The rest of the girls were ready to leave the next morning, but I decided to stay for a while. I walked up to the top of this hill that has a huge cross on the top of it which is lit up at night. And I did this with my huge backpack on, which was quite a feat, if i do say so myself.


I loved the German influence in the town. You could see it in the architecture, the restaurants, and in the people that were walking around. There were people that were whiter and blonder than I am that were speaking Chilean like nobody's business. It was really interesting. There was even a German Beer Fest that was going to start the day after I left.

Throughout our trip we noticed that these places that we were going were touristy, but for Chileans. There were tons of Chilean families, but very few people from outside of Chile. I did happen to run into a couple that was speaking English while waiting for a bus and found out that they used to live in Liberty. SOOOOOO weird. Liberty is not that big and we are hoooow many miles away? It's such a small world.

And that's that. I'm heading to Bolivia in the next few days, so I won't update for awhile, but when I get back, get ready to imagine the beautiful scenery I take in without pictures. Fine...i'm done complaining. Chao!