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!

Santiago thus far...

Hello all! Sorry I haven't updated in awhile! There are so many things to do and see in Santiago, that I haven't even come close to seeing everything, but here are some of the things that I have done so far.

My Spanish class took a trip to La Vega which is an old market in the center of Santiago. There they sell anything that you could possibly imagine. Fruits, vegetables, clothes, perfume, ice cream machines, toys, and pottery. I loved seeing all of the different colors and weird things that they have here.




I could have done without seeing this, though.


We spoke with a man who had worked there for many years so that he could send his children to school. He had started out being a cargador which is someone who brings all of the goods to each stand on their back. After years of hard work as a cargador, he moved up to vendedor with his own stand selling fruits. He was super cute.


One of the other things that I did recently in Santiago was to go up the Cerro San Cristobal. There are a number of large hills all throughout Santiago and this one has a large statue of the Virgin Mary on the top. It is kind of weird that it is so normal to everyone here, but you can see her from almost anywhere in Santiago and it is no wonder because she is huge!!


We rode a taxi up most of the hill to watch a concert and then walked the rest of the way up to La Virgen. At the cumbre (top) there is also an area to light candles for loved ones. The view from the top is not much, just the city, but we were up there, so i took some pics.



On the way down the hill, we decided not to take the easy way out and ride the trolleys.


Instead, we took a trekking path that went almost directly down the hill. It was so much more fun than we would have had on the trolleys, i'm sure. At one point on our way down, we ran into a part of the path that was for some reason being watered with a sprinkler. This caused a bit of a problem because we hadn't come prepared to do any hiking and most of us were wearing flip flops. We slipped our way down that part of the path which was slightly scary because falling off of the path meant falling down the entire hill, but it was lots of fun despite that fact.


Saw some llamas at the bottom. No big deal. This man was charging $2 for a picture of them, though. Hah...I think not. So I snuck one.


Once we reached the bottom, we were all hungry for some empanadas so we went to Bellavista to eat and try a local favorite...fanschop. Fanschop = Beer + Fanta. It is actually really good. While hanging out there we saw this sign which I think is hilarious.
Ai Spikin Inglish = I speak in English.

Also, it's time for another warning from the surgeon general herself..."Tobacco KILLS. If you want to live, stop smoking."
Hah. I still can't get over the honesty on these boxes. Though...they are definitely not working. Smoking is the thing to do here in Chile.

One more cultural thing for the day. Here are some foods that you can expect to eat, or at least see, when out in Santiago.

Completos are a really big deal here for some reason. They are hot dogs with tons of stuff on top like palta (avocado), mayo, tomato, and salsa verde. Something else that is very common is to see something 'a lo pobre.' That is any meat with a huge pile of french fries on top of fried onions, with fried eggs on top. It's healthy, i promise.


Whew. Okay. That's all I've got for now.