Traveling the countryside

Moving away from first impressions and settling into the routine of familiarity. That's where i'm at right about now. I live in Chile. I'm learning the ropes and more or less understand whats going on in Spanish all around me. I still havent met too many chileans...its just hard b/c its hard to meet people in general, just from going to class with them. plus no one really likes americans so we've all got that going against us. however, there is hope. classes are beginning to pile on work and to write this now i am passing on doing homework. it will get done, it always does. having everything in spanish adds an interesting element though for sure.

nothing over the past week specifically sticks out, aside from this past weekend. i'll recount the events of said weekend in the following paragraphs. shall we?

this past weekend my friends heidi, luke, adam, jordan, and i all traveled 6.5 hours by bus to La Serena, a coastal town that is the second oldest city in Chile. LS is north so it was warmer up there and they have about 300 days of sunshine year round so it was gorgeous. sunny, warm...we got to remember what 70 degrees feels like yesterday..aka wonderful! we stayed in a super nice hostal..we were the only ones there and the owner was super nice and friendly. hostals definitely get a bad rap from my experience but all the ones i have heard about and the one we stayed in have been super nice!

friday afternoon/evening we settled in and explored the town, went to an archaeological museum and found a circus that was in town all the way from Guadalajara, Mexico. I ate congor eel and we experienced being gringos...over 6 people surrounded us in the market while on our way to find food. each of these people worked for a different restaurant in town and wanted us to choose theirs. finally adam ducked below their circle of intensity and we sat down in a random one that turned out to be quite tasty. the eel was delicious! being on the coast there is a ton of seafood so we wanted to try it.

The circus in the evening was entertaining but it was freezing inside the small tent! there were trapeze artists, dancers, and lots of clowns. a guy on a motorcycle zoomed around in a large steel ball and there were also a few performances by a bear, two monkeys, and two lions. all the animal acts were super sad b/c it was obvious the animals were malnourished and mistreated. the male lion upon exiting his cage came out and just laid down..refusing to move or participate in performing. the trainer tried to motivate the lion by grabbing his tail and dragging him around the pen. yeah, that worked. not at all. super sad but still an experience. never thought i would attend a circus in spanish!

the next morning we woke up early and caught a bus to coquimbo, a nearby town that is usually a 10-15 min trip but on this particular bus it took us 45 minutes. the driver was super slow and i guess just enjoying the day ors omething..it took forever!!! we went to the town's claim to fame which is a 300 foot tall cross constructed in 2002 atop one of the hills. from the cross you can see the entire town as well as a large portion of the ocean. quite the vistas.

our next stop was an hour bus ride to the quaint, beautiful town of vicuña. the town plaza was beautiful, lots of trees. thats one thing that i love about latin american countries. there arent many parks per se but there is definitely a plaza for every city, no matter how big or small. usually lots of benches, a little bit of green space, some sort of monument in the middle to some famous person, and lots of trees. tons of people milling about. sometimes there are concerts, often times there are random people wnadering around selling food or little souvenoirs or the like. we visited the Gabriela Mistral museum where her first home is located. GM was a famous Chilean poet who was the first woman to win a nobel prize for her poetry about Chile and the Valle de Elqui which is where vicuña is located. the valley is in between the mountain ranges and there is a ton of farming in the area with fruit, vegetables, wine, etc etc. really neat area and a definite contrast from the bustling, fast paced city life in Viña and Valpo. while in this whole area we definitely didnt have to worry about getting hit by a speeding micro, taxi, or other car while crossing the street. life is slower and i really really enjoyed it. im definitely not a huge fan of the city though its good to experience what that is like.

so after the museum we got a ride up into the mountains to Mamalluca Observatory where we learned about the stars and then got to see all sorts of constellations, other galaxies, jupiter, and the moon. i cant even put into words just how amazing it was. to stand out on that terrace and look up into the sky and see nothing but thousands, millions, of stars. it was super quiet up there and even the town below was pretty dark. since we're in the southern hemisphere there is no big or little dipper down here. i saw the southern cross, the scorpion, the stork, and many others. even a few super old stars..one red and one yellow. the color of the star determines the age. great time and definitely a highlight.

upon returning to the hostal the hostal owner and his family were celebrating his birthday and they invited us to join. they showed us a little of how to dance the cueca which is the national dance in chile and played lots of chilean songs on the guitar. we talked with the adults and the younger kids too...really just a neat experience to be able to hang out with an entire chilean family that we didnt even really know. that is the latin american way and i love it. we also got some birthday cake which was mil hojas. mil hojas is layers and layers of thin pastry type dough and in the middle of many of the layers is manjar which i think i wrote about before. they love manjar down here and im probably going to have to bring some back. :)

sunday morning luke and i woke up at 6:15 and headed to the bus to try to go back to vicuna to climb a hill we had heard about that was just outside of town. however, either we were misinformed by the bus station the night before or just missed it. after walking around to the various bus stops and bus terminal in La Serena we decided it wasnt in the cards for us to go to vicuna that day. instead we decided to find our own adventure in La Serena as there are also hills and mountains surrounding that city. so we walked and walked until we got to the mountain range. we climbed up the first hill and found the university and a creepy subdivision where all the gated houses were the same. it was super deserted as it was super early sunday morning and everything was closed and people were sleeping. the other 3 in our group decided to do the same and slept in and watched tv all morning. not my style. so after passing the subdivision we entered the farming district of la serena up on this hill...lots of eucalyptse trees and farms growing who knows what. we climbed the second hill which was mostly all sand. finally we came to the hill/mountain we'd seen from a distance. we followed the path which went alongside what we later determined to be a manmade river up high on that mountain. it was too perfect, too deep, and just wide enough to be natural. we followed it hoping that the path would lead across the river on the other side of the mountain. we passed by a few homesteads with rickety bridges crossing the river but when we asked if we could cross we were glared at so we kept walking. finally came to a portion of the river that was only about waist deep on me. we forded that river holding our belongings above our heads and walking through as fast as possible...it was freezing! luckily it was a pretty warm day and super sunny so our pants dried by the time we reached the summit. the climb up was super intense and very steep. but we made it and the view was ultimately rewarding. we could see the huge cross of coquimbo across the bay, all of coquimbo and la serena and even the Andes mountains off in the distance. valleys on both sides and lots of pacific ocean off in the distance. super beautiful. it took us longer to climb and then get down than we anticipated so by the time we got back down and got across the river it was getting late. we had a bus to catch at 2pm and it was already nearly 1pm. we booked it back as fast as we could...at the mountains base we had about 3k left to cover and an hour to do it. we walked/jogged as fast as possible but by this time we were both super tired and hungry so we didnt really want to overexert ourselves. at the edge of the main town we caught a cab that dropped us off 3 blocks from our hostal so we walked there and arrived at 1:30. we caught another cab back with the rest of the group and settled in for another 6.5 hour bus trip back where we slept and recharged.

needless to say every muscle in my body hurts today but it was super worth it and quite the adventure. i love traveling and if it wasnt so expensive i would go somewhere different every weekend...now back to the school work and reading spanish! super.

good luck to everyone finally getting back to school...and thus marks my first month here in Chile!

love and miss all of you,
katie