You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Chile’ tag.
4:50 PM, Cata Internacional Bus pulls up. I am relieved. My bus is punctual, and I am tired and a tad hungover after my last night in Buenos Aires.
5:15 PM, IPod is fully charged and set to shuffle. Despite the fact that I am sick of all of my music, I still listen for hours anyway. I don’t think much, just recline as far as the seat will go. I’m in the front seat of a two-story bus, so I have a view. It’s nice, but I have to close the curtains because the sun hurts my eyes.
7:00 PM, The bus stops. More people get on, and the seat next to me becomes occupied by an older, kind-faced gentleman. Although he has a rather large frame, he does not try to take up more than his fair share of space, and I feel grateful.
7:09 PM, My feet are cold. I’m happy with myself that I thought to put a pair of socks in my small carry-on backpack. I put the socks on and my sweatshirt, and I use my scarf as a blanket for my lap.
8:30 PM, Dinner service begins. Good thing too because I am starving. I eat the cold food first, make a sandwich out of the ham, bread, and mayo. After I eat half of an empanada, I accept the hot food that is handed to me. Opening the tin, I am kind of happy to see mashed potatoes set atop chicken milanesa, but then I watch the man next to me use his bread to make a sandwich out of his milanesa and ham, and I think I have food regret. Why didn’t I think of that?
8:50 PM, I am offered gaseosa or vino; of course, I ask for vino.
9:30 PM, Dinner is over, and I assume a movie is about to start. So used to the Argentine bus system after two months in the country, I know the routine. Dinner followed by a movie followed by lights off and a silent encouragement to sleep until morning.
9:45 PM, There is no movie, but the lights go out. I take a sleeping aid, methodically put my earplugs in my ears and secure my face mask over my eyes and pray for sleep.
9:52 PM, There is also no blanket or pillow proffered, I note with some annoyance.
3:00 AM, There’s a clock near my seat (my watch broke two weeks ago, and I never bothered to get it fixed), and I groggily lift my mask to check the time then retreat back into my dreams.
7:18 AM, I can tell it is light out and lift my face mask again to do a time check. Don’t want to miss the coffee service. Everyone around me appears to be sleeping, and I am tired still, so I resume my position.
8:21 AM, I smell coffee. I wake up and whip the sleeping mask off just in time. The old man hands me a cup of coffee and the bus employee hands me breakfast, an alfojar. The coffee is loaded with sugar, but it is hot and good.
8:28 AM, After I eat the cookie, I dig in my bag for something to supplement my breakfast and come up with almonds and raisins.
8:35 AM, The bus pulls into a parking lot just meters away from the Argentina/Chile border crossing. Caffeine hasn’t taken effect yet, so I barely understand what the driver tells us over the loadspeaker. I hear “un ratito” (a little while) and not much else. I assume that since this is peak travel season, there’s a delay at the border.
8:45 AM, Understanding that there’s nothing I can do to help get us across the border, I turn my IPod on again and place an issue of The New Yorker on my lap.
9:49 AM, Cars, buses, and trucks are piling up. No one is moving. We haven’t moved. I use the bathroom, wish there was more coffee.
10:11 AM, Bored and maybe a little hungry still, I eat the package of breadsticks that I’d saved from last night’s dinner.
10:30 AM, I don’t feel like reading, so I listen to my music and think about sex and food, though not in the same context.
10:55 AM, People are getting out of their cars and off of the bus and meandering around. I consider asking what the problem is but don’t feel like coming up with the words. I may be the only foreigner on the bus.
11:38 AM, I decide that I need to stretch my legs. Also, I think that maybe it would be cool to snap a few photos in case I decide to blog about this nightmare, er, experience.
11:56 AM, It’s hot outside, and after I take a couple of pictures, I decide that I prefer to be inside on the cramped bus where at least there is air conditioning.
12:02 PM, Before I board the bus again, though, I ask a woman standing by my bus what the problem is. The people aren’t working, she says. It’s on the news in Buenos Aires. So, it’s a strike, I think but don’t say because I do not know the Spanish word for strike. She thinks we should just go straight through, and I agree with her. Screw the damn border formalities. It’s just a stamp!
12:15 PM, Back on the bus and feeling sorry for the people in cars who may not have air-conditioning or who cannot use their A/C and take the chance of running out of gas.
12:25 PM, “Vamos,” the bus people say over and over, until we are “falta nadie” (missing nobody). And then we proceed to move about ten feet.
12:58 PM, I feel myself starting to get anxious, but what’s there to do?
1:17 PM, Lunch is served. I eat my second alfojar of the day and eat the sandwich (ham and cheese, always ham and cheese) before I can decline the gaseosa and boldly ask for vino blanco.
1:39 PM, I’m probably the only one on the bus drinking wine with lunch, but I don’t care. We’re stuck, and I think drinking wine is the only thing to do in a situation like this.
2:32 PM, I notice we are moving, but I’d been dreaming and feel like I could sleep for a million years.
4:30 PM, We’re pulling up to the border, waiting our turn in the bus line. I feel like I’ve got jet lag and am sleeping like I do. (In spite of my fog, I wonder how it took us this long to get to the border control and if we went a different way, but I don’t feel like asking.)
6:08 PM, Immigration. Relatively painless. Off the bus. Exit Argentina. Enter Chile. I exchange 100 Argentine pesos for 10,000 Chilean pesos. Realize I lost about $4 USD. Damn.
6:21 PM, I stuff my face with peanuts before my lugage goes through security. No food can be brought across the border. Sadly, I throw away half a bag of raw peanuts and think about how I really need to brush my teeth.
6:28 PM, Immigration dude reads my affirmation that I am not carrying any fruits or other forbidden items in my luggage and flirtatiously says, “Very good, Stacey.”
But I’m in no mood, and so I think to myself, sweet, so you know two words in English, and barely smile at him.
6:45 PM, “Cuanto se tarda a Valporaiso?” I ask the bus guy.
“Tres horas mas a Santiago y una hora mas a Valporaiso,” he tells me. Wonderful, I think and do the math in my head. 4.5 hours until I get to Valpo. Dinner with Denise and her sister is off, and I’m going to have to pay for a taxi to get to my hostel instead of taking the bus.
7:15 PM, We’re served a snack: another alfojar and gaseosa. I want to ask for vino but decide I don’t have the energy. I stash the alfojar for when I’m feeling desperate.
7:49 PM, Read an article in The New Yorker about Jules Kroll, the guy who reinvented corporate intelligence or something like that.
8:30 PM, Try to read another NYorker article, this one about a female architect from Baghdad, but I can’t relate and throw the magazine to the ground.
8:45 PM, The bus stops. There is road work. A man carrying a styrofoam box boards the bus and offers empanadas.
8:46 PM, I let him walk to the back of the bus. I don’t want one.
8:48 PM, I decide I want an empanada. Like, bad. Empanada guy is getting off the bus. He sold all of his empanadas before I had a chance to claim one. Oh my God! Noooo! I need that empanada!
8:52 PM, Empanada guy is back. I get him to notice me with the help of the guy sitting behind me, who can obviously tell from the expression on my face he better do what he can to help me get that empanada.
8:55 PM, For several minutes, am completely content eating my overpriced but delicious empanada.
9:15 PM, I decide to eat my third and final alfojar, setting a PR for alfojars eaten in one day. I feel fat but don’t much care. I guess I was desparate for something comforting and there’s nothing like a little dulce de leche to lift the spirits.
10:17 PM, Arrive Santiago, Chile. The bus empties except for about five people, including me and two girls who strike up conversation with me when I go to fill my water. They’re staying on the bus too, heading to Vina del Mar, about twenty minutes past Valporaiso. One is from Buenos Aires, the other from Santiago.
10:34 PM, The girls are sweet, but I’m so tired that I can barely speak my own language let alone theirs, so I excuse myself, return to my seat and wait for the bus to leave Santiago.
10:44 PM, IPod on. Listening to Radiohead, I start thinking about all of the avocadoes I’m going to eat once get to Chile. Then I think about breakfast and if I shouldn’t stop for a completo (hot-dog with everything) before I settle into the hostel.
11:00 PM, One of the bus employees takes a seat near me and begins chatting, forcing me to remove my headphones. He inquires about my accommodation in Valpo, and when I tell him that I’m worried about my reservation because the bus is so late, he lets me use his cell phone.
11:02 PM, They have my reservation. They’ll be waiting for me.
11:15 PM, Alone again, IPod goes on; I doze.
11:59 PM, I start seeing signs for Valpo. Force myself upright and awake.
12:18 PM, Bus pulls over at the side of the street. I check the seat and the floor, make sure I’ve got everything and hop off the bus. I accept the first offer I get for a cab and refuse to pay more than 4000 for the ride.
I have arrived.
And tomorrow at 7:50 AM, I am going to board another bus, and, if all goes as planned, arrive in Arica, Chile at 1 PM on Sunday, after only 29 hours of traveling. That’s got to be a walk in the park after 31.5, no?
At 3 PM on a Wednesday afternoon, I arrived at the Erratic Rock Base Camp in Puerto Natales, Chile to get some information on trekking the popular “W” circuit in national park Torres del Paine.
By 4:30 PM, I had three, possibly four (if Ben retrieved his new passport in Argentina in time to meet us before the bus to the park in the morning) trekking partners and a decision to make on which bottle of bottom-shelf whiskey was to keep us company during the cold nights in the park. (In the end, we purchased both available bottom-shelf brands, reasoning that at about $6 USD, it was a wise investment.)
At 10 PM, after hours of securing rental equipment, finding the right gas for our cooking gear, and grocery shopping with three guys hailing from different European countries (James, England; Colin, France; Dan, Sweden), I was finally ready to pack my bag for the trek. Personally, I didn’t bring much, for after dividing up the camping supplies and food, I knew I wouldn’t make it through Day 1 if I insisted on wearing clean clothes everyday.
What follows is a run-down of the things we carried:
-two two-person tents (ok, so we were trying to save a buck, but we also weren’t 100% certain that Ben, also from England, was going to make it in time)
-five sleeping bags
-five sleeping pads
-four trekking sticks (these were highly recommended at the info. mtg as a way to stabilize when that famous Patagonia wind threatened to knock us over)
-two cooking stoves and three gas tanks
-six bars of chocolate (these would end up being rationed out painstakingly along the course of five days)
-four packages of cookies (“This is not the time to think about getting in your five food groups. You want sugar. Lots of sugar,” the Erratic Rock speaker emphasized, and so we grew accustomed to having “cookie breaks” along the way, though we would have done well to have purchased double or triple the amount.)
-matches
-Instant coffee (and tea for the English boys)
-dehydrated milk
-oatmeal
-manjar (in the dulce de leche family, perfect stirred into a steaming bowl of oats)
-two bags of rigatoni pasta
-three cans of tunafish
-countless packages of soup
-sauce for the pasta: bolognese, basic tomato, and mediterranean (to mix it up a bit)
-two cans of mushrooms
-two packages of cheesey pasta
-a kilo of rice
-three packets of orange powder that when mixed with water supposedly replicates the taste of orange juice
-the aforementioned bottles of whiskey
-a mess kit which included five bowls, five spoons, five cups, two cooking pots, and two sponges
-a box of matches
-toilet paper
-garbage bags (We’d been instructed to place all of our clothes and our sleeping bags in plastic, waterproof bags so as to have a nice dry sleep at the end of a day of trekking. Who knew that we’d never feel a drop of rain in the park which is said to offer you all four seasons in just one day?)
-personal food items (James must be credited with generously sharing much of his private stash. It was his special, spicy sauce, after all that added another dimension to every meal, be it cheesey pasta with tuna or minestrone soup. Oh, and I mustn’t forget the mis-purchased bacon, which to the luck of the group, was not the smoked ham that James thought he was choosing. Everybody knows that bacon makes everything taste better, and when you’re camping and surviving on processed, packaged foods, bacon tastes like three miracles in one.)
At 7:30 AM the following morning, the boys reunited with Ben, who, with new passport in hand (his previous one had been stolen in Mendoza) had hitchhiked and taken a cab to make it across the Argentine-Chile border, and I met him for the first time before we all set out to do the “W”, which, I might mention, is so-called because the route the circuit follows in the park forms the letter W, mas o menos.
I could now describe to you the amazing landscapes witnessed on every turn, tell you about Glaciar Grey, the French Valley, and the Towers themselves, but as I doubt I’d be interested in reading about someone else’s perspective on the wonders of the natural world, I’m going to assume you’re not much interested either, so I’ll keep it brief. I’ll tell you that Patagonia, specifically Torres del Paine, is the most spectacular place I’ve ever inhabited, that the potable water in the park is the freshest, tastiest water I’ve ever had, that there were moments when I stopped in my trekking tracks (not because I was flat-out exhausted and needing a break, though surely that happened plenty of times) to stare at a body of water surrounded by snow-speckled mountains or a group of bare trees which appeared to be leaning all in one direction, listening to someone or thing in the distance but actually shaped thus from years of spending time with Patagonia’s ferocious, unparalled wind, that I didn’t think it was possible to be moved by nature like this the way I’d been touched by the sites in Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni. But, my amazement was genuine, my excitement very real.
And yet, although the stunning beauty of Torres del Paine had me fumbling with my camera again and again and uttering how incredible it all was, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that what enhanced, but moreover completed, the five days was the company. It cannot be the easiest thing in the world for five people to share cooking and dish-washing duties, to set up camp at the end of a six or seven hour day of trekking, to agree on what time to wake up to get to the Torres mirador (3:30 AM, in case you’re interested), but I think we did it better than any other group out there. Am I biased? Por supuesto.
On the other hand, I talked to a number of people who’d completed the same trek as us, who’d experienced the same perfect weather (we only experienced one season, and that was summer), and no one expressed as much joy as any one of us five. ”Some of the best five days of my trip,” we all agreed as we sat back on day 5, knackered but accomplished and proud.
“And you just went up to them and asked them if you could trek with them,” more than one traveler/backpacker has asked me after I animatedly told of our journey in TDP.
Indeed, I had. Bold, ballsy, and ready for rejection, I marched up to these strangers and asked if I could join them on their trek. Having no knowledge of their skill level or their names, I’d taken a gamble, and in just a few days time, that gamble would prove to have paid me most generously.
By the end, I had acquired the trekking bug, and as I began thinking about all of the treks that lay before me–Huarez in Peru, Cotopaxi in Ecaudor, Ciudad Perdida en Colombia, and Roraima in Venezuela–I also realized that I’d never be so lucky again to find a group as solid and amazing as the group I found in James, Dan, Ben, and Colin, even if I did want to kill them all (well, all but James who unconvincingly reassured me that he was happy to take it at a slower pace with me) at 3:45 AM on the last day as they barreled up the ridiculously steep ascent to claim a prime spot for watching the sun rise above the Torres and turn them red as we’d seen in many a picture and postcard.
I’ve just had the incredibly rich experience of celebrating the Chilean holiday dieciocho or El Dia de Independencia with a group of Santiago locals.
Previously, I’d written about my positive couchsurfing experiences in Chile, and this latest one with Horacio and what ended up being ten of his closest friends, afforded me an opportunity to truly do as the locals do.
When Horacio, who, like me, quit his job to travel last year, invited me to stay longer than I requested to take part in week-long festivities at the beach a couple of hours from Santiago, I agreed, figuring that if I didn’t get that good vibe feeling from him when we met in Santiago, I could bail out of the extended trip.
Fortunately, no bailing was necessary. I had a couple of days to get acquainted with Horacio and his roommate, Nicolas, before the real party began, and when it was clear that food, fun, and drink were some of their favorite things, I whipped up a batch of my favorite brownies and cooked a full meal for Horacio and Nicolas and felt right at home. Horacio and I traded couchsurfing stories–his round the world trip offered him plenty of CS experiences–and listened to all kinds of music and stocked up on some lemons and avocadoes for the trip.
Dieciocho cannot be compared to the United States 4th of JUly celebration, at least none that I am familiar with. This long weekend, spent at a house rented by Horacio’s friends, mere meters from the beach, reminded me a lot like the parties my friend James and his wife used to throw in Rhode Island before they became the proud parents of a little girl. A house full of people, food, wine, beer, hierba de natural, dancing, laughter, and anything goes, I might have been with my own friends, I felt so immediately at ease and comfortable.
Although Horacio speaks English fairly well, the conversations this weekend, with few exceptions, were all in Spanish. At first, in spite of feeling welcomed and accepted, I felt intensely intimidated, scared to open my mouth for fear of speaking poorly. But as I tried to listen and understand this early thirty-something group of Chileans (two fashion designers, a photographer, and an architect among them) as they spoke to each other (very, very fast and with much slang: cachay, for example, exclusive to Chile, means You get it, and is heard every fifth word), I learned it was better to try and join in even if it was just a small, short sentence or two. My attempts at uttering their language were met with encouragement, and even though I was clearly the odd one out, I didn’t feel strange. Paola, one of the women, even asked me why I spoke Spanish so well, and she was being genuine in spite of my skepticism.
Contributing to the food money fund, helping shop for groceries, offering mas vino when I noticed someone’s glass was empty and doing my fair share of dishes, I sat back during the weekend and relished in the where and what, realizing how fortunate I was to experiencing all that I was.
When asked how much I was understanding (for they were all curious), “Entiendiste, Stacey? (You understood?)”, I admitted that I was understanding some. What percentage, they wanted to know, and when I said thirty or forty percento, my reply was met with laughs around. Sometimes, in fact, I only understood because of an added gesture or the general context.
I was approved of, in part, (I am convinced) because I proved to be a champion drinker of the national drink, piscola. Pisco plus coca cola equals muy rico. Oh, that’s another thing I’ve learned during my travels. Food is not described in Latin America as being delicioso as I was taught in my years of studying Spanish; rather, it is rico, and in Chile, anything can be rico. A sunset? Que rico! Bringing a sleeping bag to the beach for a late afternoon bbq? Que rico! Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”? Muy rico! Deliciosa in Latin America is considered the stuffy, informal way of speaking. It’s used in Spain, I’m told, to describe tasty food.
Of course, aside from the language barrier, there were differences between this party and the RI bashes that I so fondly recall. For one, there’s nothing unusual about eating a huge meal at midnight, f before heading to dance until 6 AM or later. I’m told it’s like this in Buenos Aires, so I wasn’t too surprised to find the similarity in Chile, Argentina’s neighbor, but there was one night when I was wondering if I was going to eat before going to bed.
The food was incredible and plentiful, and there was always enough for late-night snacking once we’d returned from the parties. Midday, we’d gather for a big almuerzo–those who had surfed returning to shower and have an afternoon beverage of orange Fanta mixed with beer (surprisingly muy, muy rico!). On the menu for this kind of meal was homemade pate, cream cheese with marmelata, camembert-stuffed figs, olives, and a variety of kinds of empanadas sliced into finger-sized pieces and drizzled with spices and olive oil–the best empanadas I’ve had in Chile, made by one of the women’s mother. Typicallky, there was wine and champage too. Then, maybe afterwards, a siesta on the couch. We all contributed to the meals and the shopping and the cleaning, though I’m pleased to say that the actual renters of the house were amazingly laid-back and it didn’t matter so much if everything was in perfect shape all of the time. Like I said, it was anything goes.
I noticed that, except for in the morning, when people were rising at various times and grabbing cereal or yoghurt or pan, no one ever took anything for one’s self without first inquiring if others wanted some. The sincere and natural offer, “quieres (you want)?” I could understand without effort. Even out at the bars at night, drinks were always shared, cigarettes passed around for those who smoked.
The only thing I struggled with a small bit was not having any sense of the day or evening’s plans. Once or twice Horacio would let me know that I needed to bring a warm sweater or leave my big bag at the house, but mostly when we went out, I had no idea where we were going and was disappointed once that I missed an opportunity to bring my good camera to take photos of the sunset.
Everyone was so laid-back that I too learned to just go with it, taking notice of others’ dress and movements to gain a small idea of where we were going and for how long, but it never really became easy.
One night, for example, after we’d stuffed ourselves with a variety of meats, pasta salad, papas fritas, and fried eggs (traditionally known as a chirollana), someone would say, “Vamos (Let’s go)?” and then a chorus of “Vamos,” “Si, vamos,” would be heard around.
“Vamos, Stacey?” I’d inevitably be asked by one of the group.
“Si, vamos,” I’d reply and sometimes, if I cared enough, I’d ask “Donde vamos?” inquiring as to where we were headed. However, sometimes when I asked, I was unable to understand the answer. Other times, one afternoon, specifically, when I asked Kenita, one of the lovely Chilean woman, she answered that she didn’t know, but since she was going along for the ride, I went too. I still have no idea what the purpose of that ride was as we seemed to sort of drive in circles, looking for something or somewhere but never really finding it. And I couldn’t figure out a way of asking without possibly sounding rude.
Of course, drinking a bit loosened the foreign tongue, and I found this to be true among the group as well. One on one, they each seemed to want to try out the little bit of English they knew, and then when one spoke a full sentence out loud amongst everyone, it was somehow quite comical.
The last night at the beach house, before we headed out dancing, I found myself talking with a few of the group and being asked what I thought of the weekend and of them. In my head, for the past day or so, I’d been trying to figure out how to tell them in Spanish that even though I didn’t talk a lot and wasn’t able to understand everything, I felt like I’d gotten to know all of them individually and felt very comfortable and fortunate, like I was with my own friends; thus, I was glad they wanted to know but not sure I could produce the exact meaning in their language. Tell us in English, Paolo and her boyfriend, Francisco, encouraged me.
So, speaking slowly, I told them what I’d been thinking in my own language, and then being pleased, they wanted to know more and asked me to describe my feelings for each of them individually. I hesitated, telling them in Spanish that I did not know many adjectives. Fearing that they would mistake my poor vocabulary as far as descriptions went (verbs I’m confident with), I begged off answering at first away at first and then found myself taking on the challenge and remembering palabras (words) to relay my message.
Even though the language barrier was still a very real thing even during those moments, I recognized that the important thing was that we were on the same page. I had gotten to know them despite not comprehending entire conversations, and they’d gotten to know me beyond the language trap. There were ways to get to know a person that didn’t include actual words–many ways. Maybe that seems obvious, I don’t know, but I’d never really thought about it before. I suppose because I’d never had to.
It’s hard to say specifically what kinds of experience you’re looking for when you set out for any kind of journey or trip, but that I know now that this type of experience is why I travel.
Now that I’ve been in Chile for two weeks, I feel at liberty to note some observations.
1) They don’t really speak Spanish here.
It sounds to my ears like another language at times. My first stop in Chile was Arica, pretty close to the Peruvian border, and because I’d been doing so well with the whole language acquirement thing, I was shocked and frustrated when I crossed the border and felt like I hadn’t learned a darn thing!
When I signed up for a tour of the national park near Arica, I hadn’t realized it would be led by a Spanish speaker. If I’d been in Peru or even Bolivia, I’m sure I would have something to tell you about Lauca Park, but to be conservative, I think I caught about every twelfth word out of the guide’s mouth. There was one other American besides myself in the tour group; the five others were Chilean. Neither Jessie, who’d been living with a Spanish family in Cuzco for the past three months, nor I could participate in the group’s conversation. I felt intimidated and didn’t even feel comfortable asking the obvious questions like “what part of Chile are you from?” or “for how long are you traveling?” I remained silent for most of that day, taking in the scenery of the Lauca National Park without absorbing the guide’s explanations, and only speaking my native language when Jessie and I chatted.
In La Serena, Chile, I went out for lunch after untangling myself following an overnight bus, and when pressed by the waitress as to my choice of entrees, I listened, looked blankly at her, felt confused and disoriented and then repeated the only word I could: pollo. Thus my decision was made.
What’s interesting to me is that the Chileans I’ve spoken with about their language (and my difficulty comprehendinging) know that they don’t speak their language particularly well. Quick to point out that the Spanish spoken in Peru is the best, they admit that they speak fast and drop their s’s. Fortunately, through my couchsurfing experiences, I have met many lovely Chileans who slow down when speaking to me and encourage me in my attempts. This brings me to my next point.
2) Chilean couchsurfing is fabulous.
In Iquique, I stayed with Roberto, a freelance photographer with numerous other worthy and admirable ambitions, and his family. Through Roberto, I met Amor, another sweet Chilean, who’d spent some time living and working in the States. It was through Amor that I set out to go paragliding, as the instructor was a friend of hers. I practiced my Spanish a bit with Roberto and Amor but had a greater opportunity to speak it when I arrived in La Serena, where I was invited to stay at an apartment on the beach.
The Garcia family, having no room at their main home, set me up at the apartment, and I enjoyed several relaxing days on the coast. When the weekend arrived, Antonieta, her husband, Julio–my Pisco Sour drinking companion, who also introduced me to some of the best wine in Chile, and their daughter took me to the Elqui Valley, a beautiful spot about an hour from La Serena. There we indulged in some of the best food I’ve eaten in three months, tasted various flavors of manjar, drank fresh Papaya juice, and visited the Gabriela Mistral museum. Gabriela Mistral, if I’m not mistaken, is one of two Chilean Pulitzer Prize winners. When I’d written to Antonieta requesting a couch, I’d offered some information about my past experiences couchsurfing and was thrilled to receive a thoughtful, reassuring reply in return, promising me a safe and comfortable stay with them. Aside from the missing hot water in the apartment (which wasn’t an issue so long as I worked up a sweat running by the beach before bracing myself for the cold shower), it was an excellent experience, and I enjoyed getting to spend time with such a sincere, kind-hearted family. Their generosity is the kind that goes above and beyond.
My first night in Santiago, I stayed in a hostel because I arrived a day early and did not wish to impose on my first set of couchsurfing hosts. While I enjoyed my night at the hostel and was grateful to have met a cool group of people, I was pleased to arrive at Pamela and Aaron’s in Providencia, an upmarket neighborhood in Santiago, the following evening. Not only is the space very cool–Aaron’s an architect and the young couple is very into modern art–but I feel a little spoiled to have my own room filled with bookshelves and DVDs.
I’m not speaking much Spanish with Pamela and Aaron, but mostly I’ve been on my own as they’ve been working fairly long days. It’s refreshing to be in a big city again. Although there is a good metro system here, I usually choose to walk to where I want to go, and I surprised both Pamela and Aaron when I told them that I walked from Providencia to another cool neighborhood, Barrio Brasil, sort of a bohemian enclave a few hours walk from where I am staying. I appreciate walking cities though and also like to stay longer than a few days to get properly acquainted.
Pamela and Aaron stressed that I can stay with them as long as I like, but I’ve made arrangements with Horacio, a Santiago native who last year quit his job to travel the world. I figure we have plenty in common right away based on that, and thus I’m willing to take the chance of surfing with a single guy and hope that he remains clothed while in my presence. If it goes well the first couple of days, I will travel with Horacio and his friends for El Dia de Indepencia on the 18th of September. Supposedly, it’s a really big celebration in Chile, and I’m excited to be a part of it, especially since I missed the 4th of July festivities in the States this year.
3) The Chilean bus system is overrated and overpriced.
Lonely Planet’s South America on a Shoestring describes the bus system as being practically luxurious, citing it as punctual, comfortable, and reliable.
Reliable it is not, and as for comfort, well, I’ve taken more comfortable buses in Bolivia (minus that issue about there being no bathroom!). Twice now, I’ve had tickets for buses that just didn’t show up. The first time, when I inquired about the whereabouts of my bus for an 18 hour ride from Iquique to La Serena, I was told there was no bus that left at the time that my purchased ticket stated. First, they tried to tell me that the bus was going north first, so basically, I should never have been sold that ticket, but then when they saw that I was unhappy with what amounts to my getting schemed the previous day by the sneaky Pullman Bus employee, they said that there were mechanical issues.
Fortunately, I was able to get placed on a later bus, a bus that in the dead of night stopped at a control point, forced all of its passengers off for a bag check and then reloaded its weary and annoyed (me) passengers for the remainder of the journey. Why wouldn’t they check our bags before departing? There must be a more efficient way to do things, and if I had felt just a little bit more confident about my Spanish in Chile, I would have asked the kind gentleman sitting beside me why it was necessary to carry on the check in such an inefficient manner.
The second bus that failed to show up for my journey from La Serena to Santiago had broken down, or so I was told. I was able to get the Pullman Bus employee to understand that I wanted my money back, and once I had the fistful of bills, I promptly found another company to take me to Santiago but not without being forced to take the last available seat on the bus by the bathroom.
4) Chile is expensive.
I’ve said before that the point of couchsurfing is not to save money, and of course, I still maintain that this is true, but the truth is, I wouldn’t be able to afford Chile beyond a couple of days on the budget I’ve given myself if not for couchsurfing and the splendid (often unbelievable generosity) of people I’ve met from the couchsurfing community.
I paid $3 for a cafe the other day, for example. That’s how much a decent cup costs in New York, right?
Fortunately, Chile is known for its abundance of raw materials, and couchsurfing allows me to stock up on groceries and cook. I could almost live on pan con palta, but this morning, after asking Pamela if I could use some baking ingredients to make pancakes, I proceeded to whip up a fluffy batch of American pancakes that I spread with manjar, which is similar to dulce de leche but better, in my humble opinion.
4) Chile is expensive, except for the vino (and my $9. haircut).
Last night I purchased a bottle of Carmenere from Cocha y Toro, the biggest and most commercial winery in Chile, for less than $3.25, and it was outstanding. I think I could buy boxed wine here and find it pleasant.
I’m looking into visiting some vineyards around here, but those tours, like everything but the wine in Chile, are rather pricey. Argentina’s Mendoza and Cordoba regions produce excellent wine, so I may just wait until I cross the border in a week or so.
5) You can drink the tap water in Chile, but why would you want to when the wine is practically free 
?
Because I wake up some nights stressing about grammatical errors in my latest post, I feel compelled to explain a few things about writing in developing countries. As many of you know, I often complain of crappy keyboards. Sometimes I cannot find the apostrophe button; other times, I am typing on a keyboard covered with plastic or a keyboard where the keys are identifiably by tiny squares of taped-on paper. And the keyboard I am typing on right now, for example, requires extremely hard key pressing. After I finish writing this, I will go back and add spaces where necessary as the spacebar key seems to demand the most pressure of them all. It’s a tiresome job at times.
Don’t even get me started on the mouse situation.
When I was in Bolivia, there were numerous occurrences of all of the computers in the Internet cafe shutting down simultaneously, leaving me frustrated that I had to pay for lost emails and unfinished blog posts.
I feel fortunate if the USB drive is functioning, more excited still if I can upload photos onto Facebook. In spite of having paid for exra Flickr storage, the time involved in that uploading process makes me want to get on the Death Train again. The moral of this paragraph is this: if you’re not on FB, it’s time you followed the masses and joined.
Most times when I finish a post, I feel fulfilled, relaxed, and somewhat accomplished, and in my hasty excitement to click the “Publish” button, I generally don’t proofread my entries. A shocking confession from someone who used to work in the editorial department of a book publishing site, I know.
At night when I fret over possible errors, for I know I have language-savvy friends and family reading regularly, I soothe myself back to sleep with promises that one day on this trip when I “have time” I will go back and edit all the entries. Although I can fall back asleep usually, the minor anxiety returns the next day. Just a couple of days ago, for example, I was g-chatting with a friend while editing my latest post.
“Do you think people who know me know that I know the difference between to and too?” I asked her. She failed to respond immediately; but then again, to be fair, g-chat ceased to function temporarily, and when we resumed our conversation, the question was lost.
“Take care, have fun in Chile,” she wrote, leaving me no choice but to tell you directly and unabashedly that I do indeed know the difference between to and too.
In spite of the fact that I am reading some classics down here that I could never absorb on my thirty minute commute involving a train transfer in NY (muchas gracias, Jane, for Lolita and The Brothers Karamazov!), I fear that in my eagerness to learn and speak Spanish, I am losing my vocabularly. Thank goodness for Nina G’s emails that stimulate me intellectually in spite of making me wonder what I am missing in my weekly New Yorker readings. (It may not be long, however, until I have the opportunity to indulge in my own paper copy of the New Yorker as I await a care package from my dear old friend Alison, who has been asking me since I left for an address for which to send me something.)
An ex-boyfriend left me feeling slightly reassured when he wrote recently, “Is it wierd that I correct gramatical and spelling errors only when I’m writing you? Your english prowess still casts a shadow on me [sic].”
In spite of having changed since the start of my journey–I put sugar in my coffee and am considering eating a whole banana–I haven’t shaken my desire to produce beautiful, correct, fluid, and engaging writing, and even if it doesn’t always contain these characteristics precisely as I wish, I’m working on it.
Oh, and one final word before I publish, er, proofread, this entry, having my laptop break down at the Newark airport was most definitely a very good thing. Sending it back to the States has allowed me to pack my daypack with only the most important things: sweaters, toilet paper, avocados, cookies, and whiskey!
Recent Comments