Hike in Cajon del Maipo & Paseo a la Playa

Well I'm in the blogging mood, and these pictures just got added so here you go. About a month ago we, Jess, Mimi, Karl, and I, went on a hike to Cajon del Maipo which is pretty close to Santiago by bus.

We packed a lunch and ate it on the steps while waiting for the bus.

It was super steep and rocky, probably inadvisable to hike, but it was still pretty fun!

Yeah.. very rocky.

The way down was way more sketchy on the way down than the way up. Of course, I accidentally started a rock slide and ending up twisting my ankle, bruising my foot, and scraping my ankle pretty good. I had to limp for about a week after that, and my cut is nearly healed. In the future I will probably be slightly more weary of hiking without trails up giant mountains of loose rock. haha

This was us before the hike.. clean and happy, haha.

And also I wrote about Paseo a la Playa earlier, but I didn't have any pictures to go with it so I found one. (In case you didn't read that one, I skipped class one day to go to the beach, which is a tradition at one of the University.)This is probably 1/20 of the actual amount of people there, plus there was live music and stuff. It was really awesome and fun. :D

Okay, for real I think that's all for now. :)

Weekend Trip with the Gringos

Okay so I went on a trip this weekend with my program It was lots of fun..

First we went to Pomaire, which is a small town known for its clay pots apparently.

This guy here sculpted that work of art in about 45 seconds, giving me entirely false hope that I could also sculpt something magnificent...

But that was not the case.

It may appear that I didn't make much progress.. and its because I didn't. I was afraid to apply any real pressure because I didn't want to break it, so the most progress I made was when the guy came over and helped me for approximately 20 seconds. My lump of clay magically turned into a bowl!!

Not sure where the pictures of the finished project went.. but there's my hand print!!

Apparently 3 legged pigs are lucky in Chile?? We learned that..

So after that we went to Isla Negra which is a small town and I think pretty much the only thing to do there is see Pablo Neruda's house, so see it we did!!

Unfortunately you can't take pictures inside..

But there was this cool fish thing outside.. and also a really great view of the ocean.

But anyway I feel like maybe we did some other stuff since that doesn't seem like a very full day, but I can't remember. So anyway we went to our hotel to find that we hand the biggest beds EVER! We fit 6 kids laying side by side across it. It was awesome. This is Jess, enjoying the largeness.

Then, obviously, we decided we should test how many of us it could fit. Haha so many gringas!! 

After laying in that bed for awhile we went out for Mexican food and it was actually REALLY SPICY and AMAZING. It was great.

The next day we got up early and I actually got to take a picture/see the Reloj de Flores.. as I expected, it was a clock made of flowers. Pretty great.

 This is a neat looking statue guy... I can't quite remember his significance because I forgot to listen, which happens more than you might think considering everyone is speaking in Spanish and I have developed an amazing ability of "hearing" but not actually "listening" .. and not being able to tell the difference until after, which has been problematic in my classes.

Then we went on a boat ride through the harbor in Valporaiso. Here is the cute one:

And here is the goofy one with life jackets, safety first!! 

We saw sea lions!!

 Then we walked around Valporaiso for awhile, and saw more graffiti!

"Graffiti is culture"

cooool. 

Okay so that was pretty much the end of Saturday. For dinner we went and bought a bunch of bread from a bakery (it was still warm!!) and avocados ("palta") and tomatoes and had sandwiches and it was super delicious.

 Sunday we went to a Chilean rodeo which was mostly just awkward and kind of sad:
Basically the idea was to chase a cow around and pin it to the wall violently and points were awarded based on some arbitrary system that I couldn't discern.

This is my friend Sophie and I, not watching the rodeo because it was sad.

This kid was super cute though, we watched him more than the rodeo, haha.

After the rodeo we got to go swimming and had an 'asado' (like a barbecue) with delicious food. It was great. Afterwards we went to a ski resort that isn't open yet and had 'once' (afternoon snack) (we did a lot of eating on this trip) and then took a bunch of pictures:

There are more but that's the gist.. perhaps I'll post more later because it was super beautiful.

Well that's about it, it was super fun. I'm leaving today to go to Pucon in the south of Chile to go ziplining and to hike a volcano so I should have more pictures to share next week sometime :D

Why is Cristobal so awesome??!!

Wow, Cristobal is the greatest host brother ever. Last night I made him let me take a video of him dancing.. this was the final product.

Also Mom: He says "Muchas gracias!!" (thanks a bunch) for the Foo Fighters shirt :D

La ninera mas bacán!

Haha the title means "The coolest babysitter" in Chilean slang. Obviously, that refers to me. Alejandra had to go to a meeting so I went and spent my last $4 (Kind of need my debit card to get here now!!!) on ice cream for Cristobal and I, and then we ate Scooby Doo Fruit Snacks and danced to music on my laptop. and then we ate a huge watermelon for dinner. Maybe not the best babysitter by mom standards, but we had a great time. haha.
After dinner we battled Beyblades.. which are like really powerful tops that you push around to attack each other. This kid is so awesome.