Concepción, Chile

Last weekend I went with my host family to Concepción, a town about 8 hours from Chile. It wasn't super thrilling or exciting because it was mostly family time as we went there with the purpose of visiting my host mom's sister. It was still fun though. We left Saturday morning and got home Monday night (Monday was a national holiday.) On Sunday, they gave me a tour of the city. The interesting thing about Concepción is that it was the epicenter of the huge earthquake in 2010, so a lot of the city is still under reconstruction.

We went to the university first.

This is a big clock tower on campus, but its still under reconstruction

hermanito, Cristobal, and a giant skeleton

The campus was really beautiful, it had tons of fountains and such

Hermanito and me

They also showed me the Plaza Jurasica (Jurassic Plaza). It was bacán!! (bacán= chilean slang meaning awesome)

It was at this moment when I realized Chilean parks are WAY more awesome than ours!

This is Cristobal struggling on the Canopy.. (can't remember the English translation of that.. uhh zipline maybe?)

The park was SWEET!

So then we did more driving around the city. Obviously Cristobal did hilarious and obnoxious things while I took photos, as per usual:

This is the widest river in Chile.. pretty sweet I guess.

If you look closely above the red car you can see a broken bridge.. it collapsed during the earthquake. Scary!

It was a fun trip but I nearly killed Cristobal on the bus ride home because he had lots of energy and I didn't (as per usual) and his beat boxing and singing was not as awesome as it normally is.

:D

Second group trip to La Serena

For the second CIEE trip we went to La Serena (where the star is.) We left Wednesday night and got home late Sunday night. If I could characterize the journey in one phrase it would be "behind schedule", but it was really fun nonetheless. The best thing about CIEE trips is that your don't have to stress or worry about anything. The only difference between CIEE and elementary school trips is that we never employed the "buddy system" and we didn't have to hold hands when we cross the streets. But really, they tell us to get on the bus, they tell us when to get off, they organize all the activities, its great.

So we got to our hostel really late the first night and then had to wake up fairly early, so the bus ride to the first place was full of grumpy-gills. It was beautiful bus ride though, with great views of the ocean and mountains at different points. Our first destination was a boat ride on the ocean, that I wasn't sold on at first but ended up being the best part of the trip. We saw tons of birds, penguins (that was one of my goals before leaving Chile, CHECK!), and (the best part, by far) tons of dolphins!!

The Pacific Ocean, in all it's glory.

My lovely CIEE group (well about half of them)

Birds of some interesting species, I'm sure

Cool rock features!

Sea lions!

The other half of the lovely CIEE group

More birds

Penguins!!

Bird poop.. and also some neat looking birds

and the best part, DOLPHINS

So close we could almost touch them!

And we saw them jump out of the water a few times. It was awesome. We probably saw at least 30. The tour guide said we were really lucky because usually, on good days, you only see like 1 or 2. It was so cooool.

We got to get off the boat for a little bit and climbed up to a lighthouse

Me being cool in my lifejacket

Safety first!!

So then we did a lot of eating and other boring stuff until nightfall when we went to a really cool observatory.  We saw a bunch of constellations and star clusters and other stuff. We also got to look at the moon through an enormous telescope. It was really interesting because all the constellations were upside down (proof that the southern hemisphere dwellers live upside-down *cough..Tom*)

The stars were amazing though because we were outside of city lights so it was really really awesome!

Sorry, I didn't think to pose by the giant telescope so I had to steal this one.

As it turns out the biggest telescope is in Chile and is owned by the US i believe, but the EU is constructing a bigger telescope in Chile (damn Europeans!!!) that will be like x400 more powerful or something crazy. Anyway, I never knew that Chile was such a popular place for telescopes, something about the lack of city lights, the high elevation, and the clear skies (once you get out of Santiago)

Okay cool so we got home really late again, but then we got to sleep in a little bit the next morning before we went on a bike ride through Vicuña, which is just a small little town. It was pretty awesome because our group was followed by a "vehiculo de apoyo" (support vehicle) which was loaded with delicious snacks and water, and there was even a guy to slice the apples and pears!! (like I said, elementary school trip.) We broke into 3 groups: A, B, and 'mas o menos' ('more or less', or the group that wasn't so good at biking.) For some unknown reason A and B were not broken up based on ability, it was based on some arbitrary guideline, but then were paced according to ability. Essentially what this means is that I was really bored in the B group.  But the second day of biking was more fun, so more on biking later.

That night Karl, Mimi, Nicola and I played hearts, listened to music and hung out with the group. Then afterward we went to a concert in the town plaza. Being gringos in a small Chilean town meant we had no chance of blending in whatsoever, so we just embraced that. I'm sure we were quite a spectacle but we had fun.

Hearts! 

Cutest little kid danced with me on stage!! It was adorable :D

So the next morning was an early morning and we biked for pretty much the whole day. I also really enjoyed this part. 

So there is one other person here from CU Boulder, his name is Nick. Nick and I were both [really bored together] in the B group on the first day, so, learning from our mistakes, we promptly asserted ourselves into the A group. However, we soon realized that the A group's strategy was to bike as hard as they could for as long as they could and then rest. Nick and I thought this was stupid, so we made the A minus group. We never lost the A group, we just biked at a steady pace and then caught up to them on the rests. The motto of  A- group was "downshift!!!" as there were a lot of hills. Anyway this was great fun and there were lots of jokes involved. After the bike ride we ate the most delicious pasta ever in the world (we were really hungry) and then went back on the buses. We were supposed to go see a petrified wood forest but we didn't have time (buuuuuuumer.. not really because its petrified wood..) but we did have time to go see some hieroglyphics and climb on some rocks.

Vehiculo de apoyo, yumm

Aw, me and Mimi

Us after the bike ride, look how much we love each other!

Climbing rocks, i'm pretty sure i took pictures of the hieroglyphics but i can't find any! Anyway take my word that they were cool

Some random photo stop along the way.

That's pretty much it by way of excitement. The next day the itinerary says we went to a very interesting ecological site, but i don't remember that at all so it might have been part of the "behind schedule" thing. I remember us eating a delicious lunch, hanging out in a beach town that was still partially destroyed from the 2010 earthquake and then getting back on the bus and heading home to Santiago. The bus ride home was tons of fun, I really love the CIEE group. Mimi and I (and Karl when we needed a scientist) talked about everything from the causes of war and bargaining failures to societal pressures of body image to renewable energy. It was super interesting, but did not help me prepare for my history test the next day at all! (Grade on that still pending....)

(Editors note: I ended up getting a B- on my history test, FOR THE WIN!)

Torres del Paine, Patagonia! :D

Okay I am a little behind in writing this, but late is better than never, right? (Editor's note: brace yourself for about a million pictures)
So in April Tom, Jess, Karl and I decided we were going to backpack through Patagonia:

This is us planning, which took a long time because we all like each other too much, so we get off topic easily.

So after tears, heartbreak, laughter, etc, we finally got our tickets booked (it sounds like i'm exaggerating but it really was very difficult to buy plane tickets and we all ended up on different flights and chaos ensued, but it all worked out in the end.) we headed off to the Chilean side of Patagonia known as Torres del Paine, with minimal preparation and lots of borrowed items. 

(The dates that allowed us the cheapest airfare- by about $100- also conveniently allowed us to skip an entire week of classes... hurray for pass/fail classes!)

*a fun side story was that airport security in Chile (and apparently in the rest of the world, according to Tom) is SO easy!!! Tom, Jess, and I had the same flight on the way there so we planned to meet about 4 hours before our flight in the metro station, which Tom deemed excessive, but we overruled him. Then at the airport Tom was dillydallying like crazy and Jess and I were stressing and rushing him (at this point we had 2 hour til take off.) He made us stop to buy breakfast, but we wouldn't let him eat it until after we got through security... which was about 6 minutes later. We didn't even have to take our shoes off!*

Our flight had two stops on the way there: Concepción and Puerto Montt, and then we arrived at Punto Arenas. (This map doesn't show it, but we were just a stones throw from Antarctica!!)

We took a cab from the airport to the city center and from there we hopped on a tour bus (that is to say, the company we used is called Tur-bus) and spent 3 more hours driving south and east to Puerto Natalles, where we spent the night in the hostel and rented the rest of the gear that we couldn't find in Santiago (including a tent, thus this was a very important step.) We nearly forgot to bring a pot (shows how unprepared we were) but thankfully the hostel lent us one.

La Jess (Chilean for "Jess") in our hostel.

So the next morning we took of bright and early (and 45 minutes behind schedule, as is the norm in Chile) with all our gear and backpacks in tow, in yet another 3-4 hour bus ride to Torres del Paine. But this bus ride was actually awesome because we saw tons of wildlife

including guanacos (which are like camels) and a flamingo (!?!) and I can't remember what else, I will update this when I remember.

We also stopped along the way for some tourist shots:

It was so beautiful!!

 :O!! So pretty, these are the "Torres" (Towers)

And look, its us! We wanted to take lots of pictures on the first day while we were still somewhat good looking.

Okay so we finally get past all the tourist stuff to the park. These sneaky Chileans make you pay $30 to enter if you have a passport and only $8 if you have a Chilean ID. Fortunately we snaked them and presented our RUTs and paid the reasonable amount. Next we had to buy tickets for the boat (yeah they get every last cent out of you) which was lots of fun, but SUPER windy!!

For some reason we all look really angry in the last picture, but really, we were having a great time. And the lake was such a unique color, it was really cool!

Okay so we get off the boat and start our hike. We went about 200 meters and promptly stripped off nearly all of our clothes. The first day we hiked about 4 hours and saw some really incredible views (i think this was the most beautiful part of the hike, really) and a glacier that was awesome! We set up camp (about $8 each I believe, which turned out to be worth it because we got to have a little bit of running water and a shelter to make dinner and breakfast, since it was drizzling a little) and did an extra hour hike to see the glacier up close.

No photoshopping, pure amazing-ness.

Super windy, but vale la pena (worth pain) for the view!

So many sketchy bridges, but usually bridge means you're close to the camp grounds because otherwise you just have to forge across streams.

Tom and I being super helpful

Glacier by day and by night. 

Probably the best curry ever made, although I might be biased because of how hungry I was. haha

Okay so the second day we started off bright and early with oatmeal and honey for breakfast (because it was so late in the summer.. aka fall... we couldn't really get started until about 8am because of the sunrise. Although the time changed after our first night *daylight savings is observed about a month and a half later in chile* *also fun fact: because we were so far south the sun never rose in the sky, it pretty much just went sideways across the skyline. nuts!!*)

We had to hike back the way we came (4 hours) because the trail is a W (i will post a map at the end) and then we hiked for 3 more until we got to the middle of the W, spending the night at Italiano. This was great because we got to hike the most beautiful part twice! It got a little cold after we stopped for lunch, and we had planned to walk a little further but we were pooped out by the time we reached Italiano. We set up camp and did a really easy 2 hour (there and back) hike (without our backpacks!!) up to another glacier that was wicked cool. For dinner that night the 4 of us wolfed down about 10 servings of pasta, again the most delicious pasta in the world.

Haha, so this is what my backpack looked like. 

It rained a little bit, so we prepared for a downpour just in case, but it never came fortunately.

Eating lunch inside was great. Avocado and tomato sandwiches and hummus with extra bread. Oh and I think we brought about 10 pounds of trail mix.

It was actually great to go in the "off-season" because it was a little colder, but the trees were all different colors, which was amazing.

So second night we stayed in Italiano and we were the only people there which was actually a little eerie, (if someone had gotten sick/hurt we were about 3 hours from the nearest person.) Fortunately nothing bad happened except for F$&#@ing mice getting to some of our food. Fortunately they only got the lentils and a near empty bag of trail mix and oatmeal, but we could hear them crawling around outside all night which was really gross and slightly terrifying.

Thankfully, since we were the only ones at the camp site, we got to pitch our tent under the only shelter, which turned out to be really handy since we woke up to pouring rain in the morning. We got to stay dry for an extra hour and then we were off to face Mother Nature. We covered our backpacks in trash bags which was remarkably effective. The walk was pretty cold and my shoes were soaked through after the first hour. To distract ourselves from the cold we spoke in Spanish and told lots of jokes and sang Disney songs. I want to say this part of the hike took about 6 hours. This was definitely the hardest day of the trip. At one point we came over a hill and suddenly it was like we were in Scotland, super green and rolling hills, and it stopped raining (which added to the euphoria.) Another half an hour of walking took us (we literally could not believe our eyes) to what seemed like a (not so small) village of buildings. We thought we were going crazy, but it turns out there is a luxury hotel for rich people to enjoy the Torres without "roughing it", haha. So we walk into the hotel, clearly unfit for civilization, and the hotel employees promptly direct us to the campsite 10 minutes up the road. It stopped raining only long enough for us to set up camp and change out of our wet stuff (my underwear and bra were even soaked, I felt like I'd just jumped into a pool.) We were about to start cooking dinner and some friendly Chileans invited us to eat by their fire when it started raining again, and we were like "Screw this!" threw everything inside the tent, ate powerbars and the last of the trail mix for dinner, played cards and went to bed early.

more sketchy bridges!

yay!

Our ghetto attempt to prevent rain from soaking through our backpacks and sleeping bags, it actually worked!! haha.

Rain, rain, rain

soaked but still hiking through Patagonia, thus spirits remained high

water break

Karl pretty much exemplifies the feelings from this day.

Anyway, given that all my dry clothes were currently on my body and my so-called "water proof clothes" were bunched up one corner of the tent, soaking wet, the last morning was tense. If it had been a raining day we probably would have been done for. Fortunately we woke up to this:

Blue skies and perfect view of the mountains!!

The last day we only wanted to do a hike up to the Mirador, or the place with the best view of the Torres. Because we would have to back track we (mercifully!!!) got to leave our backpacks behind and just carried water bottles. The hike took about an hour and a half, one way. We practically ran it so that we could get up in time, and still make our bus out of there. We got to play in the snow and all the trees were changing colors, it was a perfect way to end the adventure. 

But, because this is Chile, nothing worked as planned and our adventure didn't actually end there. We got down, packed up camp, and walked to our bus stop. When we asked the hotel staff exactly where the bus stop was, they informed us that (contrary to what the receptionist told us that morning) the bus stops running in the "off season" and that our only option was to walk "an hour" up the road to where the bus drops off at (where we would be catching a van to get back to Puerto Natales.) The funny thing is, the receptionist had told us it was a half an hour bus ride, so apparently these hotel employees were OLYMPIC SPRINTERS or something, thinking we could make it in an hour. So at this point we have 2 hours until we have to catch our van and we're an unknown distance from the stop. We start hiking, having no other option, and about 20 minutes pass. I hear a car coming up behind us- not just a car- a pickup. My Idaho redneck side shines through and I stick out my thumb. These nice Chilean construction workers pull over and tell us to hop in the back. On the way there we picked up a French guy too. All in all we figure the walk would have taken us the better part of 2 hours, but about 35 minutes later we arrived at our destination, with plenty of time to spare!

Tom having the time of his life hitchhiking (I couldn't believe none of them had ridden in the back of a truck before!! turns out in some places its illegal?! The world outside of Idaho seems like a dark place sometimes, haha)

So we got back to Puerto Natalles just fine. The van dropped us off a little before 6 and we had to catch the bus back to Punta Arenas at 7. Tom and I returned all the gear, Karl bought the bus tickets, and Jess bought food. It worked perfectly. We wandered around Punta Arenas for awhile looking for a reasonably price hostel and then promptly fell asleep ( ON THE MOST COMFORTABLE BEDS IN THE WORLD, haha) The next morning we walked around Punta Arenas for awhile and then left for the airport, only 2 hours ahead of schedule this time. Which STILL turned out to be too early. We got to the airport at about 1:45 and were told that the Sky Airlines staff, whom we needed to check bags and print tickets, didn't show up until 2. When we finally got that sorted out we went to go through security and saw

that security did not open until 3 (flight was at 3:30 i think) and they had placed a daunting orange cone in the metal detector to prevent anyone from getting past. Security was, again, a breeze, and we were home free. At this point we were so dirty we felt unfit for society. When I got home, I passed up dinner (for the first time in my life probably) for a nice hot shower.

All in all I think we walked about 50 kilometers. We started at the star and ended near the last circle on the right. :D