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

Culture Shock

Okay I've been meaning to write this one for a long time. This is going to be an in depth account of all the things that I found to be really weird or strange when I first came to Chile. It was actually pretty hard to come up with this list, and it took the combined brain power of Jess and I because most of these things have become commonplace now. (DISCLAIMER: if any of my chilean friends read this.. I'm in a sarcastic mood, your country is beautiful and i love it)

The first thing that I noticed when I arrived was the currency.

In Spanish the function of commas and periods are reversed, thus this Oreo McFlurry costs $1,150 pesos... which turns out to only be about 2 bucks in US dollars. Its pretty sweet walking around with  a 10,000 dollar bill though.. even if its only worth 20 bucks. haha

Additionally fruit and vegetables are amazingly cheap and delicious here (we're talking a kilo, or 2.2 pounds, of raspberries or strawberries for about $2!!!!!!) Additionally alcohol is outrageously cheap, and you can find really good deals on clothes as well. But other than that, prices seem to be the same, although electronics are significantly more expensive.

In the kitchen

Okay next, almost no families have toasters.. This is the toaster.. it does not work nearly as well as a toaster

We also have no microwave, thus I take my leftovers cold, for fear of learning how to use the oven.

One will also immediately notice that they don't refrigerate eggs in this country, nor leftovers some of the time. It made me real nervous in the beginning, but I've since gotten over it. 

Also it seems to me that Chileans eat almost nothing. I eat easily as much as my host mom and brother combined, it makes no sense! They never snack and they eat tiny meals, I don't get how they don't wither away!

Oh and salt functions as every condiment. Salad dress, why not salt? Need something on your meat? Salt! Rice, you don't need soy sauce, try some salt! 

Greetings

One thing that's grown on me a lot is that all Chileans will greet you with a kiss on the cheek, even the first time you meet someone, and lord have mercy if you unwittingly offer your hand for a hand shake (you will be made fun of.) So that has taken some getting used to, but it's grown on me, i think I'm going to start a trend in the states.

Things that would not fly in the U.S.

Let's see... Driving here seems to be guided on faith alone ("Jesus take the wheel!!" if you will). There are no discernible driving laws that I have observed. Sometimes streets go in one direction, but then in "rush hour" they go the other way (rush hour could happen at any time it seems.) Also usually they don't outline different lanes with paint so the method seems to be "if you can fit, you can drive there." I'm continually amazed that I haven't seen any car crashes yet. Oh and horns are to be used as frequently as possible, I've yet to drive in a car and not had the driver honk the horn more than once. 

Other things that seems remarkably similar to anarchy: The kids that bag your groceries at the store don't actually get paid, they only make money off what you tip them (?!?!)

Chileans will not form a line.. no matter what.. I don't think I've ever seen it happen. Thus you must "take a number" everywhere you go, even if there are only 4 people in the pharmacy and you want to buy some dental floss... you will stand in line forever until you take a number. Also don't assume that  because you are the next person in what you consider to be a 'line', that your spot is secure. Because there seems to be no concept of 'line' people will just cut in front of you.. apparently assuming that you are standing there for the fun of it(?)

Also always carry some pesos with you if you have a small bladder, public bathrooms are almost never free. And, like EVERYTHING else you buy, you will get a receipt for your purchase... in case you want to return your bathroom experience (?!?!)

It is entirely normal for kids not to move out of the house until they get married, and i'd say about half the kids my age don't have a driver's license.

Public Display of Affection is rampant in this country, i assume because kids live with their parents forever. But still.. on the crowded bus.. BAM.. makin' out. In the park.. BAM.. makin' out (or worse.) Pretty much anywhere you can imagine.

"Custom service" does not translate into Chilean spanish.. the term means nothing here.

They also don't have a pound system so there are stray dogs everywhere in the city. It's really sad but you get used it.

"Chilean Time" is a concept that the other gringos and I have embraced whole heartedly. This is the idea that you arrive between 15-20 minutes (but potentially up to one hour) after the start of any event (including class, which is usually kept to about 5 minutes late) or confirmed meeting time. I have no idea how they get anything done in this country, but I finally feel at home with people who understand the beauty of tardiness. haha.

Machismo & 'Gringa Fever'

This could still be under "things that wouldn't fly in the US" technically.

Anyway machismo is pretty crazy here. I've never been whistled at so many times in my entire life combined as in one day in Santiago pretty sure. 

Additionally people (not just guys, everyone) stare at me like they've never seen a blond person in their entire life. Sometimes on the metro i like to imagine I am one of the first European explorers meeting Chileans for the first time (not really, but it feels like it!) It's also fun to put on my hood and become INVISIBLE (although that pretty much only works at night, because i'm just too white.)

Things that are way more awesome

I'm in a sarcastic mood tonight, not sure why, anyway here is the good stuff:

1) They put tons of work out stuff in the parks all around the city. Pull up bars and leg presses and stuff like that. You can only lift your own body weight so its not like a nice gym, but it's a pretty neat idea.

2) Everyone is SO nice here. Specifically, after I cut my ankle in Cajon de Maipo i kept opening up the scab, and I did it once on the metro and some random guy put down all his stuff and gave me a band aid (and a few more for later) and helped me put it on because I had a lot of stuff. I have tons of stories like that, its really cool.

3) They have a really good public transportation system (except past 11pm.) The metro will get you anywhere you want to go, and if you are brave you can also test out the micros (buses), which run all the time all over the city. And its about $1 for anywhere you want to go. (Or if you are a rebellious youth you can just sneak on and not pay)

Probably the most glorious thing about Santiago is the cheap fruit and vegetables. It's amazing. This is "La Vega" where Jess spends most of her time (haha, joke) But anyway La Vega is a magical place where fresh fruits and vegetables and all the ingredients you could ever hope for to make trailmix abound!!

Speaking of rebellious youth

These kids party til 6am frequently. Its out of control. Parties don't start until midnight. I've tried explaining to them that an earlier start and finish time would only mean more sleep for everyone, but something gets lost in translation.

Also they randomly break out into student protests that bring the city to a standstill. Stores and the metro closes, sometimes micros get diverted, tear gas abounds, but no one seems to really mind.

Okay I think that's all i can think of, I'll have my gringo friends read it to see if I missed anything.

Cristobal Tries Sriracha for the First Time

Well this is probably my favorite memory of Chile so far.. Patagonia pales in comparison.
A little background to this story is that my dear sweet mother sent me a care package that contained, among other things, a giant bottle of Sriracha (very spicy hot sauce) which I had been craving since going 2 months without it. (Cultural note: you  might think that because food is spicy in Mexico.. and given that the same language is spoken in both countries.. food would be spicy in Chile as well, but you would be woefully incorrect.)
So anyway, I'd been planning this prank out for weeks. First night after the care package arrives we're eating dinner, and I apply a fairly liberal amount of Sriracha to my dinner and then ask Cristobal is he wants to try out some American sauce. "Bueno" says he, and he applies quite a bit to a tiny piece of potato. As the potato neared his mouth, he smelled it suspiciously and asked if it was going to be too spicy. I promptly assuaged his fears and he swallowed the potato in one bite... About 2.5 seconds later he dove for his glass of juice and downed it, next he ran around the kitchen frantically for a few seconds before fixing his mouth around the tap and drinking water for the next couple of minutes. Meanwhile Alejandra and I are in tears laughing... Cristobal is in tears crying.. it was quite a [host]family affair. Without a doubt I haven't laughed that hard in awhile though.
Things calmed down and we continued dinner, but about 20 minutes later Cristobal said "todavía me pica" or "its still burning me" which brought us all back into fits of laughter.

Never a dull moment with this kid.

Weekend Trip to Pucon

Okay I'm a little behind on my blogging, this one is from 3 weeks ago. My gringa friends Mimi, Claire, and Jess and I all went to Pucon for a long weekend.

Haha a crude drawing to show you, the lower star is Pucon, the higher star is Santiago. We took a 10 hour bus ride overnight from Santiago. So we left Santiago at 10pm on Thursday and woke up in Pucon at 8am Friday morning. The first morning we found our hostel, which was super cute

there were 2 huge dogs and a swimming pool, plus all the trees in the background had fruit on them that we could eat at our leisure. Pretty sweet. After we got settled we went and walked on the black sand beaches,

which were pretty neat.

Then we decided to break up into two groups because Jess and I wanted to go ziplining, while Mimi and Claire wanted to go horseback riding.

Anyway ziplining was great fun, and I met a girl from Boulder which was pretty cool too so there ya go. After ziplining we walked around the town a little bit because it was a super cute town and very much like McCall, Idaho (if you have that frame of reference.) 

Obviously we also went swimming in the lake, even though it was freezing.

Then we played Hearts (the card game) around the fire and called it an early night.

The next morning we got up at like 6am (That's right, no typo here, 6am) to go climb an active volcano!

Villarica (the volcano) from far away                                      up close and personal.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. It was a freaking long hike.

This was us in the morning. (During the winter you can ski on the lower part of the volcano, seems like a very small resort though since we only saw one chairlift?) We started the hike out in tons of layers and then pretty much immediately stripped them all off.

View from about 1 hour up (it took like 6 i think?) Anyway pretty beautiful.

So we did some basic hiking for about 4 more hours, nothing particularly eventful happened, but we snapped some sweet pics. 

Then we breaked for lunch and then we got to put on crampons and learn how to use ice picks to get through the last part of the hike. 

The guide had to help me put them on.                              and here's Jess.

Anyway, to the top!

View from the top

Into the abyss

on top of the world

Pretty sweet.

By far the best part was the way down the snowy part. 

Basically we got to slide down the whole way. It was great but also pretty much soaked us through completely.

Anyway we got down from the volcano and were all incredibly tired and hungry. That night we went to a pretty awesome hot springs and relaxed our tired muscles.

end day two, commence day three.

Everyone was very slow moving this fine morning, probably due to the previous day's exertion. So me, feeling quite chipper, got up and made everyone waffles. I still have the burn on my hand to prove it (cooking is not my forte.)

Then we decided to do a mini nature hike and have a picnic. It turned out to be better than we could have expected, as blackberries were in season and growing on bushes as far as the eye could see.

Jess loves blackberries

We sat down for a nice lunch of avocados and tomatoes on rye crisps with a girl that we met in our hostel (who goes to UC Berkeley actually, small world!)

(on a side note, avocados are SO cheap here.. we pretty much eat them with every  meal. Which is pretty much the best thing ever.)

Ooooooookay so that's pretty much Pucon, we packed up and headed for the bus on Sunday night, arriving in Santiago around 6am on Monday morning. It was totally awesome and tons of fun. :D