Hey. So i'll keep this updated so you can see what's going on in Chile and all that jazz. I'll be here until December so i'll keep uploading posts every so often....chau.
This was the LCP Elections of AIESEC Viña del Mar 2009 with the elected one being a Brazilian AIESECer from Florianópolis, Brazil. This was quite quite a surpise result in the sense that all of her campaign was done virtually. I had the same experience of running a virtual campaign for AIESEC Chapel Hill in October, but the other candidate that I was running against was doing the same thing (she was in Hong Kong). But also, I was in the LC for a year in Chapel Hill, so many of the LC members got to know me. Only 1 person from the LC here in Viña had ever met her personally. Quite a rarity in the world of AIESEC with a foreigner being elected LCP who isn't even in the country where the LC for which they are running is.
For my class of Mountain Sports, we spent a weekend at a national park doing a little camping as well as climbing. It was a good time getting up on the rock faces and getting back in touch with nature after having been separated for so long.
I decided to run for president of AIESEC Chapel Hill due to the fact that I was looking to continue with the challenges of my AIESEC career. I would say it was kind of strange to have never met many of the people that were going to vote which meant virtual communication was the only form possible. After videos, applications, interviews, and debates, Chapel Hill chose me as LCP which I am very excited about for this coming year. I am almost positive that AIESEC is the only organization on campus where someone would even think about running for president from abroad. That is the platform that is AIESEC.
Our second trainee of the year, Natasha Katsiouli, arrived in October to AIESEC Viña del Mar to work in corporate social responsibility with an NGO in Valparaíso, Chile. It was quite embarassing when she arrived because she was speaking Spanish better than I do and I had been in Chile for 9 months. The LC in Viña gave here a warm welcome at the Local Comittee Conference in Quilpué, Chile. This video was taken just hours after she landed in Chile. It was a surprise because we had told her that we were going to a friend's house, but the truth was we were taking here to the venue of the conference.
Our Pocket Recruitment focused on administration students that wanted to go to Brazil during the summer months of December to February. Using our program Activating Leadership Brazil (link), we were able to get 52 applicants for the program with a final number selected of 23. At this rate, it will most likely end in December with 14 matches and 11 realizations with the rest realizing in quarter 1. Dealing with 17 EPs has been quite the challenge, but with the strong OGX team that we have, there is no doubt of success. We already have matches with LCs in Florianópolis, Santa Maria, and Uberlandia. Segmentation of programs is the key to success.
PHOTO ALBUM 1: Camilo's Birthday Party (link) PHOTO ALBUM 2: Experimenta AIESEC Viña (link)
I returned to Chile to start classes back up and to meet our second trainee that arrived to Viña from Brazil. He was doing a DT in a local NGO working on the professionalization of the NGO, Cotra (link). I ended up taking the classes of Development Psychology, Political and Social Themes of Contemporary Chile, Cultural Anthropology, Latin American Short Stories, and Mountain Sports at the Pontificie Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (link). They worked out pretty well. This was also a time of many strikes from elementary and middle school teachers who were not happy with the salary that they were receiving. This is really bad for the children because they cannot go to school because there are no teachers. Elections of the student federation for 2010 were being held around this time where there were all out campaigns to be elected. They would go into each and every class and do a presentation to the class about why they should be the leaders of the federation. The culture of the classroom is very different than what I am accustomed to in the United States. There is much more of a relaxed atmosphere, the classes are canceled much more often without notice, the classes are more democratic about when we are going to take the tests, and every time someone enters the class late, the whole class erupts in an Ooooooooo starting at a low tone and going up. My Development Psychology professor uses anecdotal stories for each and everything that he teaches. The girl in my class gave that birth in September serves as the reference for things we are learning in class about the behavior of newborns. Sex education hardly does not exist in a country that is guided by the Catholic ideology. If you want to avoid STDs or pregnancy, abstinence is the only way to go. As seen in the United States as well as Chile, this teaching ideology serves not to reduce pregnancy rates but rather only to increase them it seems. The cafeterias within the university are run by contracted external business but do not have a brand name at all. Real coffee does not exist. Everything is powdered coffee with hot water added. Lunch foods at the university are mainly hotdogs.
I ride a Mercedes Benz to school everyday. Not what you normally think of but it's a Mercedes Benz nonetheless (link). It’s the type of buses that are used by the city’s public transportation. The public transportation is privatized to companies that have the best bid for the government. My host dad works for a company that bids to run the parking meters of the city each year. They are always coming up with bids to take on the running of different government operations. Privatization: Crazy.
PHOTO ALBUM 1: Chilean Independence Day (link) PHOTO ALBUM 2: Pichilemu Festivities (link)
The time of September 18th is the biggest holiday of the year for Chile. It’s the Chilean independence holidays. Beginning about two weeks before, the whole country is absolutely covered in flags. I was told that it’s the law to put up a flag on top of every building and house. The activities for the 18th are empanadas and chicha (really young wine) (link). September 18th is the day of the year where absolutely all of Chile is tipsy from young to old and from rich to poor. There are places called “fondas” throughout the whole country which are places with tents to go and get food and dance the “cueca” (link). I spent the Fiestas Patrias of Chile in Pichilemu, Chile where tons of people go for the 18th to rent houses and spend the weekend with family/friends (link). I went with about 15 people from AIESEC Santiago as well as trainees from Brasil, Slovakia, United States, and Argentina. It was a fun weekend of the beach, dancing in the fonda, enjoying a little chicha. Pichilemu is known for being a city of surfing and vacationing.
I stayed in Buenos Aires with an AIESECer friend and got to see the “porteño” way of life. It’s a very bustling city that is very sprawled out. In Santiago, at least I feel like I can get around, but in Buenos Aires, the city is so spread out that your travel times are very high. It was a good couple days in Buenos Aires. One of the nights there was an @ TM meeting which I went to. Interesting to see how TM is run in many different countries. One day, I was walking around a part of the city, and out of the blue appears some @ers from Concepción, Chile that were in Buenos Aires waiting for the conference. This was quite the surprise to run into people I knew randomly and a huge city like Buenos Aires. We met up with the MC in Buenos Aires and went together down to Tandil, Argentina where the conference was to be held. It was a 6 hour drive and we were greeted at our arrival by the @ers there. They gave us places to stay and everything which was really nice. Tandil is a quaint town that is centered around the university. The next couple days were planning and getting ready for the conference of 3 days with a conference team of people from Argentina, Colombia, Poland, Venezuela, Chile, and United States.
The conference was the first time that I had taken on the role of facilitating which meant leading the sessions, and passing on message for the personal and professional development for the delegates. Met lots of people from 10 different countries that are in and out of Latin America and enjoyed it thoroughly. It made the Argentinean news which you can googletranslate if Spanish is in issue for you (link).
After the conference, we headed back to Buenos Aires where I bought my bus ticket to go back to Chile and head back to world of school. I travelled with my friends from Concepción, Chile who were also in the conference. A 24 hour ride across Argentina from seeing the Atlantic to the Pacific, through the Andes, and back into Viña del Mar, Chile.
PHOTO ALBUM 1: AIESEC Southern Cone Tour (link) PHOTO ALBUM 2: The Secret World of Mate (link)
I went to see the sights in Uruguay with the AIESEC interns that were doing internships in Montevideo. This included two Americans from Yale, one Puerto Rican girl, one French girl, 4 Brazilians, and one girl from Spain all about 22 years old. All of them spoke Spanish very well. Just walking through the streets, you see tons and tons of people carrying their mate and their hot water thermos which is very cultural thing of Uruguay and Argentina (WIKIPEDIA MATE). It was quite frigid during those days considering it was in the middle of winter. We went to the sights of the grand palace where the legislative chambers and congress chambers can be found. Montevideo is on the ocean so it has some great views. One of the nights, the two Yale guys organized an English lesson in their apartment for all the AIESECers of Montevideo so that was interesting. These two guys were working for Non-Governmental Organizations in Montevideo doing planning and organizational development for their AIESEC internship. I spent a lot of time with the girl from Spain and the Brazilian girl during my 7 days in Montevideo.
For the weekend, we made a trip to Punta del Este which is kind of like Viña del Mar in the sense that it’s on the Ocean and it’s very very popular in the summer. I went with 2 of my Uruguayan friends, 2 Brazilians, and the Puerto Rican for the weekend. We stayed in a hotel for $15 for the night and went to the sights such as a hand monument sticking out of the sand, the casino, and a creepy park with tons of statues of random characters. It was quite the international crew.
As I was leaving the country, I was going on a ferry from Uruguay to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I went through the immigration at the port in Uruguay and the Uruguayan immigration officer demanded the slip that everyone receives when they enter the country. Considering that I never talked to an immigration officer when I was entering, of course I didn’t have the slip of paper that said I entered the country. I told her that it was the immigration officers at the border’s fault for not demanding to check documents or anything, but the immigration lady didn’t want to listen to my frivolous lies. She said that would be a $30 fine for having lost the paper which did not please me very much. Not only that, I didn’t even have $30 because I had done everything to avoid leaving Uruguay without Uruguayan currency so I didn’t have to change it in Buenos Aires which would mean that I would lose money. So I was leaving Uruguay with $7 USD cash. I also did not have a credit card because I lost that in January in Chile, so I had been using traveler’s checks for 6 months and I was still using traveler’s checks up until that time. It was about 12:00 in the afternoon, I was at the port with very little cash with the not so cheap ferry leaving in 40 minutes, and the nearest city to possibly change a traveler’s check was a 1.5 hour bus ride away. No good. I spent about 10 minutes arguing with the immigration lady trying to convince her that it’s the government’s fault that I do not have that sheet of paper with no avail. I could not miss that boat because that would mean I would have lost $100 (the cost of the ferry ticket). I had to go from person to person begging to collect the $30 sum to be able to leave the country. I had great luck with that (I have no idea how) and was able to collect the money fairly quickly because people were very kind. Finally, I could pay the sum to the woman and pass through, but that was only half of the problem. The Argentinean immigration man who decides who can enter Argentina and who will be denied was watching this whole event. So when I got to him, he asked to see my bus ticket to leave Argentina. I told him that I would buy it in Buenos Aires. He didn’t like that. He told me that he would not let me enter Argentina for not having an income source that would be sufficient to leave Argentina after being a tourist (which is a government regulation to avoid people entering Argentina and never leaving). I showed my traveller’s checks and my 1 year student visa for Chile which showed my source of money as well as a reason to leave Argentina which was finish my studies in Chile. He didn’t buy it at all with the reasoning that traveller’s checks were not a valid source of money and that if I couldn’t pay a $30 fee to leave the country, how was I going to buy a bus ticket to leave Argentina? He said that he would let me into Argentina with a transit visa which would mean I could enter only to get directly on a bus and return to Chile. This would have meant ruining my trip as well as causing great problems for the AIESEC conference in Tandil, Argentina that I was facilitating. I thought fast and decided to lie to the immigration officer saying that I had left my credit card at a friend’s house in Córdoba, Argentina and that she was meeting me in Buenos Aires with my credit card. So once I got to Buenos Aires, I would have a credit card and a source of money and all would be great. I was arguing with this guy for 10 minutes before he said “Get out of here” by stamping my passport and letting me pass. Through this event, I’ve come across a great way for a government to take money from visitors under the guise of a legitimate reason. When I am president of a country, I’ll get tons of tourists to come to my country, not give them documentation that they entered the country, demand it when they leave the country, and then fine them $30 due to the fact that they “lost” it. It’s brilliant!
During the week, the Argentinean that is in charge of Sales and External Relations of AIESEC at the level of Southern Cone (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay) came to Viña del Mar in order to give us trainings on selling and making our Local Committee better trained to sell the internship opportunities to companies. I also began work as a Facilitator in planning the sessions for the AIESEC National Leadership Congress that was to be held in Tandil, Argentina in August. In August, I will also be giving the sessions to present knowledge on where do I want to go in life, how do I build a team and create results, and how do I make use of my external environment all to help them in and out of AIESEC.
I then set out for Argentina to meet up with some AIESECers that I had met at conferences and with whom I work with in AIESEC. I got on a bus that took me the 24 hour trip to Córdoba, Argentina, a city in between Mendoza and Buenos Aires a little to the north. The city is rather large and has a little bit of a European flare for me. It has a good number of very old churches that give the city character. The difference in Spanish between Chile and Argentina is very notable and at times there can be some communication difficulties between the Argentineans and me, but it’s all good. We did a tour of the city just to see everything. It seemed like everywhere we walked it was absolutely full of 15 year old kids with nothing to do. Especially in the mall when we were walking around, it was hard to take a step in front of you without stepping on one. I met a German guy at the hostel from Berlin where I was staying for one night who talked about how he had joined the German army for some time to earn the money to be able to go and travel through Argentina for 2 months. He spoke Spanish very well; I almost thought he was Argentinean. The following day I went to one of the team meetings of AIESEC in Córdoba that is responsible for sending Argentineans abroad to fill internship positions in the 107 other countries. I met an American girl from Madison, Wisconsin that was doing an internship through AIESEC with an NGO in Córdoba for 6 weeks. I stayed in the house of one of the AIESECers who lives on the outskirts of Córdoba. In Chile and Argentina, and for the most part all of Latinoamérica, the children live with their parents until they graduate from college and are about to get married. If they go to the university in a city that is different than where their family lives, then they would live in an apartment with other students or something of that nature. Due to this cultural tendency, it’s strange for me to see the relationships between college students and their parents, because for me it looks exactly like high school. And for the most part, mothers in the households do not do work other than that of housewife such as my host mother in Chile. Empanadas are pretty popular in Argentina filled with everything from beef and chicken to corn and cheese. Long promenades in Córdoba are home to those selling newspapers, magazines, umbrellas, trinkets.
The semester has finished with exams in two of my classes, in Fundamentals of Social Work and Sociology. I was 0.1 points away from not having to take the Sociology final exam, but unfortunately I had to take it and study pretty hard. Although, all is well now, free for the 20 day break or so. My friends wanted to hit up some skiing near Santiago for some vacationing after the semester, so 7 of us went to one of the ski resorts for a couple days to ski. The place was very beautiful and it’s right on the border between Argentina and Chile. It’s actually the only border crossing near Santiago, so all of the shipping trucks have to go right by the ski resort through the Andes to get to the border crossing. It’s actually a big problem because when the border is closed because of too much snow (which happens frequently), the trucks cannot pass and the trucks have to form a mile long line on the side of the road waiting for the pass to open back up. It’s a problem in terms of traffic as well as trading considering the goods do not reach their destination on time. It was nice to see some snow and bet back on skis after such a long time. I picked up pretty well although I was skiing with professionals, literally. One of the guys raced professionally back in the US. Where we were staying, I had reserved a bed in the cheapest part, but they didn’t have any more of that so they upgraded me for free to a bunk bed room with a private bath and a employee of the resort at my service 7:00am -8:00 pm. It was quite a nice upgrade while all my friends were stuck in the other place. I felt like I was more in Brasil during those days because about 80% of the people at the ski place were Brazilian. There were a number of times where I was listening in on Brazilians speaking in Portuguese and the Chileans speaking in Spanish and there were no problems in communicating considering the similarities of the 2 languages. As you were going up on the ski lift, sometimes you were directly overtop the road and the large shipping trucks that carry materials over to Argentina or trucks from Argentina carrying materials to Chile, to the port to be shipped off to Asia or on the coastline of northern South America or Central America. Also, there were tons of Army people with their special gear doing trainings and I don’t even know what. Some were doing the pizza all the way down the mountain, while others were professionally zig zaging and zipping all over the place. It was quite humorous to see the army men all geared up professionally doing the pizza all the way down. The mountains weren’t crowded at all which made for some nice skiing. I did the challenge of some black diamonds which I did alright with. I certainly wasn’t zipping down the mountain, but I was able to avoid falling more than once or twice which was sweet. We returned to Santiago and I said farewell to my gringo friends as they were heading off to Perú to the Amazon to travel a little more. I headed back to Viña del Mar for the week.
After the Orientation, we finally got to meet the families that we would live with. I live with a family of 3: the mother, the father, and the 24 year old son. The family is incredibly nice. The mother, Angelina, is a house-wife, making all the meals, taking care of the house, keeping up with the gossip of all the family friends and relatives, doing the wash and all that. The father, Rolando, is a executive of a local company that is in charge of the parking meters of Viña del Mar. I'm really not exactly sure what he does, but yeah. He goes to work in the morning, comes back around 2pm for lunch, and then returns to work at about 4:30, and then comes back home around 11pm. His work is about 40 minutes away in a nearby town called Villa Alemaña (German Villa). The son, Pelao, is a 5th year Industrial Engineer Student at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso. There are two other daughters that are both married and live outside of the house. Fernanda, the oldest, lives in Santiago with her husband and two children of 3 and 5. Loreto, the middle daughter, lives in Viña del Mar with her husband, near to her parents, and works in a nursery caring for the children. The house is about a 8 minute bus ride from the center of Viña del Mar and about a 15 minute bus ride to where my classes are in Valparaíso. I eat all my meals in the house which isn't a problem because Angelina makes really good food. Rico! Breakfast is either cereal and milk or bread and jam. Lunch is the big meal of the day which generally always has cut tomatoes with salt and cucumbers with vinegar, cut avocado (really good) and lechuga. Some things that might be eaten during lunch include mashed potatoes, beef, completos (hotdogs with mayonaise and avocado and tomato)
So, looking at some differences in the families of Chile and United States. Families in Chile are a lot closer considering the children do not leave the house until after they have finished college. Most college degrees are 6 years so the majority of the children stay in the house until age 26 easily. Typically, the women are housewives and take care of the house as well as make all the meals. They also serve to keep the nuclear family updated on family news as well as all social happenings. Living at home provides for a much different university experience considering that you aren't surrounded by friends all the time like in the United States. Lunch is served around 2:00 in the afternoon so you return home for lunch. Lunch is the largest meal of the day. Since the Chilean family is closer, the mother is generally wants to make sure that your well dressed it's cold out, that you have an umbrella if it's raining, that you're feeling well, that everything is going well. So the involvement of Chilean parents lives in the lives of their children in the university is much greater than in the United States. Since all the family lives together in the house, it's not abnormal that 2 brothers of 23 and 25 share a room and sleep in bunkbeds. You're expected to tell the family if you aren't coming home one night or if you are getting back later than expected so they don't get worried. On Sunday, the family generally all comes together for a big lunch. The children that no longer live in the house generally come to the house quite often just to talk and see how things are. All meals are eaten the in the dining room where there is no TV. A man comes weekly to completely clean the house and give the mother a break. Water heating is controlled by turning on a heater with a match that heats the water for the house. Dinners at night are at about 9pm and are generally leftovers from lunch. Gas is expensive in Chile so central heating doesn't exist nor any system of heating for that matter. The only heating is a small stove that heats the corner of one room. That means bundling up in the house is a must. Shoes are not expected to be taken off at the door.
It's said that Chile is very classist which I could agree with considering my experiences, but I have not found that it's any more classist than the United States. One cultural aspect of Chile is the use of the word "flaite". I think a good comparison would be that of the word "gay" in English in the way that it's used as a demeaning word towards something else. Also a good comparison would be "redneck" but the word "flaite" carries a much more negative connotation. Flaite is (link). This group that the upper class has labeled has a speech that is noticeably different and they are also identified by "flaite" clothing. The term is used to describe the people as well as parts of the city that are run down as well as anything that is bad. "That's so flaite" or just simply "flaite" is used quite frequently in Chilean speech. The "flaites" cannot be defined with a specific racial minority but rather from a different economic class. There are many youtube videos that make fun of flaites so just for educational purposes, I've included a link to one of these extremely classist videos (link). It does not seem to be viewed as a vulgar term to use or offensive term by most Chileans of the middle and upper class.
This past weekend we took a trip up north to San Pedro de Atacama which is a desert in the north of Chile. I went with some of my gringo (american) friends from UNC. The 24 hour bus ride took us to the small but fairly touristy city of San Pedro. While there we got the chance to do some sandboarding on the dunes near the city which was quite entertaining. We did a little bike riding through the mountains and zipped down the hills at lightspeed. On one of the days, we got up at 4am to go to the geysers in the high altitudes of the mountains around there. I don't think I've ever been so cold in my life. Maybe camping once or twice I was as cold, but not much. I had to jog in place the whole time to actually be able to feel my feet. But it was pretty cool. It was basically like 60 Old Faithfuls in the canyon area with bubbling geysers everywhere. There were some hotsprings nearby where you could take a little dip in water that was actually pretty warm. We were too cold to undress to swim, but our legs were revived by taking a dip. When we went for the bike ride, the guy who was leading us told us about all the celebrities that had visited San Pedro and how a number of them were pretty rude. I wish I remembered specifically which ones he mentioned. He talked about his crazy teenage years. He said that 10 years ago, he gave tours in which there was all you can consume pisco sour (chilean alcohol) and marijuana after the bike ride obviously with a higher cost. He said he didn't do that anymore. So that was basically our trip to San Pedro.
This past weekend I was in Buenos Aires for an AIESEC conference (link) which was quite entertaining. We found cheap flight tickets form Santiago to Buenos Aires. I was with people from 12 countries including Portugal, Russia, Czech Republic, Poland, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Canada, and Germany. It was a weekend of learning about how to be a better leader, meeting lots of cool people, doing some AIESEC dances, and just having a good time. We were in an ex-monastery on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. The parties included one that was Cowboys which made for some interesting costumes. The second night was people with costumes such as cross dressing to get some laughs and have a good time. It's always fun to meet new people from so many different countries that all have the motivation and desire to create a positive impact on society.
The university where I study, the Pontifica Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, has about 7 buildings or so distributed among the two cities of Viña del Mar and Valparaíso. There is no campus that exists, so it's pretty much like an urban campus. I'm taking a couple classes including: General Sociology, Fundamentals of Social Work, Social Violence, Spanish, and Choral Practice 1. Generally there are very few gringos (North Americans) in my classes. In Choral Practice, I am the only one which makes me stand out pretty well. In the universities of Chile, all students enter a major (or "carrera") where they take the same classes with the same group of people for all 5 years. So this makes for a tight-knit group where everyone knows everyone pretty well. This also means that classes can be rescheduled like its nothing because everyone in the class has the same schedule so there wouldn't be a problem. For the gringos (like myself), this can be problematic if we have a class scheduled during the time that the class was rescheduled. This has happened about 6 times so far. Or you'll show up to class and there will be no one there because either class was canceled and you didn't find out about it or it was moved to another room and you didn't find out about it. The communication between the professors and the students is pretty limited. The professor doesn't send out emails or notices of changes because if you just tell one member of the group everyone else in the class is going to find out because they all have the same classes, but not the gringos. One day, I showed up for class and the chileans of the class had done presentations which us gringos had no idea that we were supposed to do that. The professor was calling on people to present what they read about, and we were just lowering ourselves in our seats to try to hide behind the heads of the people in front of us so she wouldn't call on us. Knowing our homework assignments is quite unorganized because you aren't given a syllabus on the first day of class with all the homework assignments of the year. If you miss what the assignment is during class, you're kind of screwed. That's why it's really good to have Chilean friends in the class that can let you know what up. The classes that I'm taking only meet once a week so it leaves for a lot of free time. The homework load is a lot less than UNC Chapel Hill which is quite nice. It's kind of hard to understand everything that the professor says, but it's getting better.
All the people from my Study Abroad Program took a 4 day trip to La Serena which is about a 6 hour bus ride north of Viña del Mar. We left on Thursday morning, but I of course had the unfortunate event of my alarm not working and waking up too late to catch the bus. I had to go to the bus station in the center of town to search for another way to get to La Serena. Luck had it that not 5 minutes after I arrived, a bus left for La Serena with me on it. Those sitting around me on the bus were all playing their music on their cellphone without any headphones. I arrived in La Serena after a comfortable 7 or so hours and took on the challenge of finding the hotel where the group was staying. Every person that I asked had completely different derections for me basically pointing to opposite sides of the city which made choosing the right directions quite difficult. I ran into a concert going on in the middle of the city with a line stretched 4 blocks of people waiting to get in. After finally finding where the bus stop was, I took a micro to where the hotel was. Once I finally arrived, I was greeted with the smell of asado (BBQ) and wine.
The next day, we took a bus into the city to see the sights and what was going on. We came to the city center which is a square with a large fountain in the center. Many school children stood around in the park talking with friends while other couples took up the benched showing quite public their PDA's (Public Displays of Affection). We checked out a Japanese Garden which seemed strange in the middle of a smaller Chilean town. And of course the day was not complete without an empanada of seafood. In the afternoon, we took a 2 hour trip north of La Serana to a smaller town called Vicuña where we went to a well known observatory situated on the side of a mountain far from light pollution of the city. We had the opportunity to look through high powered telescopes at developing stars, far away galaxies, exploding stars, and planets. The coolest part was to get to see Saturn where you could actually see the rings. It's wasn't just a spot of light, you could make out the form of planet and everything. After looking at the stars, the group of men that seemed to be pretty knwoledgeable about star watching and allowed us to use the telescopes, then stangely brought us downstairs for a musical show of their band. Afterwards, they tried to sell us their CD which seemed quite strange to me that the scientests just happened to make up a band too and were selling their CD.
On Saturday, we took a bus the 1.5 hours from La Serena back to Vicuña to go to a restaurant that has no electricity. They make all their food using ovens that are only heated by the sun. In the afternoon we went to a factory where they make pisco which is the rum of Chile and Perú. In the night, we celebrated the birthday of one of the girls in our study abroad program.
The parties of Viña del Mar are quite numerous and quite long into the night. Pretty much every weekend, I end up going with Pelao, the 24 year old who I live with, to some house party. The drink of choice of Chile is Piscola which is a mix of Pisco Rum and Coca-Cola. It's pretty much what everyone drinks. If it's beer, then it's Escudo. The parties are centered less on drinking games and more on conversing and just talking with other people enjoying the company. After a couple hours, you might go to a club to go dancing or something. One could be walking home very easily at 7:30am just because that's when the party ends. And a night is not complete without going to MacDonald's or eating a completo (the hotdog with avocado, tomatoes, and mayo). MacDonalds is basically the only place you can find food at 6:30 in the morning, and that's where all the Chileans go. If I don't go out with Pelao, I'll go out with the many people I'm friends with in AIESEC. They're always doing something which makes things exciting. The only problem is there's never a chance to sleep.
The Week of Mechones is basically like the week to celebrate the first years that are just now beginning their university experience. All classes after 2pm were canceled and at night their would be parties for the freshman. One tradition, is that all the freshman have to be doused with paint and have their clothes ripped and go barefoot to the street to collect money. And they have to collect a certain amount before coming back. It's not really as bad it sounds and they seem to make it a fun experience. So if you saw a person who looked like a colorful mess, you knew they were freshman. On Thursday of the week was the big day. Beginning at 11am, ten thousand university students from the universities of Viña del Mar and Valparaíso all gathered for one huge party on a beach 30 minutes north of Viña del Mar near Concón. Tons of people were there drinking away and playing music and enjoying time with friends. People were walking around selling shots of rum and selling sandwiches and everything. I went with my friends from Chorus and had a good time. We got to know each other pretty well. I don't think I saw another gringo there the whole day, but then again I'm sure there were a few. (All the gringos from my Study Abroad Program had taken the week off to go to Torres del Paine in the south of Chile) At about 2pm a train was coming with the tracks that basically went through the beach and all the 10,000 people. So all the inebriated people ran after the train and brought it to a halt and actually boarded the train and were jumping on the canisters of coal. That wasn't very good. It didn't pass until about 6 hours later when the Carabineros (Chilean Police) came and forcefully removed the people so that the train could pass. When darkness fell, the party continued and a large number of people headed back to Viña del Mar. But due to the mass of people that were trying to get back, there was a huge traffic jam so it was basically faster to walk than try to wait for a bus because the buses weren't hardly moving. So there was a mass of people walking in the street back to the town. There were large transport trucks in the traffic jam, so tons of people jumped on the trucks to get a lift back to town without having to walk. On one truck, there were probably 40 people. And the truck drivers couldn't really do anything to stop the people from boarding the back of their truck. I finally made it back to Viña in the night.
After the Orientation, we finally got to meet the families that we would live with. I live with a family of 3: the mother, the father, and the 24 year old son. The family is incredibly nice. The mother, Angelina, is a house-wife, making all the meals, taking care of the house, keeping up with the gossip of all the family friends and relatives, doing the wash and all that. The father, Rolando, is a executive of a local company that is in charge of the parking meters of Viña del Mar. I'm really not exactly sure what he does, but yeah. He goes to work in the morning, comes back around 2pm for lunch, and then returns to work at about 4:30, and then comes back home around 11pm. His work is about 40 minutes away in a nearby town called Villa Alemaña (German Villa). The son, Pelao, is a 5th year Industrial Engineer Student at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso. There are two other daughters that are both married and live outside of the house. Fernanda, the oldest, lives in Santiago with her husband and two children of 3 and 5. Loreto, the middle daughter, lives in Viña del Mar with her husband, near to her parents, and works in a nursery caring for the children. The house is about a 8 minute bus ride from the center of Viña del Mar and about a 15 minute bus ride to where my classes are in Valparaíso. I eat all my meals in the house which isn't a problem because Angelina makes really good food. Rico! Breakfast is either cereal and milk or bread and jam. Lunch is the big meal of the day which generally always has cut tomatoes with salt and cucumbers with vinegar, cut avocado (really good) and lechuga. Some things that might be eaten during lunch include mashed potatoes, beef, completos (hotdogs with mayonaise and avocado and tomato)
On Monday, we pulled into the port of Puerto Montt at around 7:30am and all of us headed our separate ways. The first thing that I absolutely had to do was do my laundry. I hadn't done laundry in more than 16 days which was absolutely too long. I was fine before Torres del Paine, but then I was 9 days in Torres without doing laundry, and then when I got back to civilization I hopped right on a boat without time to do laundry and went another 4 days without laundry. So my jacket smelled strongly of smoke from the campfires at night and overally, 16 days with intense physical activity most days is a little too long. Surprisingly, it was quite a challenge to find a laundromat. The first one that someone directed me to didn't exist anymore, the second was closed, and then after 2 hours of asking people and be directed to random places where there wasn't a laundromat, I finally found a place to do my laundry (thank god). I can't tell you how happy I was to have clean clothes. In the night, I got on a bus to make the overnight (11 hour) trip from Puerto Montt to Viña del Mar.
Later in the week, from Wednesday to Sunday, my Study Abroad Program, IFSA-Butler, had their orientation in Olmué, Chile which is very near to where I was from my week long AIESEC Conference in January. When I arrived on Wednesday to the orientation, the majority of the group had just flown into Chile from the US that day. It was a fun 4 days, relaxing in this small town of Olmué. We had our program sessions preparing us for studying in the university in Valparaíso and how to avoid getting stolen from. In the Study Abroad Group, there are about 30 people. 13 of those 30 are from UNC Chapel Hill, but I had only met 4 of them before we had gotten there. There were only 4 guys and 26 girls and all 4 of the guys were from UNC-Chapel Hill. I'm not really sure what that means or what the cause of that is. The food was absolutely delicious at the hotel, and they always had more than enough.
On Thursday, I said farewell to the guys from Santiago and took a boat to return to Puerto Natales. Once there, I was really hungry after 8 days of eating on slim rations so I went to restaurant and ordered a huge churrasco (kind of like a hamburger, but a different form of meat, I couldn't tell you what). I went all out, which was a mistake. That night, I boarded a ferry that would take me to Puerto Montt after a 3 day trip by boat. I was going to take a bus all the way back to Viña del Mar (a 3 day trip by bus), but a discounted ticket opened up to take the ferry, so I decided to just go for it. This ferry has like 6 levels (3 of which are for passengers and 3 of which are for cargo, trucks, cars, etc) and is officially the longest ferry in the world (3 days).
On Friday, I awoke feeling quite sick. I'm pretty sure that the going all out at dinner the night before was not the best decision. I'm pretty sure that's what made me sick because my body had gotten used to eating a little bit and then it was an abrupt change. Either that, or it was food poisoning. Something. So the first day on the boat was a little rough. I read a lot and met some other Americans my age that I spent time with. There was actually a couple that had both graduated from Duke. Others from up north in Massachusetts. We passed through the endless sight of the archipelago of southern Chile (tons and tons and more tons of small uninhabited islands). I met a woman on the boat that had worked for many years with the United States Peace Corps, particularly in Africa. She was brought in after the genocide in Rwanda to help rebuild the country with social projects after the turmoil of the genoicde. Quite a challenge. She talked about how there was a group of European students that were on a tour to see the gorrillas of Rwanda (I have no idea why there was a tour into Rwanda only 8 months after the genocide, but that's a different matter) and a group of Rwandan guerillas took over their bus and stole all of their possessions at gunpoint. Quite the tour. She was a really interesting person.
On Saturday, we disembarked in the morning to visit a small isolated town that can only be reached by boat called Puerto Edén (Port Eden) just to see it. I felt pretty ridiculously touristy, because they put you in bright flourescent life jackets when you disembark, so basically it's 50 gringos that are walking around this little town and no one else is out. Only 2 people from Puerto Eden were out trying to sell trinkets to the gringos. The rest of the town was completely dead. If I lived there, I would stay in my house as well the 1 time a week that the gringos swarm upon the town. But they built tons of signs and boardwalks and lookouts to turn it into the tourist location that it is. The ferry is basically the only way for the people of Puerto Eden to get to mainland and buy essential things even though it's a day trip by boat to Puerto Montt (the nearest town). So a few members of the town boarded the boat to go with us. As we were leaving and the boat was sailing away, the people of the town began coming out of their houses and functioning as normal. So in short, there are two modes for the town: normal mode and gringo mode. This day I was still working on recovering completely from my stomach sickness.
On Sunday, we sailed out of the archipelago into the wide open area that is not protected by the islands. Therefore, the boat was ridiculously rocky. Swaying back and forth and back and forth. It was actually quite difficult to walk without falling over. This day was more reading and trying not to get sea sickness. haha. In the night, they had a dancing/bingo night (interesting combo) in the area with the bar. And of course, I was selected to be the King of the Ship with an honorary dance with the Queen of the Ship. Basically the selection was only based on one lady who served the food who decided to crown me. The "Queen" was a young married Spaniard traveling with her newlywed through Southern Chile. This made for an interesting dance as the husband seemed to be making sure that I didn't do anything funny. Anyways, it was a good night.
PHOTO ALBUM 2: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=64034&id=515011896&l=e20fbe262e
On Wednesday, I set off for Torres del Paine. As I was packing my bag, I was actually kind of scared at how heavy it was. I had food for myself for 8 days, a tent, a sleeping bag, a stove, fuel, a pot, a shirt, a pair of pants, a rain jacket, gaiters, water bottle, a camelback, a sleeping pad, hiking boots, my heavy jacket, my eating utensils, my map and compass, my pack cover; all of that. I, personally, had never gone on an 8 day backpacking trip before carrying all my own supplies. I had done tons of trips of 2 days, 3 days, 5 days, even 6 days, but all those experiences were in groups with shared equipment that was distributed among all the group. Not this time. I was on my own. Sure, there would be other people to hike with so I wasn’t alone in that respect, but I was alone in terms of carrying all my own stuff. About 10 minutes before I was about to get on the bus for the 2 hour ride to Torres, I realized that I had forgotten to get sunglasses. And of course the bus was leaving at 2 pm, right in the middle of the afternoon siesta where everything is closed. I had heard about people that had gotten sun blinded by the reflection of the sun off the snow and they had to be lead off of the mountain by people who could actually see. That kind of worried me so I scrambled to find a place open that could sell me sunglasses. I was running with what I think was a 60-65 pound pack in crocks to find a pair of sunglasses, typical gringo stereotype. If I missed that bus I would have lost a lot of money and had to wait until the next day to go which I didn’t really want to do. I finally found this small drugstore and hurried to find a pair of sunglasses. I found a pair that seemed alright, but as the woman that worked there was helping me, she dropped one the pairs and lens popped right out. Great, so they were cheap as cheap can get, but they still seemed to have the solar protection so I went ahead and bought them and ran to catch the bus. During the bus ride I met these group of 5 guys from Santiago who were planning to do the same route as I, the Grand Circuit, so I decided to tag along with them since they seemed pretty cool. As we approached the national park, flocks of animals called Guanacos lined the sides of the roads. It is an animal that closely resembles a llama. We arrived, and the grand lakes and majestic mountain types stood awaiting us. I set off with the 5 guys from Santiago as the wind pounded upon us. Not 6 minutes into the trek, the wind had ripped my pack cover off and carried it so fast that I couldn’t even catch it. Within a few minutes I couldn’t even see it anymore and I wouldn’t have been able to get it. I was thinking, Great, this is a grand start to my trek. 3 of the guys, Cholo, Negro, and Marco were about 25 and were friends from high school and had decided to come trek Torres during their summer break. The other 2, Ody (his nickname because he resembled Ody from Garfield) and Diego were about 22 and were also friends from high school. We hiked the 2 hours to the first campsite. But unfortunately, my bad luck followed me. As I was setting up my tent at the campsite, the wind was pounding upon us. All of a sudden the picked up my tent as I was setting it up and snapped the poles right in half. Great…..Not only did I not have a pack cover in a place where it rains more than the Amazon, but I also didn’t have a functional tent. After some thinking about what to do, I finally remembered that there was a tool that came with my tent that can help in situations such as these. Basically what it is a small piece of pole that slides over the broken part to make it stiff and make it work. Of course, I had pull the string through all the pieces and tie it and then slide the supporter piece over the break. Luckily, it worked for the most part so I actually had a dry place to sleep at night.
Here's a map of Torres del Paine National Park: http://www.torresdelpaine.com/ingles/secciones/02/a/popup/3.htm
On Thursday (Hostería Los Torres to Campamento Laguna), I set off with the guys from Santiago through the forests of the trail, through open fields, all with beautiful terrain. I saw for the first time in my life (at least I think) a woodpecker as it pecked away at the trees. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? And then the rain began, pouring down upon us as we made our way to the next refugio. At the refugio, they have places to set up your tents and get water if necessary. There were about 20 people at this specific refugio and a couple people that lived in the refugio for months working there.
On Friday (Campamento Laguna to Campamento Dickson), we slept in until about 10am as it was raining outside and I didn’t really feel like packing up in the rain. That was one difference that was quite nice compared to trekking in the US. In the US, you have to set off relatively early, say before 10 or 10:30 because if not, you’re going to be hiking into the hours of dark, but since it’s southern Chile, there’s sunlight until the hours of 9 or 9:30 meaning that you can begin hiking at 1 or 2 with no problem. So basically I was in no rush to get out of bed every morning. Although being in a tent alone for 12-13 hours (although 8 or 9 hours sleeping) makes you appreciate the company of others. We set off in early afternoon and began to reach sight of the snow capped mountains and glaciers in the distance. As we continued along, there were a number of people passing us in the other direction that had had to turn back because the pass, 2 days ahead for us) had been closed because of a mudslide. This was a problem. The thing was, on the other side of that pass is the grand sight of trekking along the massive glacier, but those that had to turn back wouldn’t get to see any of that unless they travelled the 8 days in the other direction to reach the other side the long way. We were taking a big risk continuing. If we reached the pass (4 days in on the trail), and it was closed, then we would have had to turn back like the others and hike the 4 days back on the same trail that we camin in on, and we wouldn’t get to see the glacier at all. If I had to do that, I wouldn’t have gotten to see the glaciers at all because that would add 4 days to my trip in Torres del Paine, and those were 4 days I didn’t have. But we had confidence that it was going to open up within the 2 days that it would take us to get there but that didn’t get rid of my worries. The next camp took it out of us in terms of the difficulty. It was about 12 miles away with a lot of elevation change and it seemed like we would never reach it. This is where we got introduced to the torrential mud that would of swallowed babies easily (*actually that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but when stepped in, it easily went higher than the tops of your boots). All I can say is thank god for gaiters. They cover the tops of your boots to stop mud and water from entering inside your boots. It was really almost as if we were hiking through streams rather than trails. After a long and tedious day, we finally arrived at the next camp, Campamento Dixon, where a group of 20 or so tents were scattered in the field. Dinner was extra delicious that day. After dinner, we sat around talking into the night, and of course had to partake in drinking some rum to keep warm.
On Saturday (Campamento Dickson), we decided to take a day off to enjoy the areas around the camp more. So basically I slept in until 11 or 12 as the rain pounded upon our tents. We hadn’t had a bath for a couple days so Marcos, Nacho (a guy from Viña del Mar that I met during the hike who was traveling alone), and I decided to take a dip in the lake that was right next to the camp. It was pretty cold with the wind and all and then we were about to get in even freezinger (that wasn’t a word, but now it is) water. In the distance, you could see the glacier as it extended into the water. Needless to say, our baths didn’t last more than 20 seconds, but it took half an hour curled up in my jacket to get warm again. I didn’t have a way to measure the temperature, but I couldn’t imagine how it could be more than 40 degrees. We did some exploring around the area to see what there was to see.
On Sunday (Campamento Dickson to Campamento Los Perros), we set off again as we packed up in the rain, unfortunately. Through the forests and the mud we trekked. When we were about halfway, we got the great news that the pass was open and that we would be able to reach the glacier on the other side!!! I was quite happy to hear that and to know that I wouldn’t have to turn back and trek the exact same stretch that I had done for the past 4 days. We finally reached a smaller lake up in the mountains with huge rocks on its borders. It looked more like a crater filled with some water. And on the other side of the lake, we came to our first glacier up close. It was quite large with the tops of it reaching up into the clouds (or maybe I should say fog). The small lake was filled with miniature icebergs that had broken off of the glacier. Nearby we came to Campamento Perros, which was dreadfully cold. We arrived drenched and we were warmly greeted with a wigwam like structure with a fire and a place to dry clothes. There were probably about 25 people huddled in this small structure to keep warm, talking, drinking mate, cooking dinner, playing games. It was a really nice atmosphere. It was probably 93% Chileans and 7% foreigners. There was one other American, NO Israelis (not that I don’t like Israelis, I was just completely shocked that there were none considering the abundance of Israelis during the rest of my trip), 2 guys from France, and 1 European couple. As the night got darker, the guitar music started, the singing commenced, and the alcohol was passed around. Negro studied music and he had brought his instrument with him (I really wish I remember what it was called, but it was similar to a banjo/ guitar/harp) It was fun. Haha.
On Monday (Campamento Los Perros to Campamento Paso), we set off in the morning to visit a glacier that was nearby that everyone had recommended. An hour hike without packs into this open rock area, we came a glacier that was right in front of us. There was no lake stopping us from touching it, only a stream of water flowing down to form a river. It appeared to be precariously situated as if the top part was going to collapse at any moment. The overhang stood something like 80 feet over us. Bakán (really cool). We hiked back to the refugio and set off for the pass. The mud on the trail was absolutely torrential making it quite difficult to avoid completely dirty. And then the rain came as we made the difficult hike up the mountain side. Finally, we got to walk through the snow considering that we were at such a high elevation. There were probably about 6 times where I thought we had reached the pass, but as soon as we got a little higher, you could see another false pass on the horizon. We finally reached the pass and the rain was pouring down on us as the wind was blowing determined to knock us over. My gloves were already wet so I was clenching my fists to avoid the cold. But the view was amazing. We were on the ridge of a mountain peering down on a glacier field with the size of 104 square miles (I looked it up). All across the the glacier, you could see the crannies and pools of turquoise blue water. Quite a sight. As we hiked down the other side, we always had the sight of the glacier right in front of us. Diego, one of the guys from Santiago who I was hiking with, twisted his knee badly so we went at a slower pace so that he could keep up. Hiking down the steep mountains is even worse than hiking up because you have the constant pressure on your knees and it's a lot easier to get injured. We arrived at the campsite, and I had one of the best dinners of my life after such a long day of hiking. I was the only gringo there so it was definitely a good way to meet people from Santiago y some from Argentina. I spent most of the night by the fire, enjoying its warmth while conversing with the others.
On Tuesday (Campamento Paso to Campamento Los Guardas), we had a pretty easy day, slowly making our way down the steep slopes through the forests right next to the glacier. The night was spent playing music and singing. Fun fun.
On Wednesday (Campamento Los Guardas to Campamento Pehoé), we began entering the world of tourist central. Most people come to do the "W", so that's were most of the tourists are. The old gizzards from America traveling with their guides, the young french couple that just got married, the Chinese woman visiting Patagonia alone, the two British girls teaching English in Santiago, all of these who you wouldn't find on the back side of park (where I was the first 6 days). I saw maybe 4 gringos (North Americans for those who don't know) on the back side of the park during the first 6 days, and about 70 within my 2 days in the front part of the park. We walked along the glaciar until finally reaching the point where it turns to a lake. As we were watching the edge of the glacier, a huge chunk crashed into the water forming one of the new baby icebergs that littered the lake. Some of the points were so steep that it required a 40 foot ladder to go down it. As we finally reached the Campamento Pehoé at dusk, we found the camp of gringos, gringos, and more gringos. We were quite exhausted by this time in the trek, so that night, it was time to enjoy. At this developed campamento, there was a hotel, a restaurant, and basically everything a tourist would need. The guys from Santiago and I started in the bar and enjoyed a delicious hamburger. Having such small portions for 7 days really makes you appreciate delicious food. We met a girl of probably 28 years from China that was traveling through Chile. She was excited to practice her Spanish which was really interesting because her Spanish kept the tones that are part of Mandarin. Her accent was very choppy Spanish, but it could still be understood. I thought it interesting that she didn't really know English, but she knew Spanish. It doesn't seem like most Chinese would learn Spanish before English which was interesting. Afterwards, we bought boxed wine and I enjoyed my last night with the guys from Santiago. There were probably about 11 of us that started the trip and finished at the same time, so you spent the nights in the refugios with the same people (oh and when I say refugios, it's basically, there are places to put a tent, and a small shelter to cook under). So we toasted to a good trip and enjoyed the night.
