valpo

i think scott said he was going to add updates about valparaíso a long time ago. maybe i am making that up. anyway, now i am going to.

two weekend trips we have done since scott has been down here were to valparaíso (close to santiago- 1 1/2 hrs. away but considered middle chile- chile is divided into different 15 different regions) and to pucón (10 hours away- considered part of the lakes region).

valpo was fun. really really interesting once we got up to the cerros. cerro means hill in spanish. the town had so much culture, really it was amazing. it was almost what i'd imagine a small town in the south of france to look like, right on the med. sea. the colors were brilliant and so intentionally painted. valpo is a port city and also hosts many of the cruise ships which launch from there and travel down the cost to round the horn of patagonia and puente arenas.



though there is a thick fog that hangs over the coast, it is still breathtaking to see the pacific this far south.


the following pictures were inspired by and taken for nancy patton (starfish) i think there were like 20 on that rock, my grandmother moppie (perched birds which i'm sure she could identify easily), steve sutton and brian clark (fisherman- the guy on the rock near the laundry doesn't have a pole!) and skip and steve patton (boats- there were tugboats, naval and industrial and commercial vessels).





we enjoyed a nice lunch at colors café and at night we went to a great irish bar


vegetable tortilla







we stayed here for 8 US a night. We were able to get a hot shower, use of a kitchen, toilet and a bedroom with a lock!


and i was finally able to get a shot of how creepy these guys are...

the pucón experience

well you've seen all the pictures by now so i decided to add some words to the trip. it was really, really great. it was so wonderful to be able to breathe the clean, green, fresh-smelling air. it's fall here in chile and it's like you can't taste or smell the seasons in santiago, you'd have to go to a place like pucón for that. and i'm so glad we did. it was a lot of money to spend to go so far (10 hrs. south) without knowing exactly what we'd do there. but i really had no reason to worry. pucón is kind of like an adventure tourist's dream where all you have to do is get there and the rest will work itself out. there are over 100 companies to take you rafting, volcano adventuring, horse back riding, hiking, mountain biking, fishing or whatever else the mountains and lakes might tempt you to do. we booked both rafting and the volcano climb with one company.

we were there for two full days and on the first day we went rafting. it was amazing. now, i had never been rafting before but everyone who had previously experienced it said this had been by far the best for them. it was also my first experience jumping off a cliff into the water. growing up, i had known tons of people to do this but i always avoided it, i thought it wasn't my thing and i generally don't like to be underwater anyway. well i did it and it was so cold and i had so much water in my ears when i got out. we were all told to march like soldiers past the raging class 6 rapids only get to get back in the water and continue a bit further down. well on the way i lost my earring and miraculously scott found it against a backdrop of a ton of rocks next to the fierce rapids. i took up a ton of time trying to find the earring which left me little time to try to get the water out of my ears. later that night, i felt the water so far inside my ear. i had a raging neck and headache with no remedy in site. when scott asked the hostel owner if they had any alcohol, she instead suggested we use the adventure company's insurance and go to the private hospital (the 1 hospital) in pucón. she assured us it would be quick and cost-beneficial to the company we used (their insurance would cover it and i wouldn't have to cancel on the company for the next morning's trip up the volcano). she made some calls, i talked to the guy, she talked to the guy.

me on the phone with the guy: and i jumped off the cliff because they told me to and everyone was doing it.

after i got off the phone with him the hostel owner told me the guy told her he thought i was probably "telling a story" and i got hurt some other way since my complaint came several hours after the trip was over!! i believe he told her it was a lie (mentira!)...
that's what you get for paying the cheapest group rate to do adventure activities (and my health insurance explicitly doesn't cover adventures like these)... so, scott and lindsay so kindly went to a pharmacy while i laid inebriated with pain. they were able to find alcohol and we dumped it in my ear to try and get the damn stuff out. it worked!!

the next morning i woke up at 5:30am ready to go!! the 6 hour trip to the summit was painful at times but was completely worth it. the pictures should illustrate everything i won't write here. the day was perfect, we were with a terrific group and for an incredible price we got to use crazy technical equipment and do combo mountaineering/hiking/ice-pick sliding as well as see volcanic ash, glacier chunks, toxic volcano smoke, crazy cracks in the glacier... it was awesome. when i got to the top, i thought i might die, i was so thirsty and hungry and the water supply was limited (scott had already run out). i started slicing an apple with scott's super sharp knife, thinking i shouldn't be doing this. it was like i didn't have enough blood in my brain to think straight. and it slipped! went right through the apple, through my hand to the bone. i knew it was bad as soon as it happened. it didn't bleed right away and i just grabbed it and looked up, then the blood started to come. i was able to have one of the guides rig up something to stop the bleeding at least until i got down. it didn't really stop it though...

by the time we got down the mountain a bit to the non-technical part, my reputation had preceeded me and i was the only one in the group not allowed by the guides to take my helmet off until we got safely to the bottom.

we're going to cajon del maipo this weekend so i'll let you know what craziness i will have unearthed then. stay tuned...

ideal brother or sister

i administered an english test recently where one of the questions was: who is your ideal brother or sister? describe him or her.

i have heard a variety of great/interesting responses to this.

"my ideal brother is sexy."
"my ideal sister doesn't exist because i don't want a sister"
"my ideal brother is a good boy"
scott in the context of my explaining the trials and tribulations of teaching (and misunderstanding the role i was asking to him play) says when cued simply, "brian clark".

scott patton

top 5 food and drink

1. Beer- Kuntsmann Miel
2. Seafood- Machas a la parmesana
3. Liquor- Pisco Sours at Mercado Central
4. Fruit- Kiwis from La Vega Central; Tomatoes and Avocadoes from anywhere!
5. Vendor Food- Napolitana Empanadas

someone's going to die

this is the thought i have every day, at least twice a day whenever i hear a motor vehicle. now i'm not sure if they have poor rubber quality down here or what but the screeching of vehicle tires is so jolting that scott and i haven't stopped looking every time, expecting to see an accident. there never is.

unity is hope

Barack Obama has inspired those across international borders. anyone who needs any sort of proof should just look at the pictures sent around post-election 2008 (people hugging random people/kids sharing flags/celebrations in Japan, Australia, Europe, Africa). above is a bit of a sketchy painting but you don't have to look long to figure out who that is (unidad and esperanza- that has to be the new US president!).

now there isn't too much discussion about the US. in fact, Chileans only seem to know random folks in the US. fact of the day, people generally love Whitney Houston internationally, not sure if it was "the bodyguard" or her voice. anyway, i would say pretty consistently i am surprised by who Chileans know and who they don't. They might know Angelina Jolie but not Johnny Depp. pretty rando...

this collective belief in Barack Obama was highlighted by a class i had during the first week of school. the assignment was to look through 3 popular magazines (Time, Newsweek and People) and find three images or articles and write about them. students completed the assignment with varying degrees of motivation and interest. the one i was most impressed with was inspired by a photo of an african american hand (not clearly Obama's- but could've been) holding onto many different hands all in a chain. the students wrote a montage of qualities that emanated from the photo for each of them: words like fraternity, strength, equality, power and union. they wrote more and with more interest during that assignment when compared to any other so far. they also wrote sentences like "Mr. Obama is the first black man to be president." they could have written about Batman, Heath Ledger, Britney Spears or any other cultural influence the media produces from the United States but they decided to write about him.

kind of exciting to see a mural of our president in a country populated by pictures/phrases/paintings of Che Guevara and other revolutionaries.

clean-up of rando thoughts on aisle 5

1. scott saw a large tub of mixed pasta at a market and really wanted to eat it, turns out it was for dogs. scott undeterred.

2. you can't have your deli cheese sliced here because there's no machine for cheese, says the man while he's slicing our ham.

3. a young man came within inches of the back of my head in an attempt to throw a rock at a car- no camera was available. scott- previously aching to witness a riot- took off running in the direction of safety.

4. bus driver takes time to explain to us that we can't ride his bus unless we can beat him to the bus stop two blocks away.

5. cow blood isn't scary and doesn't stain your shirt. we saw a lady throw three packs of steaks under her arm like a large clutch atop a nice silk shirt. kind of where you might throw your screaming child to hold him in place.

6. evangelism takes on a new meaning when you dress up like jesus with a flowing white cloak and sandals and ride a bike with rainbow streamers, attach a front basket with a large cross and fly like the wind.

7. aloe may not be native to santiago parks. i stopped to pick some off a plant to put on scott's lips (which have been sore), telling him i know it doesn't taste great just try not to lick your lips, i promise it will help. long story short, it was not aloe.

8. chocolate is kept locked away like cigarettes in the US. you know the plastic containers with the metal locks in the middle? testament to Chileans' sugar addiction.

weird weird day

scott and i have spoken a couple of times about some key differences between US and Chilean culture. there are so many similarities stemming from capitalistic origins but this day really emphasized a kind of situation that would never happen in the US... and it all started with scott telling me "there's a dead body under that blanket over there."

we met at a pedestrian walkway type thingy and there seemed to be quite a disturbance ahead of us, police officers walking around what appeared to be an accident. there was a smashed truck on a flatbed, an utterly destroyed bicycle and a tarp thrown over a motorcycle. puzzled, because this wasn't any kind of official road (it was right in front of a fountain) i thought little of it and headed into a coffee shop for a cortado (a real coffee- except they serve it with a regular drinking straw). as i was coming out, scott rode up to where i was standing on the bicycle, looking ashen.

me: what's up? are you ok?
scott: yea... there's a dead body over there.
me: what are you sure?
scott: there are feet sticking out from underneath that blanket...

what! now usually i am pretty critical when people in the States gawk at accident scenes, like they can't get enough gore in their lives. i may have changed my mind after this experience... the first thing i wanted to do was run over there and check it out. i have to say the next thought was, what? but we're in chile. this isn't like peru or ecuador, we're in santiago freaking chile.

so... extremely curious at a distance, i started asking other chileans who were walking by solemnly, stopping briefly (in US standards) to look at the scene. a chilean next to me was explaining that yeah, must have been a fatal accident. but how i ask? he explained the road informally opens at night to traffic and maybe the truck and bikes collided early this morning or late last night. now this part did make sense because motorcycles ride on sidewalks all the time here, stupidly. then i ask, why are all of the carabineros (police officers) just hanging around talking to people, taking notes, measurements, pictures, talking to the media? he responds, they're waiting for the judge to get here to declare the accident. this kind of thing happens enough that a person doesn't have to get within 20 feet to know what's going on.

wow, i was definitely amazed. an advanced, progressive city like santiago letting a body hang around unrefrigerated for hours, that's crazy. there were people gathering to an extent but no crowds, nothing show-stopping. i guess in a city where you might pass diseased and dying dogs while leaving the subway, not many people need to run up to a dead body. also, the police did little to deter people from coming within mere feet of the accident. it seemed like they encouraged people to come closer.

i told an unwilling scott that i did want to get a little bit closer just to confirm i wasn't dreaming. as we circled around the side, things looked stranger. i thought i heard a carabinero asking a woman if she liked it, "te gusta?" and then i saw a sign neatly set up by the carabineros "siempre tu amigo" (always your friend). what the? at that moment i saw the fake hand underneath the tarp. it was all set up!! why? promoting safety awareness? i don't know. all i know is that that would never happen in the US. if there was a dead body, you would have had to fight to get to the front of the line. and if the police staged a fatal accident, they would have a lawsuit on their hands.

Easter Weekend Adventure

Back from our weekend in Pucón. It's a great adventure tourism town in the south of Chile. We spent two days partying with a wonderful group of new friends, whitewater rafting, and climbing the volcano 'Volcán Villarica' (vohl-can*vee-ya-rreecah). Our internet has been very spotty, so for now, please enjoy this wonderfully done video by our friend Shelly Guerin!



Please notice the part where Alejandro is asking Caitlin "you don't have the AIDS though, right?" and she answers, "¿que?"

Enjoy, more updates to follow :)