food packaging

so... chilean food isn't exactly good for you. this of course, excludes fruits and vegetables of chilean origin. but i mean.. the FOOD... the empanadas, breads, sweets, candy, hotdogs, fried dough with sauce (sopaipillas) and greasy beef sandwiches. there's also a ton of packaged items. they sell these twinkie-like things with either chocolate or vanilla frosting. they have bags and bags of different chips and salty sweets. they have like 15 different kinds of chocolate (chocolates bars, truffles, bonbons, alfajors), sugary candies like gum drops, different flavored marshmallows, jordan almonds, hard candies, candied nuts (did you know the guys who do the nuts 4 nuts stands in nyc are chilean?), brownies, manjar or marmelade stuffed donuts.... the list goes on...

you know how you look at a package of chips while you're eating them in new york and they say they were made in seattle? well i got used to expect that sort of thing in the states. half the reason why packaged food has a bad rep and you can convince yourself it's gross. in chile though, you might look at your bag of chips and realize it was packaged only a few miles away or in a town two hours away. does it mean this stuff has less preservatives? no. does it mean it's any better for you? i'm sure not. does it convince you that it's not completely gross and almost kind of desirable? kind of... and that's the scary part.

pleasant surprises

so i've been here for a little more than 3 months (mind you this post was written a month ago) since then we have done more cool things :)

i am impressed and amazed i have been able to do the following (in addition to teaching)...

1) hike a volcano

2) see a glacier lake

3) hitchhike and see some of the most amazing things ever

4) visit and chat with a mapuche about native culture

5) relax in hot springs during a rain storm next to a raging river

6) go whitewater rafting

7) go salsa dancing

8) participate in a couple of latin american jam sessions

9) navigate chilean public transportation in the depths of rural territory

10) visit and tour a chilean winery

11) hold an awesome party enjoyed by chileans and gringoes alike

and in less than two weeks we are headed to argentina to pick up some maté mugs and check out mendoza :)

smoggy day. clear day

you pretty much have two options in santiago.

a day like this...




and a day like this... and sometimes it rains which makes things a little better...



umm. yeah. sometimes the pollution is so bad it burns your throat, eyes. you can taste it. i completely took living in upstate new york for granted. so many chileans have health problems as a result. i realize my privilege of being able to choose to live in a smog-filled city. that being said, i couldn't live in santiago for more than a year, i need fresh air. there's no doubt i am taking a year off my life for choosing to live here.

the andes were bangin' this morning

this is what a few days of rain and cold does to santiago. you can actually see how brilliant (of course the picture never does justice to what you can see in real life) the mountains are. it is crazy they are that close (you never would know it on an average day) and that is what they really look like. the rain here has caused snow accumulation over there, good news for skiing, yay!

this is the view i got today while running on the treadmill in the gym on the 19th floor. certainly not a boring start to this busy day.

living without an oven

i've never ached for the desire to make my own blueberry muffins as much as i do now. we don't have an oven. i've said to several witnesses, "i swear, the next chance i get i promise i will make brownies from scratch, just for the ability to bake my own things!" i used to bake a lot when i was a kid. i had my own easy-bake oven and everything. then one time (using a real oven) i wasted a pound of pecans (expensive!) because i forgot to take the pie out when it was time. there was also the time i added a cup of baking soda instead of a tablespoon to chocolate chip cookie dough. i remember my mom and brother laughed and laughed, i was so embarassed. anyway, then i joined 4H and i think i learned to make pretty decent baked goods. since i have become an adult, baking has lost a ton of interest for me, until now! i don't generally love chilean food. i do love their baked breads and such but i tried a muffin the other day and it just wasn't as good as one i could have made. baking things would certainly give me the ability to make food taste the way i would like it to. having a oven would allow us to make more than soups, stews, stir frys and burgers.

though i have to say, we certainly push the envelope anyway.

take a look at the attempt at making baked? stuffed peppers on the stove-top. it was... interesting and really not that bad (though our desire to save money by buying quinoa in bulk at la vega resulted in having to eat glass shards- apparently cheap quinoa doesn't go through any kind of refinining process that screens the stuff out).

salchicha de sangre

scott and i went out to lunch at a place close to us we really like for bread, pastries and empanadas but we had never tried their lunch special before...

so we go to order and scott's like, what are "priétas"? (spelling is definitely wrong there).
the response included something like "relleno de sangre" (filled with blood). immediately, i think, no thanks. i'll have the mashed potatoes, please. scott's like, "i'll take it."

turned out it was blood sausage. if i had eaten it i'm sure i wouldn't have iron problems for weeks.

ironically i had some this past weekend in mendoza, ar because it came in our parrilla (aka bbq meat festival- pronounced "par-eeja" in argentina) and it was quite good, much better than the grilled intestines. yum!

anyway, as we were dining over pig and cow insides (come on, you gotta experience life, i suppose) i told an argentine guy we had made friends with that i used to be pretty much vegetarian for quite a while and his outward, stereotypically argentine response was... sounds pretty boring.

to be or not to be... a pack rat

before i came down here, i remember at least a couple of people gave me a hard time about bringing so much stuff. they'd say cait: "it's not like you are going to a deserted island. they'll have toothpaste there." i had three bags that were filled with clothes, shoes, teaching materials, toiletries and medicine. i also had two carry-on bags that held my computer and several books. needless to say, i was pretty bogged down. at logan airport, a couple of people wanted to know where i was going with all that stuff. i felt a lot better after i revealed that the stay was more than a month or two, that it was actually 10 months (at least). when i got to the hostel here, a couple of backpacker dudes commented about how much stuff the teachers had. like we were being completely frivolous.

well, last week's experience sure paid off for me in the planning ahead category. i had brought a completely new container of saline solution down with me from the states. unfortunately, the time had come where i needed to purchase more. scott and i noticed that saline solution is not sold at drugstores or grocery stores on shelves like it is in the States. we realized we now needed to ask an attendant if they could produce this magical mystery juice and present it before us so we could know what we were dealing with. as we were bantering back and forth about what the price difference could be, i have to say i was shocked when i found out just how much it was. a bottle of optifree express (around 8 bucks in the States) was 15 dollars!!! What! i couldn't believe it. at home, i buy the cheapest saline solution i can find (which usually costs about $3.50 a bottle). i had noticed a lot of chileans with eye glasses but this was just wrong. scott wasn't as surprised as i was. pancho asked him 2 weeks ago, "why do all you gringoes have bad eyes?" don't know pancho, couldn't tell you.

this experience was coupled with a more positive one. realizing that i had yet again been lapsing into sleeping more, feeling groggier and having little energy, i now know i will never get by in life without my iron supplement. the problem is it is expensive (40 US) and comes in a glass bottle and given that, it doesn't travel very well. my herbalist friend (who owns uncle sam's goods in troy) recommended (through e-mail) that i try siberian ginseng or alfalfa here. feeling a little down that i would have to pay almost 9 mil to be able to put lenses on my eyeballs, i found myself wandering into a holistic, naturopathic store. i looked, i saw...they sold my iron supplement! i couldn't believe it! well how much was it? i winced at the pain of hearing a price.... wait for it... 12 dollars!!! my floradix iron tabs cost a third of the price down here. why?? it doesn't make sense.

my school

my school has a really unique design to it. namely, it's completely open to the outside. it is not uncommon to see birds wandering around inside. additionally, if it rains, it rains inside. if it's cold, well you get the idea. why pay for heating? you'd just be heating the outside anyway.

anyway, it's really beautiful, it would only be cooler if there were a lush green forest outside, with delicious air to breathe in and out. here are a few photos.

salsa

we went salsa dancing several weekends ago. it was totally fun and now i want to take lessons. arturo and cristian spun me around the floor for a couple of songs and patiently worked with me on the steps as i moved just like a gringa would. no, just kidding, i've got rhythm in there somewhere.

these salsa joints come alive at 12:30/1am. the floors are packed and it was certainly intimidating to walk out onto them knowing i was no pro. my feet were completely stepped on. but it's not like what you might think. in a salsa situation, if your feet are getting stepped on, you are the one who's messing up.

it was comforting to know that even chileans take salsa lessons. now i won't feel as ashamed the next time i step into a dance studio, ready to learn from the pros.

hitchhiking love

scott and my first experience hitchhiking couldn't have been more rewarding.

the morning leading up to said experience started with getting up at 5am to leave the house at 6. we were told by several individuals that there was only one bus (that left one time a day) and headed in the direction we were going (baños morales). the problem was no one could tell us when that was. so, we did what any sensible person might do... we left really early to ensure we would make it in time.

upon arriving at the side of road where the bus was to pick us up (at 7am), we were told by a taxi driver that said bus to b. morales would leave at 9am. that left us almost two hours to chill in front a santa isabel supermarket. scott was not happy to say the least, his water had leaked inside his backpack making him and his sleeping bag quite wet (needless to say, the morning wasn't particularly warm either).

we arrived back at the bus stop at 8:50. now you have to keep in mind... there are about 10 buses (some truncated, some green, purple and blue, some colectivos, others not) that arrive within a 10 minute period of time. some buses don't even stop, you have to know ahead of time when to flag them down. generally there are signs on these buses that indicate the various destinations available. well! we did not see one bus with the sign we needed to see. the taxi driver returned and tried to assist us by asking a bus driver about the 9am bus. his response was that that bus only runs during the summer, the current season being fall. what to do? some hippy looking chilean stuck his head out of the bus and yelled to us that we should get on the bus anyway, at least it would take us in the direction we wanted to head in.

cajón de maipo is the name for a series of towns (pueblos) that head in an easterly direction towards argentina. some towns are not particularly safe for gringos like us to wander in. it was suggested to us that we head to a town called san gabriel and stay there, there are still trees and greenery our chilean friend says. (the further east, closer to the andes and volcanoes the less green stuff there is). disappointed i wasn't making it directly to the baños, scott and i discussed the possibility of hitchhiking. meanwhile, the bus driver (who could only bring us as far as san josé) said we should get off there (the last stop), stand right where we got off his bus and wait for the next one. this bus was 10 minutes behind, traveling (of course) in the same direction.
*side note- without being critical i have to say that logic here in chile can be quite interesting. for example, you sometimes need to buy 5 packages of hamburger meat (all the same size because they are not sold any other way) to get the amount you need. in my mind, why not make bigger-sized meat cartons so people buy and consume less packaging? along the same vein in this little vignette here, why didn't this bus run through to the next town? was there somewhere this bus just needed to be?

anyway, we got off the bus and deciding that this whole thing was quite worth the adventure, we boarded the next one with a final destination of san gabriel. we knew nothing of the return bus schedule and thought we might need to hitchhike home the next day... when we arrived in san gabriel we had the expectation (through yet another conversation with a nice chilean) that some other bus might leave from there and take us to baños morales an hour later. sweet! this is how being spontaneous pays off. well we waited that hour, only to then find out from the carabineros that just kidding, that bus comes in 3 and a half hours. so we said screw it, let's hitchhike. only 100 feet down the road we "hacimos los dedos" and the first car stopped.

scott and cait: ¿adondé van?
truck filled with 4 twenty-somethings: arriba
scott and cait: ¿podemos....?
truck with people: sí

and we jumped in the back of their truck, quickly turning off the dirt road and heading just as they said, up. having no idea what could possibly be "up" especially considering that everything i had read and heard about was east and straight, i was excited at what possibilities this new direction contained.

after several minutes we started to see this...