“It’s ridiculously long!” That’s what she said when we questioned a female Chilean Travel guide as to why it took so long to travel around this razor thin country which hugs the western most coast of South America. The truth is that Chile is roughly the length of the United States but much, much thinner. For those of you more culinary-minded, think of the USA as a huge chunk of meatloaf while Chile is a crisp, thin, succulent, Pepridge Farm Milano cookie. For those of you who aren’t culinary minded, aka Chileans (honestly, please import banana pudding and peanut butter) It’s roughly the difference in size between a Snuggie and a bowtie. For those of you who aren’t fashion oriented, aka Chileans again, let me put it in terms you’re sure to understand: it’s roughly the difference in size between a mullet and a rat tail.
Now that we’re all on the same page, let me tell you about some adventures. But “waahhhhh” you cry out, startling those in your immediate vicinity, “I want to hear about culture and museums and fine arts and cuisine.” To which I respond “it exists, museums are for old people, Star Wars, and gag me.” Yes I’m in a new city, all that means however is that I spend all my time orchestrating new ways in which to escape this city. Santiago is a unique city in that the Chilean military has begun to initiate a program of complete isolation from the outside world. It’s simple really, In order to deter any western influence which threatens to bring reasonable hair styles and palatable food to the city, the Chilean military has invested billions of dollars into a city wide smog screen which effectively hides Santiago from the outside world. This brilliant idea successfully allows the Chilean government to continue to broadcast 90’s music videos in an attempt to subdue the Chilean populace in a grand effort which will culminate in the installation of Justin Beiber as supreme dictator of the city. From the safety of their smog sanctuary, the Chileans will slowly begin to amass enough mayonnaise to flood South America. Once South America is taken it won’t be long till the mayonnaise and rat tail tendrils reach out and snare the unsuspecting continents od North America and Europe.
As much as I dislike this city, I have truly come to appreciate other areas of this beautiful country. Two weekends ago, I was fortunate enough to travel to the northern desert, to a town called San Pedro de Atacama (my guess is that is was named after a famous cama). Atacama is the driest desert in the world and, a lesser known fact, the funnest, desert in the world. To get to Atacama, I had to take a 20 hour bus ride, I know what you’re thinking and the answer is most certainly yes, I did watch a plethora of movies starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson during the journey. Once in San Pedro, the first thing we did was go sand boarding in La Valle de la Muerte (For those of you who don’t speak Spanish, this means “Valley of Life”). This was, of course, completely and vomit-inducingly sick nasty. We shredded for the majority of the mourning and then decimated a group of 7 year olds at soccer. With our self-esteem boosted roughly 200X higher after this well-earned victory, we decided to bike to La Valle de la Luna (For the non-Spanish speakers, this means “Valley of the Sun”). On the way there we stopped at a sand cave, made friends with a sand dog, and were told to shut up by a group of extremely polite tourists trying to listen to a guide whose other job probably involved smuggling drugs to Bolivia. After politely making a gesture to the tourists which more or less conveyed the sentiment of “Oh, we’re real sorry to have interrupted this info sesh, most of which is probably false anyway, have fun on your tour, hope sand dog rips out your eyes J.” After navigating out of the sand caves, we got back on our bikes and tore across the desert up to a huge canyon lined with dunes and what appeared to be chunks of rocky road ice cream though, now that I’m reminiscing, that may have been an incorrect diagnosis. Huh, weird. Anyway from this point we watched the sunset and reminisced about life, the universe, and everything. The sunset, by the way, was absolutely stunning and gave way to an even more stunning array of stars (San Pedro is known to have some of the best star gazing in the world, some of my amigos were able to observe the rings of Saturn via a telescope). What we now realized was a little weird was the fact that it was now dark outside. Perplexed we quickly affirmed the fact that night comes after day and then made our way back down to our bikes. This part we hadn’t really thought out, we now had a 14 km (that’s like 250 miles) ride back to the town, through the middle of the desert, in the pitch dark. While we were initially distressed, we quickly realized that this is what Batman would prefer, which obviously justified all that we were about to do. So we got on the bikes and rode all the way back to town in the dark, narrowly avoiding getting hit by tour bus after tour bus. It was an absolutely awesome experience, racing across the desert in the middle of the night with shooting stars to light the way across an eerie, almost Martian, almost moon-like landscape. As fun as it was though, it was extremely dangerous and something I will not be repeating for a long time to come. We finally got back to our Hostal and snuggled up in bed for a well-deserved night’s rest.
Then we woke up 3 hours later at 4 in the morning to go to the Tatio geysers, located at an elevation of 14,000 ft. It was -8 C outside (this translates to roughly -76 F) but when arrived at the geysers and our guide boiled eggs and milk for us in a thermal pool. Some of us then swam in a promiscuous thermal pool which couldn’t make up its mind between scalding and freezing so it would just hit us with both back to back. Later that day some of us explored an oasis. At one point Adam and I climbed up on top of some giant archaeological rock head and some locals told us to get down. I didn’t really see what all the hubbub was about and the rock guy didn’t really seem to mind, but we got down anyway and then went over and vandalized some other artifact. All in all San Pedro de Atacama was a fantastic trip and a land of unmatched beauty.
This last weekend, I went to an alpine, almost Patagonia town called Pucón, and let me tell you, it is a place of unmatched beauty. Unlike the boiling sands of San Pedro, Pucón was an artic wonderland dominated by lakes, forests, and volcanoes. Within the first hour of our stay in Pucón, we were already in trouble. As we sat in our hostal, we noticed that one of the recommended activities in Pucón was bird watching LOLOLOL. Who does that? After bashing on bird watching for a while, the one other person in the hostal informed us that he was an avid bird watcher. Hahahaha…….. “Well of course we love birds and we’re all about looking at uh feathers….. and uh beaks……. and stuff….” we quickly explained to the bird watcher attempting to give our best “oh we got you good with jokes obviously against our true bird-watching nature” smiles. “Do you like Penguins?” he queried. “Yeah” we said. “They are birds too.” “Oh” we said, clearly floored by this profound idea. Anyway after we shook big bird we went to some thermal springs where an old Mapuche Chilean cast spells on us. I’m not sure what spells exactly were cast, but I felt a little dizzy later that night and one of my friends, Quinn, briefly transformed into a talking piece of asparagus. The next morning we got up, grabbed bikes, and cut a muddy swath 50 km through the Chilean countryside to a dope lake that was full of water and stuff. Let me tell you the bikes that we rented were absolute winners. Over the course of a couple hours, my tire came off, my brakes locked up, and my chain came off repeatedly. In one such occasion my bike helpfully anticipated my need to break by abruptly stopping as I was flying downhill. This worked out really well because I had been eyeing a certain piece of gravel and was really happy when my bike helped me get that closer look. Nothing says good old fashion fun like a face full of gravel. On the way back from the ride we decided we would try to find a waterfall called Salto el Claro. 3 different Chileans I had talked to had told me not to try and find the waterfall, so of course we immediately embarked on a grueling quest to find the waterfall. The waterfall is sometimes referred to as the hidden or secret waterfall because it is very difficult to locate and if you don’t know what you’re doing (like, for example, us) you have a very slim chance of success. After wondering up a dirt road for a ways, we displaced some local pandas by hiding our bikes in their bamboo grove and continued on foot. Morale was running low and daylight was going fast but we kept on going. After what seemed like forever, we finally encountered a no-name trail that took us over barbed wire fences to the edge of a cliff hidden within the forest and snowcapped peaks. We had finally found our waterfall, a dazzling 100 meter cascade of foamy goodness that was worth every second of the hunt. How we found that waterfall, I’m not entirely sure. The odds were stacked against us, but I’m super proud of my boys for sticking it out in what is probably my favorite experience in Chile thus far. At this point it was already sunset and we had a long way to go. We quickly got back to our bikes, apologized to the disgruntled pandas for the pandamonium, and then raced down the mountain, in the dark, on bikes, again. That night we ate a huge supper and went to bed physically exhausted, but having spent an awesome and unforgettable weekend in beautiful Pucón
The next morning we had a leisurely breakfast and headed back to Santiago. Wait. No. I’m forgetting something. Something small, but if I don’t blog about it now, I’m sure I won’t remember later. What was it? Hmmmm. Something insignificant… hmmmm…. probably not important…. Oh wait now I remember: What actually happened the next morning was that we woke up at 6 am in order to spend 6 hours climbing 2,800 meters up to the crater of Villarica Volcano, one of the most active volcanoes in South America. Silly me, I almost forgot. This Volcano climb was freaking insane and unlike anything I’ve ever done before. What I really like was that our Chilean guides gave us little to no orientation, they pretty much just told us not to die, and threw crampons and ice picks in our general directions. Ascending the Volcanic beast took 6 hours of cramponing and ice-picking up icy slopes but we eventually reached the crater exhausted yet triumphant. Smoke was billowing out of the crater and the toxic air burned the nose and throat. Sitting at the top, taking swigs of chocolate milk, we cheerily brain stormed potential plans of action in the quite possible scenario of a volcanic eruption. Tuck and roll seemed to be the best choice with resigned death by lava coming in at a close second. On the way back down, some members of the group skied and snowboarded, but I decided to take the more skillful approach of sliding and tumbling all the way down on my butt.
I’ve seen a lot of things here in Chile. In the course of a week I’ve seen the wind tossed dunes of the Atacama desert and the snow covered landscape of southern Chile. This really is a diverse and beautiful country. I feel like I’m going through dungeons in a Zelda game; these locales honestly seem as if they are ripped straight from a Mario game. Never before in my life have I been able to stand in one place and see cacti, palm trees, and snowcapped mountains all at the same time. One minute I’m in the desert, the next in the artic, the next at the beach, the next beside a roaring jungle waterfall. This country is amazing, and I love it here.
But this country would mean little to me if I didn’t have such a wonderful group of individuals to experience it with. I’m surrounded by an all-star cast of students who are passionate, caring, fun, and hilarious. The lulz abound and I enjoy every moment with these new friends. How we all ended up in this horribly coordinated program and smog covered city, I have no clue, but I’m so thankful that we’re here together. If we all develop acute respiratory problems, I know that there is no other group of people in the world with whom I would rather hack and wheeze through this summer in Santiago.
