Cerro la Campana

Well this weekend was another great one that flew by in the blink of an eye! Thursday night Kacey, Emily and I finalized our trip (meaning we bought or flight) to Buenos Aires in the end of October! We found a deal that made for a cheaper trip if we stayed longer so we are staying there for about 6 days from Ocober 29th to November 5th! We will be close to Uruguay so it's possible that we may make a night trip to Montevideo en Uruguay! I'm really excited to be going on another trip cause it's been since Mendoza that I've made a big trip. So far, the only places I've been have been in Argentina, which is a coincidence but maybe it has some significance! I loved Mendoza and the Argentine's that I met, so hopefully I can meet some more cool people.  

On Friday I had a great lunch with Marisol Fernandez and a friend she works with. Marisol is the sister of Osvaldo, my dad's friend from work who is porteño (from Valparaiso). It was really fun to hang out with her, we went to a delicious restaurant called "Los Deportistas" but it has another name that everyone calls it: "la vieja de la cazuela". It is a house with no signs, no advertisements; it's pretty much hidden and you would only know it was there if someone takes you there, or shows you where it is. I wish I had taken pictures but we were having a great discussion about politics, wine, and food that I couldn't stop to take a picture! We started with drinks; I had a pisco sour and then they asked me if I wanted to try the vaina and of course, I said yes! It's a drink with wine, white vermouth, egg yoke, and cinnamon. It was actually delicious and after two drinks I was having a bit of a hard time understanding political spanish but I did my best! We each chose a main dish of meat, mine was a steak that I don't remember the name but it was extremely tender with a delicious sauce and I didn't need a knife to break it apart. On the side we had delicious, homemade fries, tomato, rice, and salad. It was simple but somehow the mixture of all these foods was absolutely delicious. To top it all off for dessert I had a little flan. I wish so badly that I had pictures to show you guys, but you all might be tired of my food blog by now so maybe it's a good thing!

For the past few weeks I've been dying to hike this hill called Cerro la Campana which I had heard you could see al the way to Santiago and all the way to the ocean! I missed the trip that our program went on and so I was scared that I wasn't going to be able to make it. So on Friday night when Kacey told me that a friend of ours named Diego was planning on going on Saturday with some of his friends, I said YES I WANT TO GO! So instead of going out Friday night I went to straight to bed so I would be well rested in the morning for a four hour climb. I woke up at 6:30, had a hearty breakfast of apple and oatmeal, packed a lunch and headed out to catch a bus with Kacey and Cameron to Quilpue. Diego has a car so we were able to drive to the trailhead. It is accessible by bus however, but the car was extremely welcome. We picked up Diego's friend Xiomara who is a firefighter too (all firefighters in Chile are volunteers: meaning unpaid!)  and drove to the trail head where we met two other of his friends from Santiago.

The elevation of Cerro la Campana is 6,168 ft and the hike was about 5.5 Km. It's a very short hike in distance, but boy does it climb. There are three steps to the hike, the first is the mine. This is a picture of the entrance to the mine, I went in a few feet but I didn't dare go in any further. I had to crouch down in order to get in and it only got smaller and smaller! 

The whole hike had spectacular views along the way in which we could see the valleys of the chilean landscape. 

View from along the hike:

The second step is Darwin's plaque. This is an actual plaque that Charles Darwin brought himself to the hill and stuck to a rock. The mine to the plaque gets steeper and steeper, and the steepest comes after the plaque. At some points I was actually scared because of how steep it was

View of what you would fall down if you slipped or tripped:

I took about four hours to climb 3 miles, so you can imagine how steep it was! From the plaque to the summit itself was an hour but it was less than a kilometer  (distance that usually takes 10 minutes maybe). It was definitely a struggle to make it up there, the last hour is essentially climbing from boulder to boulder and there were points where I thought I might not make it.  But we kept pushing and we finally made it! The following are pictures from the top and it was well worth the hike. 

made it!

If you can see, the white line in the background is actually the Andes mountains! You couldn't see them until we got to the top

posin'

 this is the valley we came from, further to the right you can see the ocean and Valparaiso:

The other direction: 

los andes:

Our group shrunk after the first step, the guys from Santiago never made it to the top!

It was a great day that ended late and it ended with well deserved completo (hotdog in bread with mayo, tomatoes and avocado on top). To say I was tired on Sunday is an understatement, and I spent the entire day in bed recovering. My knee started hurting halfway up the hill and it has continued to do so when walking up steps, so I'm taking it easy for a few days.

Sunday night my Valparaiso: cinema, literature, and history class made a trip to a small play called " El funeral de Nerudo: flores rojas para pablo" or "Neruda's Funeral: Red Flowers for Pablo".  Pablo Neruda, for those who don't know who he is, was and still is, Chile's artistic spirit. He was a poet, an artist, and a leftist leaning politician. He died a week or so after the coup in 1973, some say he died from sadness. It's incredible how strong of a presence he has in Chilean culture.  I'm not sure if I've said this yet, but a small example of how strong he has in life here is my grandpa. Mi "abuelo" is 90 years old, and lives several houses above our house. He spend his days in his alcove, reading Neruda's poetry, reading and memorizing. Some days when I have time, I go and sit with him and he makes me fresh orange juice and recites Neruda's poetry. His relationship with Neruda is just a  small example of how a lot of Chileans feel about Neruda. The play was centered around the last few days of Neruda's life and the first few days of his death. It was simply five actors who traded turns describing what happened during those sad days. It was a very moving and impressive piece. I'm really glad that I'm that class, and that I had the opportunity to see the play.

I think that's about all I have for now!


Just realized I could make pictures bigger so I'm going to go back and edit old posts, in case any of you want to see bigger pictures!

Fiestas Patrias at last

Well as promised by everyone, Fiestas Patrias was sweeeeeeet!!! On Tuesday morning at 9:30 we all met together downtown to buy the booze and take the micro to Catapilco. We were a group of about 20  and so it's only natural that we bought 20 bottles of Pisco, one for each of us! Along with 15 bottles of wine, and 10 cases of beer of course. We headed out on our micro to Catapilco which is about two hours away. I didn't really understand this before but its a lot like a state fair event but people camp and there's a huge party dance tent at night. There was a rodeo, a circus, an artesian art fair, food trucks and much more. 

We arrived before a lot of the people did on Tuesday and started right away making lunch! We made anticuchos which are kebabs essentially! We cut up chicken, pork, steak, chorizo, hot dogs, peppers and onions.

Leah, Karla and Francisca on Monday had made all the empanadas for our group, I think around 150 total! We also had pebre which you eat with bread and/or chorripan which is chorizo and bread. The bread we ate was pan amasado which is a more rustic bread that's tougher on the outside but extremely soft and delicious on the inside. After stuffing my face with all this food and washing it down with some wine it was time for a nice snooze. Time went so fast while we were there, one minute it would be lunch time and the next thing you knew it would be time for la once. It reminded me of summertimes in france when our whole days revolved around food. After breakfast lunch is prepared and then after lunch is cleaned up, dinner is prepared and then everyone sits around the table for hours drinking wine and talking. One of the reasons I think I feel so comfortable here in this lifestyle is for that reason exactly. That first night we started our carrete (fiesta) early enough to where I was passed out by 1 am, which is very early for here to say the least. I actually started feeling nauseous at this point. I thought sleeping would make me feel better but on Wednesday the 18th, I felt terrible. I'm about 85% sure I had a piece of pork that wasn't fully cooked. I remember distinctly thinking "ooooh this could be a bad time" after eating it. Sure enough, I was sick alllllllll day on the 18th. I woke up at noon this way and spent the whole day in bed basically feeling terrible and nauseous. It was actually a big downer on my week cause it was the actual day of the celebration and I was feeling terrible! At 10:30 I was able to get out of bed and watch in a lot of pain everyone drink a lovely looking punch and dance like crazy until the early morning hours. It was so laaaaaaaaaaaaame!! Someone had given me a little seltzer water packet thing to help me with my stomach but it just made it worse and from there I was almost writhing in pain. I ended up going to Karla house in La Canela which is about 40 minutes away, and sleeping in a bed with a bathroom nearby. We had bought some medication and I felt better almost immediately and I slept like an angel in a bed with a heated blanket.

pebre: 

On Thursday after a good nights rest I felt a lot better! I was able to eat again and actually was able to focus. Thursday was much better for me, I tried a few different traditional summer foods like pastel de choclo and mote con huesillos. Pastel de choclo is kind of like a moist, upside down shepperds pie with cornbread. There's a layer of meat on the bottom with hard-boiled egg interspersed throughout, covered in a think layer of sweet, moist corn bread. It was delicious. Mote con Huesillos is a drink made of peach juice, and wheat kernels or something like that and canned whole peaches. It looks very strange but it's a deliciously, strange mix of things and I'm a big fan. 

Pastel de Choclo:

Mote con Huesillos

I had decided to wait to go home on Friday so that I could enjoy another night and party with everybody, as I had had such crappy nights before. However I still fell asleep early at 1:30 but I woke up at 4:30 and satyed up a few hours with everybody and had a good time! The guys in our group ended up staying up till 10:30am and sleepiong until 3:30! What crazy chilenos. 

All in all it was a really, really good week full of way too much food, good music and good laughs. It was a downer that I got so sick for the actual day but I was still able to enjoy most of it! Here are some more pictures of the week:

My friend Luis and me wearing a traditional Huaso hat:

Here is some of our  group of gringos that came along:

Benito on the left, another gringa on the right:

Benito's sister Karla, who is like a sister:

Some fo the dudes:

The rodeo:

potatoes, meat and carrots over the fire:

late night fire talk:

Coty, who stayed with us late every night, played guitar, and enjoyed being outside:

That's it for now <3

Bautismo del Campo

 WARNING:  extensive post below!!

After most likely the hardest week so far of my time in Chile, I had I think what might be a life changing weekend. Last week I actually had homework, and not just circle the right answer kind of homework... I had to read a book and write a paper about the subjectivity of politics...in spanish. And yes, of course I had loads of time to work on this assignment, and yes of course I procrastinated until the last minute. But you know sometimes that's just how it has to be; we can't all be perfect. On top of this assignment I had a take-home midterm test about all the short stories we've been reading in my short story class. And yes, I would have known it was this week if I had looked at the syllabus, and yes of course I regret not doing so earlier. So as I'm sure you can imagine, this week was a bit of a shock to the system, as parts of my brain that haven't worked in a very long time were worked very hard. So my week was terrible, and stressful, and icky, but I made it!

Friday afternoon I headed over to Cameron's house to meet up with Benito and go to a baptism in his home town of La Canela which is about two hours north of Valparaiso. Little did I know, a baptism in the countryside is a big deal. On Friday night we actually stayed in Viña and went to an choripan asado (chorizo "chori" and bread "pan"). It was a last minute thing but it turned out to be a full night of singing, games, grilling and drinking until the wee hours of the morning. My friend Leah who is also friends with Cameron's brother and Benito's friends was with me as my gringa companion. She actually has a beautiful voice and plays the guitar and we have a really good time together.  Sfter two hours of sleep, Benito and I set out on a bus to la Ligua.

la Leah:

La Ligua is a small town known for it's pasteles y chalecos (little cakes and sweaters). We met up with Chico Luis (little boy Luis) who is 25 but actually looks like he's 18, hence the name chico,  and headed to his house for a delicious lunch of rice, chicken, and artichokes. Then, straight from La Ligua to La Canela which is an even smaller town and when I say town I mean a community of houses with a little grocery store and a church. This little town is were Benito is from, along with the guys and girls that he lives with, aka "the crew". So we show up to the place where the baptism lunch/dance place is and it's straight out of movie about the Mexican countryside. The courtyard is covered in tarps, it has dirt floor, a bar, and an extremely loud sound system. The women are cooking and preparing food in the house/outside courtyard, and setting up the dining situation. They were making cabbage salad, or "repollo" which is very common salad here, with sliced lettuce, lemon, and salt.  There are 5 rows of 4 tables, ready for probably over a hundred people. The the three cakes are ready and set up, looking delicious and the meat we feasted on was already on the grill.  Young children were playing and running around while the older children were also helping set up the place. Blue and white colored paper decorations are being put up, as well as balloons. And then, about and hours and a half after we were told, the baptism begins in the little church about 100 yards from the house.

Pastelitos de la Ligua:

The baptism was short and sweet and intimate. The little church house was overflowing with people, and even though I didn't understand or hear a word that was said, I understood the general flow of direction. The only other baptism I've been to was my cousin Thibault's baptism in which Julien became his godfather. It was cool to see the same ceremony in such a different place and time. I could see how we really are all the same, even though we are so different.

 After the quick ceremony, mingle and snack time for about 2 hours while the "palta rellena" was made. Avocado cut in half, filled with tuna and mayo mix on a bed of "repollo" with an olive on top with some red beets on the side. The next course was a HUNK of meat with a nice portion of rice. Of course there was wine up the ying yang, as well as "pebre" which is that tomato and onion salad I've talked about in the past. Then after everyone was served and had eaten the tables were all stacked and pushed to the side, the pisco bottles were taken out and the "copete"(drinks) started flowin'.

A very small fraction of the wine:

The traditional dance is la cueca, as I've mentioned in previous posts, but in the campo it's la cumbia. THis is a very easy, quick to learn dance that where you can really do anything you want as long as you stay in the step. Also there is the mexican ranchero music which is a little more complicated but it's also quick to learn. And of course, lots of cueca was danced! I'm getting to the point where there are now specific parts of the dance that I am aware of need fixing, like my hand movements with the hankerchief and the double taps towards the end of the dance. It's exciting to be know this dance and be able to do it somewhat decently because it's so much a part of life here! I am going to keep on practicing ever chance I get because I really love the dance!

The dancing and drinking didn't stop all night! I actually went to bed fairly early compared to the majority of the people there. The band doesn't stop playing until 5 in the morning and it's typical that people don't leave until then. When I left to go to bed around 3:30 there were still many people dancing and a lot more people watching. It was interesting to see how dancing was more of a young person thing as all the older generations watched. However, many middle-aged people were dancing, drinking and having a blast.

Today we slept in late, woke up and had empanadas and made bollos! Bollos are a typical dessert bread made for the 18th. I helped roll it out and actually form the dough into the cookie shape before they went into the oven. The oven is a clay oven that stands outside, separate from the house. We also hiked up a surrounding hill and got a great view of the valley in which Canela is located. It is absolutely beautiful in this area. The town lays in the middle of the valley and is surrounded by dry, but green hilltops. The best part is it's so isolated and the only sounds were the birds and the wind.

Los bollos in going in the oven:

the finished product:

Just your typical freezer full of meat:

very dry:

 la Canela is:

All in all this weekend was MUCH much needed. My energy, my excitement and my happiness for being where I am was replenished and my love for Chile has grown exponentially. On my bus ride home today I realized that I've been holding on a little bit and not letting myself fully love it here, I think because I'm scared that when I have to leave I won't be able to handle it so I haven't let myself fully fall in love. But I think this weekend I realized that as long as I'm holding on to that fear I will go home with lots of regret.

Chaoooo!

Me encanta la Chile

Well it's been about two weeks since my last post and there so many things I want to write about but something important that I haven't mentioned yet is my time at Hogar Cristo. On Monday's I've been going to Hogar Cristo at 6:00 pm for about an hour or so to spend time with those that eat dinner there every day. This place is a church run program that provides meals for people who need a little extra help. It isn't quite a homeless shelter, although I think there are some who are homeless, but a lot of the people I've met have homes. They've shared a little bit of their lives with me and mine with them. It's a really wonderful exchange of stories, emotions, and even traveling advice! One night I sat with a man who told me about his family, and when I asked a question about how old they were he broke down and started crying, saying that he had been a bad father and had left when they were kids. Now he has grandchildren but he doesn't know them very well. Another day I sat with a woman who had lived in the US for 15 years! She spent ten years in New York and five in California, selling ice cream on the beach. Another guy I met one week came back the next with a black eye, after being robbed by a group of guys in the middle of the night. It's only an hour a week but I've managed to make quite a few friends. One guy made me a rose out of a napkin! It's a great time and I really am enjoying the time I spend them with them. For most of them, the reasons for them being at the shelter as somewhat similar; loss of job, or loss of the family bread winner etc. Every time I hear a new story I can't help but think, "this could happen to me, this could happen to me." Not out of fear but out of incredulity; being poor is never a choice. I think growing up in a country where wealth is portrayed as something that people can attain after some hard work has completely skewed my own reality. Even though I've been up-close with extreme poverty before, and discussed with others the powers at play in our economic society, it is still a shock sometimes to re-experience the realization that our society is so fucked up. The American dream is so threaded in to our daily life that it really takes a lot to step back and re-evaluate again.Even though I consider myself to be aware, I still find myself being shocked again by the same thoughts and realizations. I think that part of what  I am learning here is that for the rest of my life I will have to step back at times and re-evaluate everything. I'm really hoping that this is making sense! It's all making a lot of sense in my head but I'm not sure if it's going to reach out to you guys. In any case, my weekly exchange at Hogar Cristo is a great and wonderful time, and I think I'm only scratching at the surface of what it's going to mean in my life.

To change to a lighter subject I'd like to talk about FOOD again!! In Chile, sushi is a huuuuuuge thing. There are sushi restaurants everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE. I think because it's a port town and seafood is so available here, sushi is very popular. I haven't had the pleasure of trying restaurant sushi but last night we made some ourselves! With Kacey, Leah (new gringa friend) and Benito's crew we made some avocado, cucumber and imitation crab sushi. Of course within 5 seconds of cutting a roll they were all gone, meaning success!

 For Fiestas Patrias witch is the week of September 16th and Chile's independence day week,  we are all going to "el campo" (countryside) with these guys and their families to celebrate their independence day! Essentially for a week the whole country shuts down and everyone stuffs themselves with traditional chilean food and pisco. I'm not sure what traditional chilean food looks like yet except for I'm gonna take a wild guess and say it involves a lot of carbohydrates and meat. There will definitely be more than 150 empanadas (meat or cheese filled pastry things the size of a small plate) for our group of 20 people, so that's just a small idea to how much we will be eating. So of course everyone here is on a "diet". HOWEVER that is so false because bread is still everywhere and I've had cake around two or three times this week, so I'm not sure what diet means here. I've been trying to eat well but it's pretty much impossible. My face is getting wonderfully round and no matter how many times I run up my hill, it's not going to go away until I'm back in the states :) We will be going to "el campo" and camping for two nights, smoking half a cow, half a pig, and eating lots of bready-like foods and drinking lots of pisco sour! The buzz around this holiday is unreal, it's all everyone can talk about. Everyone here has told me that it's the holiday that best represents Chilean culture, so you know, I'm pumped. What better is there in life than food, music, games and family for a WHOLE WEEK? On the day of the 18th everyone barbecues, plays traditional games, dances la cueca and spend times with family. However, everyone basically starts celebrating on the monday of the week that the 18th falls on. In this case, that's Monday the 16th. Essentially, the whole city is  a big drunk mess for a week therefore: we go to el campo. 

 Last Sunday we decorated Anto's (Benito's mom and Cameron's host mom) living room with Chile flags, decorations etc. and it looks pretty good! I was thinking about what would happen if I walked into a house in the US with our flag everywhere and how different my thoughts would be. In Anto's house it's a beautiful, and prideful thing and everyone does it. I doubt I would have the same reaction in the US. In any case, it's very cool to be part of this special time for Chile :) 

decorations de la casa de Anto: 

Anto's mom Coty who has alzheimers:

My coty getting ready to dance la cueca for school:

To switch subjects, today I spent the day in Santiago with the CIEE the program I'm studying through. My CIEE class is based on Valparaiso and so we went to the house/work space of a Chilean artist who makes prints out of wood. I think that's the artist lingo, but essentially he makes beautiful prints of images of Valparaiso and Santiago. We all got a small piece of flat wood and carving tools and we got to create our own print! It was so much fun, although extremely hard to control the tools. Mine turned out to not be my favorite piece of art (the idea in my head looked so much better than what actually was produced). However it was really cool to see the process and see all of his art. After this we went to lunch and had a delicious 3 course meal (which is the norm here for lunch) with ceviche, fish and rice, and raspberry cake and tea for dessert. From there we left for El Museo de Memoria which is the museum which commemorates all the lives lost, tortured, and ended between the years of 1973 and 1990.  On September 11th, 1973 Augusto Pinochet made a coup d'etat which resulted in the end of Salvador Allende's (socialist president at the time) life, and the end of democracy for 17 years. Many people were tortured, and/or killed and Chile was a terrible place to live in for almost 20 years. I think the number for killed that was recognized by a commission was around 2,500, which doesn't include many, many people. The number of people tortured was around 28,000. The memorial was very informational and did a good job of explaining and showing what happened. My favorite part and the most emotional part is a look out that towards a wall of mounted pictures of many hundreds of victims faces. It was an out of body experiences looking at all those faces. I'm glad I got to go but next time, I think I need more time.

wall of faces:

I'm sorry for the wall of text, it's been a long time since I've written and hopefully it's not too boring to read! I promise to write sooner next time. Amor a todos <3