the final countdown

I'm in my last few days in South America. I don't really have much to do these days and have little ambition to go very far. This morning I was going to catch a bus to the beach about two hours away, but when I got up I realized that getting more sleep would be a better investment of my time, and may help with my neverending cold. So today I'm doing some laundry, taking care of some business.

Sometimes when I'm bored at the hostel I start clicking on old blog entries, remembering our good times and bad times, our fun trips, my bad facial hair. It's a good thing we did this blog or there might have been things forgotten, like when I used to keep a journal when I traveled solo. Although I think I'm just about ready to get back home, I can't help but feel reminiscent for the year already. So even though supposedly we kept up the blog for our readers, it'll be nice to look back on from time to time.

I've been sleeping in the same bunk for over a week now and it is a very nice change to be able to stay in one place for awhile and not have to carry around the big backpack. I was at the point where I was really excited to unload weight any time I could. I gave away some shoes that I hadn't worn in a month. I starting bathing more regularly because every time I use shampoo, the backpack gets lighter, right?

Yesterday Sergio and I had a nice day of tourism. We went to the main cemetery (the largest graveyard I've ever seen), had a gigantic lunch of Peruvian food at a market, and finally got to the Museo de Bellas Artes.

When one goes into a market that is filled with small restaurants and lunch counters, one is accosted by the proprietress of each business, imploring that you come to eat her homemade food. The menu at each place is pretty much the same and roughly the same price, so you have to choose based on other factors; availability of seats, popularity with locals, clean appearance, prices posted on the walls, personality of the person yanking on your shirt sleeve. Pictured in front of Sergio from top to bottom are Chilean ceviche, papas haucainas (potatoes with a spicy cream sauce) , Inka Cola and my amazing saltado or stir-fry, plus bread and hot sauce. We could barely roll out of that market we were so stuffed.

Cerro Santa Lucia

The camera seems to work about 50% of the time, which is great since I thought it was completely dead. There are two big hills in town. Yesterday I climbed Cerro Santa Lucia again, but it was much nicer than when Lou and I did it at midday two months ago when it was a thousand degrees out (538 Celcius). The park itself, a hill in the middle of the city, is a haven away from the traffic and noise. A nice place to chill out and read, or make out with your partner on a bench. I found a copy of Slaughterhouse Five in Spanish to keep me company.

Futbol fields of Argentina and Chile

(Santiago, Chile)

















A dirt soccer field in Cartagena, Chile. I was staying in one of those houses on the hill on the left.

So here are some of my scenic soccer fields. Maybe I was just missing being one of the worst players on the worst soccer team, in the lowest bracket of a recreational league in a country not known for soccer, but for awhile whenever we went somewhere, I was obsessed with taking pictures of soccer fields in exotic locations. They will put a field in any old place that is flat, which is sometimes hard to come by in the Andes. But this may be one reason why Argentines have world class soccer teams. Chile, on the other hand, has soccer fields everywhere too, but their team... They are still waiting to beat Argentina some day. Unfortunately, I was rarely able to catch people playing on the fields when I had the camera handy.



You can see one of the goals in the grass with Volcan Puntiagudo in the background. Its hard to take a good picture from a moving bus. The volcano is in Chile, but I'm pretty sure I was in Argentina when I took the picture.










Ischigualasto park (Valley of the moon) in Argentina.














Looks like one of the junior soccer teams practicing at Andes Talleres Athletic Club in Godoy Cruz (Mendoza), Argentina. I'm told that this club is better known for its basketball team.












Improvised soccer field in a courtyard at the public works building in Mendoza.















Parque San Martin in Mendoza contains a few fields and stadiums. This is the largest of them, Estadio Islas Malvinas, where I went to a few games.













Valle Fertil, Argentina. If this town is named Fertile Valley, you can imagine what the surrounding area looks like.
















La Costanera in Puerto Madryn, Argentina.
















La Bonbonera, home stadium of Boca Juniors in Buenos Aires.















Smaller version of the above, also in La Boca, Buenos Aires.















Lago Petrohue, Chile. That might actually be Volcan Puntiagudo seen from the other side.















Near Las Vegas, Argentina.
















El Bolson, Argentina

enfermo

The other day some people were talking about dreams they'd been having when I realized that I couldn't remember having any dreams for months. Last night things were different. I've been sick for a couple of days, yesterday being the worst so far. It's just a sweaty general body, throat, head, chest ache. Probably just a spot of malaria ;) So yesterday I took it easy, watching TV in the hostel and then finally had a Theraflu drink before bed. I had never taken one of those before, but I declare that it should be up for a Nobel Prize in Medicine for how long I was able to sleep without feeling the mosquito bites, without hearing the partiers in the patio. Plus I had dreams about working in a hospital. After about 10 hours in bed I feel a little bit better, on the way to recovery. I might have to take it easy again today. But I have to say that it totally sucks to not have someone babying me in my sick condition or telling me that I'm a wuss and should get out of bed. The only upside of being ill is that at least someone feels bad for you, but suffering in isolation is lame. And I don't have a second opinion about going to the doc or not. But hey, don't worry. I'll be out touristing again soon.

Post beach wrapup

(Santiago, Chile)
I'm back in Santiago after spending a good part of the week with Sergio's sister's inlaws. Soon after I wrote that last entry, three more people came to join the party. That made 14 people in a 4 bedrooms house with paper thin walls and ONE bathroom. But we all got along just fine, eating in shifts, bathing irregularly. This family is terribly buena onda. Of course sometimes there were more than just the 14 of us, neighbors, other family members, a ten year old girl who had a crush on me (she always wanted to meet a gringo).

We did a couple beach trips, one over to Isla Negra, where there was impressive surf-on-rocks action. In Cartagena proper, even though it is a very popular beach, I'm pretty sure I was the only gringo. I was in a town that is overlooked by all the guide books and I like it that way. But now I'm staying in the mega hostel Casa Roja, where everyone speaks English. The only thing that drew me back here was that I've been thinking about their swimming pool for the past two months. Sergio and Mariano are on their way over right now to visit me (drink wine cooler by the pool). Don't hate on me just because you're sleeping with a hat in Minnesota. I swear that I too have been suffering, but from some wicked allergic reactions to the local mosquitos. After a few weeks of distracting pain, i finally got some anti-hystemine pills which help with the itches.

I'm generally just playing it by ear from now on. I don't have any grand plans for traveling very far from here.




Sergio and Mariano share a special moment in Isla Negra.

Vamos a la playa

Mariano, Sergio and Pato near playa chica ==>

(Cartagena, Chile)
If Viña del Mar, Reñaca and Concon are the most VIP of the beaches, Cartagena, I am told, is the opposite. It has a more down-home, proletariat feel to it. It´s the closest beach to Santiago and I may be the only gringo here.

Mariano came over from Mendoza to join what we´re calling the tri-national congress of party animals with Sergio and me. We got together in Santiago and then Sergio´s sister invited us to come stay with her and her inlaws near the beach for a few days. They are another superfriendly, goofball family. I´ve already been given the names blanquito, gringo and whitey, although pinky might be more appropriate after spending awhile in the sun without sunblock yesterday. It amazes me how out of nowhere a family will just invite a person in, make room for them to sleep, fit them into meals etc. Of course I have to share a bed with Mariano and Sergio, which is great fodder for jokes for the rest of the family.

In town there are two beaches, a small one and a big one. Both are completely filled with humanity in the afternoon. There is also a funky, State Fairlike atmosphere pedestrian street above the beach where there are some rides for kids, people selling food and souveniers. Totally chaotic and full of people as well.

I think we´ll be here until the weekend and then regroup in Santiago. No plans after that.

By the way, I bought a return ticket and should be back home March 6.

Some differences

(Concepcion, Chile)

I think I’ve been in Chile for two months now, and I’d like to write about some of the differences between Chile and Argentina. For one, they like to point out the differences between themselves. Chilenos always describe the food of Argentina as being very dry, with their meta, pastas and pizzas. Chilenos are fond of soups and stews. Lomito is a steak sandwich in Argentina, here it is pork. The language is one thing they use to establish a local identity and differentiate themselves. There is a lot of vocabulary and even grammar that changes as soon as one crosses the Andes. Here are some Chilean vocab words I’ve picked up on.

I was with my Patagonain family when I started employing Chilean dialect so these words are related to children and body parts, which apparently come up a lot with the niños.

Cabro/ Cabra = literally means “goat” but is used to describe young people. Kids?

Guagua = baby

Guata = belly

Poto = butt

Pololo/ polola = boyfriend, girlfriend. I think it has some relation to a fly that buzzes around and bothers one.

Po = a syllable that just seems to show up in almost every sentence. It’s a derivation of of “pues” or “pos” which is just a sentence-filler like “then” or “dontcha know”. I’ve started using it pretty much every time I answer a question. “Would you like mustard on that?” “Si, po.”

Cachar (cachai?) = to get it, to understand. I love this word, but I can’t get myself to use it very much, and every time I do I laugh, or the person I`m talking to laughs. It’s usually used like “Ya know?” or “Ya know what I’m sayin’?” This word is so Chilean that if you go into Argentina and say it, you will be instantly identified as being infected by Chile, cachai?

Hacer tuto = sleep. I was once asked if I needed to hacer tuto. I had no idea what that meant. And with the tone of voice being used, I really thought I was being asked if I had to use the bathroom, like with a little kid. “Necesitas hacer tuto?” But I guess I looked tired, not constipated.

The vos form, which Lou and I have mastered, or are at least functional with, is useless here. I spent the first few weeks trying to rid it from my vocab, and instead using the tu exclusively. When I accidentally whip out the vos form, I am always mocked with an Argentine-mocking “che” accent. And there is also this other bizarre, almost vosotros form used here. It seems to be mostly used with questions. “Tenei cambio?” "Como estai?" “Querei hacer tuto?” I know people are going to make fun of me when I get back to speaking Spanish with Mexicans and Central Americans. Even here, people sometimes can’t figure me out, with my gringo/Argentine accent, baseball hat, Ramones shirt, drinking a mate. “Are you from Uruguay?”

Mural

(Concepcion, Chile) So it appears that the camera does still work with limited function. From now on I can only take pictures of things really far away.

I went to the art museum at the university yesterday, the highlight of which was this massive mural describing Latin American history by Jorge González Camarena.

Other pics from valdivia

(Concepcion, Chile)
I'm pretty far from Valdivia right now, but i don't have any more pictures to post, and I took a bunch while I was there, so here are some pics from Valdivia that I didn't post earlier.











Here´s Valdivia from the bridge over the river.






































Fish market on the river.

View from above at Parque Oncol.

What´s the temp in Temuco?

(Temuco, Chile)
Yesterday it got up to 31C. I think that's close to 90F.

So I stayed in Pucon for a couple days longer than I expected. I met a nice gringo my age to hang out with. He showed up at the hostel and I invited him to go on a bike ride with me. We made our introductions and he said ,"You're from Minnesota, huh? I went through there when I biked across the country." So, the day after climbing a volcano I had to keep up with that guy for 50km, a good part of it was dirt and mushy gravel. But eventually we arrived at the waterfall, of which I have no pictures. Picture volcanic ash mixed with water in a series of 5 or 6 falls. Even though I suppose it was technically clean, we couldn't get ourselves to drink the grey water. We couldn't swim either because it was so slippery from the ash and rocks. But on the way out, the caretakers gave us water, sold us some bread and then gave us some nourishing fresh cow milk for energy on the ride home. After those two days, the most ambitious thing i could do was swim a little in the lake.

Pucon was really expensive and touristy. So Yesterday I came to Temuco. It feels a lot like Menoza for some reason. I´m trying to get things done here. My camera is being looked at by a guy at an auto shop (yeah it sounds strange but you do what you have to), I'm looking for plane tickets, buying supplies. I'll be here a couple days I think. I plan to get to Concepcion by the end of the week so I can find an all-night internet place from which to participate in the annual trivia contest. http://www.kvsc.org/ Let me know if you want to join Louann and the team that is playing from my parents´ house. It's a good time and we need as many people as we can get.

Time for me to go and check with the camera fix-it guy. I hope last entry isn't the last one with photos.

Volcan Villarica

(Pucon, Chile)

We (me, two guides and 3 couples from Isael, Brazil and England) left a little after 4 AM. It was funny seeing all the Pucon partiers out on the streets or returning home as we were just getting going after a short night of sleep. We got all our gear together and drove to the base of the volcano at 1200 meters. We began climbing in the dark with headlamps, which was a great idea because A) the bottom part wasn’t that beautiful and B) it got warm later. As the sun started shedding some light, we could make out the clouds below us. We also saw some red sparks coming from Volcan Llaima, which became very active on Jan 1 this year. It was pretty hard hiking at times, due to the continuous incline. It got easier once we reached the snow. We were equipped with boots, gators, pants, jackets, and ice picks, in case we lost our footing. We brought along our own sandwiches, fruit, chocolate, water, and took breaks every 45 minutes or so. All in all it took maybe 5 hours to get up to the top, at 2800 meters, were we could look into the crater and sometimes smell toxic gases. But the weather apparently was the best they´ve had for this climb in many weeks, so I got really lucky. A lot of people have booked the climb, gotten all suited up and driven the volcano, only to have to turn around due to windy conditions. I can´t really describe the view from up there. I guess it was a cloudy day down below, because all we saw were clouds, and mountains like islands in a sea of white. But for us it was sunny and gorgeous. We could make out at a ton of volcanos (did you know that 10% of the world volcanos are in Chile, some 2000).

We hung out atop for a good hour. Then we put on the snow pants and an extra sort of butt apron thing and headed down. The way down used a technique that my Costa Rican buddy Vernie once dubbed bajando por culo, or descent by ass. We did a series of slides down the volcano, using paths in the snow. We used our ice picks for brakes, at least at first. It was quite a thrill ride. Sometimes we made trains and really got some speed going. The entire decent took maybe an hour and a half.

Climbing Volcan Villarica was so far the best thing I´ve done in the solo portion of this journey. I think I picked a good agency (Mountain Life). I´m glad I splurged and did it.

My camera is still dead, but the nice English couple from my hostel let me share their pics (Thanks Grant and Korinna).

We couldn´t see any lava, but we could hear the explosions down below.

Woo hoooooo!