can you handle it?

So I wrote all this last night, and I would have liked to edit it before plopping it down, but that's just not going to happen. Apologies if it's weird or hard to follow, but I think I had some stream-of-consciousness going on...It was 8 pages on Word, so hope you can slog through it. By the way, I think I figured out what was wrong with me before I left here: I didn't have a cold; I am allergic to Santiago. All that nastiness is back, and so I think I have another excuse to go back to the clean air in the Sacred Valley...Oh, and I also just noticed that Internet Explorer converted all the apostrophes I used in Windows to little boxes. Does it always do that? Sorry.

viernes 30 julio 2004

Damn, I started to write this all in Spanish, and it’s a good thing I didn’t get too far, because I was on a roll before I realized that the majority of my immense readership does not know that language…Unfortunate.

But there is so much to tell, and I hardly know where to begin, as I’ve already teased you all with a few tidbits of the trip to Perú. I could give you the timeline, which would likely put you to sleep. This would have been much easier to tell as I went along, though, alas, that was impossible.

Got back to Santiago last night, though we crossed the border with a huge sigh of relief on Wednesday night. You’ll have to get out your map to understand the crazy travels. We (Lelia, Mateo, Katie, and I) flew between Santiago and Arica, which is the border town between Chile and Perú. From there, we mostly took buses and colectivos, which can range from sedan- to mini-bus-sized vehicles carrying assorted passengers.

So to get you oriented: last Monday, the 19th, we flew out of this lovely city on a horribly delayed and fantastically scary plane on Sky Airline (sounds funny, but it’s not a typo), to arrive in Arica in the middle of the night. I feel like I never arrive in cities during the day any more: since I got to South America, all of my first impressions of cities/pueblos have been between 3 and 7am. Border towns always fascinate me, and this was no exception. Perhaps the most interesting was considering the lives of the colectivo drivers that take folks across the border. We had to crash in a very creepy hostel Monday night (but what do you expect for CH$3000?—you wouldn’t want to see the bathroom, and you would probably lose sleep over what sounded like an INS raid at 4 in the morning [“¡Están aquí! ¡Están aquí!”]), waiting for the border to open in the morning. After feasting on the typical Chilean hostel fare, we stumbled across the street to the bus terminal and boarded a colectivo, which we needn’t have worried about finding, as we were accosted at the station by about 10 colectivo drivers seeking passengers. We got used to that phenomenon pretty quickly.

The crossing takes about two hours when you go by colectivo (which costs about US$.50), and the bus we took was like a school bus, packed with Quechua folks bringing goods back to their towns and regular Chileans and Peruvians doing who-knows-what—and then there was us. I guess most tourists take fancier buses, because we were the only kids with backpacks on that bus. We were incredibly freaked out because they took our passports before we boarded, mumbling something about getting migration paperwork sorted out, and we really thought we were never going to see those precious documents again. But again, we worried for naught, because those harried colectivo drivers/assistants helped us at every step of the way with those crazy border formalities.

How can I describe the colectivo ride? I should have been exhausted from lack of sleep, but I was electrified by the view. The terrain between Arica (Chile) and Tacna (Perú) is fascinating: it’s the Atacama Desert (I think it’s one of or the driest desert/s in the world) but along the coast of the Pacific Ocean. I didn’t sleep, as I just had to keep pinching myself to remind myself I was indeed en route to Perú! The land was so dramatic, with mountains of sand and deep, deep valleys, with random rivers flowing through some greener parts.

Well, it looks like I’m doing the itinerary, so I hope it’s not boring. I think I have to do it this way, to remember everything. I’ll probably get over that soon enough, but lucky you, who get to read every last detail of the first few days, at least.

We had heard only scary things about Tacna, so we weren’t heartbroken to have to be in and out of there right quick, though it would have been interesting to check out. We scored bus tickets all the way to Cusco, which is the number one tourist destination in Perú, because it’s the gateway to Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail. Yay. We spent all day Tuesday in transit, with a lovely view until dark, then a horrible Kung Fu/cocaine-den/rape-infested movie began blasting in our ears, and I had an intense moment of losing my glasses while I slept for twenty precious minutes.

I guess I should have been cranky by then, but there was, as yet, no drama among my traveling companions (oh, but when that hit…), and I was just so excited that none of this madness really phased me.

The second bus of the day got us to Ariquipa, and from there we got to Cusco at 6am on Wednesday the 21st. So much for having a ten-day vacation. The first lesson we thought we learned was to always make hostel reservations, as this was the second time we had trouble getting into one, but fortunately we got into one of the ones we wanted (guess who recommended it? Yes, Lonely Planet! But the politics of that are also yet to come), and we got to see the sun rise over the beautiful Spanish tile roofs of Cusco, in the valley. Love at first sight.

So far, so good, though, right? Cusco was the first stop on our itinerary, so we hadn’t gotten off track yet. After the delicious nap, we had to plan (which soon became our enemy: down with the guidebook!) the rest of our trip, and then we saw Cusco for what it really is—or at least the area around the Plaza de Armas—which is a giant tourist circus. Finally found out that any version of the Inca Trail was impossible (surprise, surprise), though the group of EAP buddies that had arrived the day before had booked a super-expensive “alternative Inca Trail,” for which they were leaving the next day. Yeah, we had not enough plata, and we still had to adjust to the elevation (2500 meters), which would make me sick that day.

It’s funny, but I can’t really remember what we tried to accomplish that day—I remember getting train tickets, but the most vivid memory is the altitude sickness combined with that terrible moment that was the first time I tried to get cash and was denied…yes, it would be the beginning of a rough vacation. Also, I was really appreciating the lack of pollution, and beginning to really get over my cold (I thought I was a healthy person, but I’m finding out instead that I am a very fragile young woman), until we got to Avenida Sol, the main drag through town, which is almost as bad as Alameda in Santiago.

Thursday was amazing though: we got a taxi from Cusco (after a very special interrogation of the driver, trying to make sure he was authorized) to Ollantamba (about an hour), during which ride I learned to get over road rules. It’s just different in Perú (that’s for Kathy)! It made us all pine for a car to do a road trip, or our bikes for touring. Let’s see. Soundtrack was hard rock, and the driver was hilarious, not to mention a wild one, who got by without sleeping because he was chomping on coco leaves all day. There were several times we thought we would surely be crushed by oncoming traffic, when he decided to pass what he obviously thought were lagging cars on the road. But it was gorgeous, though you’ll have to take my word for it.

The point of getting to Ollanta is that not only are there ruins there (which we could only see from a distance), but that is where tourists have to catch the train to Aguas Calientes, the real gateway to Machu Picchu (Peruvians can take the train directly from Cusco). Another beautiful ride, which included our entrance to the highland jungle, which I almost didn’t believe was happening; it was so surreal.

That’s another weird town, in which there are only locals and people headed to or coming from Machu Picchu. But we were able to get dinner and go to bed early to be able to hike up to the ruins in the morning. Matt insisted on getting up at 4am the next day, to catch the sunrise at the top of the mountain, for which we could not fault him, though the ladies could not join him either. So we set out at 5:30 (of which we were quite proud) and started the day as burly mountain women by hustling up the four kilometers up a great climb.

What can I say about what we found at the top? As it was still early, we got in without the total annoyance of the tourist crowds, but we didn’t realize how much there was so see there! It’s huge! An entire city on a mountaintop, which the Incas pretty much leveled off of this imperial cite. There are a bunch of hikes you can do from the city, to see more ruins, but we took it easy and ran into Matt after he had done one of those (which I would like to do in my next lifetime, but that day, I was not prepared to scale a mountain to get up there). We had the best tuna fish sandwiches of our lives that afternoon.

Blah blah blah. Anyway, it’s an amazingly impressive place, and those few classic photos of the ruins cannot possibly do it justice. Lelia, Katie, and I had fun imagining what all the spots were used for, and we poached a few tours, which were pretty lame. The city had four sectors: agricultural, residential, intellectual (my favorite part, which included a sky-observatory), and artisan. Though you’re not supposed to climb the ruins, we were exploring one part which we had to ourselves (and some of the workers), and ended up climbing a seven- or eight-foot wall!!!

Anyway, that night, after relaxing in the refreshing but disgusting hot springs, the drama began…Let’s just say that a lot of ego and chauvinism was involved, as suddenly one member of the party began complaining about traveling with women (but respectfully, by not calling us girls or bitches!), and announcing the change of plans. OK, it was impossible to do the hike the Chokiquiroa (or however you spell it), which we had been fantasizing about, but anyway, we had to duke it out, and then have a little community moment to sort it out.

I guess I should mention that between all the interpersonal drama and activities, we were all falling in love with Perú. Don’t tell any Chileans I said so, but by the end of the trip, we liked it more that Chile! So many little things, like the totally friendly and warm people and the wonderful array of soft-drinks, which you can’t get in Chile, and of course the geography and colorful history of the Incas on display everywhere you go.

Somehow we survived the train and taxi rides the next day, though we could no longer pretend we all got along (OK, I could not longer pretend; everybody else had already been pretty clear on that), and we had to spend the rest of the trip cleaning up that mess. But wow, it was already half-way over, and now that we knew the big hike was out of the question, we could make other plans.

If I had to choose a day, I’d say that that day, Saturday, was both the best and the worst day of the trip: there was the drama residue and my sudden realization of my utter lack of financial resources, which caused a minor panic attack when we got back to Cusco and had to argue about how to save money (CAMPING! CAMPING), while lustily discussing the important Copa America game happening that very night in Cusco and deciding we had to stay yet another night in a hostel (which were all pretty full), costing us US$4.50 each a night, and (I hope you’re enjoying the run-ons; I can’t express it any other way) enjoying the game between Colombia and Uruguay (we kinda cheered for both, because they both played really well—can you believe we got to go???), and then celebrating by dancing all night at a club in Cusco, meeting some very cool kids.

Sunday, we snagged a colectivo to Chinchero, a tiny town to the north of Cusco, along the same route we had previously taken to get to Ollanta. They have a famous market there every Sunday, and our goal was to go there and barter (which some Chileans we met told us was the norm there) stuff we didn’t need, for gifts for our families. We also had a vague notion of camping there, which we assumed would involve asking people if we could set up in their backyards or something. I should mention that it’s so amazing to be there, because it’s just a different world. The market is really big, and until about 4pm, it seemed to be mostly intended for the locals: they had a lot of fruits and vegetables, as well as mass-produced clothes for men and boys, and regular household stuff. As the sun started to set, the crafts vendors moved their wares a bit up the hill, to a restricted area, to whose admittance the Tourist Police regulate. The people we had met before that madness showed us a way to evade the admission fee (which does nothing to benefit their community, from what I understand: it goes to Lima), so we felt not so bad about spending other money that day (yes, think beautiful gifts from Perú!). But I guess the reason it’s so amazing is that indigenous traditions are just not so in the open and every-day in the US as it is there (and it’s definitely absent from Chile). All women and young girls in Chinchero were dressed traditionally: very bright, hand-made outfits that we would normally think of as costumes. Pretty much all Peruvian women—at least those in all the towns we saw) carry their babies on their back in these holders fashioned of simple cloths that can double as tablecloths. We did not see so many Quechua men that day, but those we saw the next day seemed dressed more “Western.”

Instead, Lelia made friends with one of the vendors, who told her all about Quechua spiritual traditions and sold her items appropriate to doing Ceremony. She also encouraged us to set up camp in the ruins there (the site there is really run-down, but it’s one big palace and some terraced fields in the mountain for agriculture), which are obviously treated very differently from those at Machu Picchu.

In spite of this good news that meant we could sleep for free that night, we waited for the sun to go down and the cold to set in before we took our stuff into the ruins; we were still a bit worried about the guards giving us a hard time about being there. But instead of being chased by guards, a few small children pursued us and insisted on helping us set up camp and make dinner. They were, of course, hungry and excited about the yummy meal (I promise you would not have recognized the feast I coaxed out of ramen noodles and fresh vegetables with these kids), and now that I think about it, we would have been in a bit of trouble without them. It was all about José (“for San José”), Rudy, and DAMN, I forgot the other kid’s name. Sorry.

We had been a bit worried about running out of water, potable or not, so it was a small miracle to take a midnight walk with them to the river. They were enamored of my headlamp and took turns wearing it to guide us (just the ladies went with them to the river, and Matt stayed to guard the camp) so we could get water for dinner. Along the way, they gave us the run-down of the history of the ruins, pointing out flowers growing and showing us the thrones of kings and the monkeys carved in the rocks, etc. We couldn’t have hoped for a better night, as we were anticipating freezing cold and cloudy, but it was clear and not too cold, with a beautiful first quarter moon overhead. One of the more interesting aspects of the walk was a stop at a reservoir at the river, where they take huge sacks of potatoes and leave them to soak, to make a Quechua potato food, which starts with an M, I think, but whose name I forget…

After the scrumptious dinner, the hastily-performed Ceremony done by the boys, and delicious stories told by José, we finally convinced the kids to go home, and Matt and Katie ended up walking José home because he lived farther away.

We were sad to leave Chinchero the next day, but we got to leave with some great memories, especially since that day started the week of Fiestas Patrias for Perú, so all day Monday, the ruins there were turned into a staging ground for celebrations. Starting at about 8am, the kids were lined up and ready to march around. We got to see major patriotism and community pride. Though I of course question holidays such as the Fourth of July in the US (in the sense that it’s a holiday to distract people from their class interests…sorry, that’s bad propaganda), it seemed weirder to me to see indigenous people celebrating Perú’s independence from Spain, since they were not the main beneficiaries of that independence. There’s also major bitterness there toward Chile, as they were involved in intense land disputes, so there were these kids giving these fiery speeches denouncing Chile and Spain and reciting patriotic poems (it was really cute though), while all their parents looked on from the higher ruins. It was a big day.

I know it seems like a lot to comment on every single event of being transported between cities, but it is worth mentioning that we took a colectivo back to Cusco, which was just a normal sedan, but in which the driver crammed 8 people (four more than would have been “safe”—this wouldn’t have flown in Chile). Another thrill-ride, for sure.

Back in Cusco again, we had to face the reality that it’s hard to camp there (if anyone knows where to camp there, let me know—even my travel bible didn’t recommend anything, but I don’t believe that’s because it doesn’t exist), and we went searching for hostels. Lelia was convinced that she could stay out all night partying and therefore could save money instead of hostel it, but alas, we ended up crashing. Our friends got back from their big hiking adventure that day, totally wiped out, so we met up with them at Extrem (not a typo; the same club where we partied on the previous Saturday), to view a pirated version of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9-11. I’ll save my commentary on that film for a later date (let’s just say I was a bit disappointed). It was so good to have the bigger group back together though, because we all needed some fresh company, to diffuse the drama. Afterwards, we went to an Irish bar in Cusco, where we met their hiking guide and cook, as well as the other folks they suffered with.

Thanks to my utter fatigue/laziness that night, I kept my stuff in the hostel where our friends were (they didn’t have room for our group) and wasn’t able to retrieve it, so that our last day in Cusco, Tuesday, I had nothing on me except the dirty clothes from the day before: yum. Luckily, Katie had a few soles (Peruvian money) left, and the three of us (the ladies) were able to take a tour of four more Inca ruins just north of Cusco (a route we had fantasized about taking over two days and camping along the way, though it’s really a day trip). Because we had declined to purchase the Boleto Turísticos, which benefit Lima and were beyond our daily budgeted means, we jumped on the opportunity to take a cheaper route. This guy approached us as we were bummin’ out at the entrance to Sacsyuman (“Sexy Woman,” as it is charmingly called), to which we had hiked in the hopes of getting in for free…It was incredibly shady, as was much of Perú, but we took his offer to go up to “his ranch,” where we could tour the ruins on horseback. Upon receiving the horses to do the tour, our friend Alfredo disappeared and left us in the custody of a young man (with the Peruvian mullet; very cute), who reluctantly guided us (on foot) through the four ruins. One of them was pretty boring, since we still couldn’t have access to them without the Boleto Turístio, and the other, Sacsyuman, we only got to see in the dark. The other two were pretty cool though: forgive me, as I don’t have the LP handy to remind me of their names, as Matt still has it—he worships that book. The one was huge, consisting of a GIANT rock (the size of probably six North Shore-sized houses) into which the Incas had formed the Temples of the Moon and the Sun. Quechuas still use the Temple of the Moon (which is a cave that gets fully illuminated once a year by the full moon) as a place to get positive energy for getting pregnant. It was at that site that we got to see the “Triología de los Incas,” which means that everywhere you look in the ruins, you see the symbols of the puma, condor, and llama (which represent power and some other things…). The other one is called the X-Zone, and we got to walk through a completely dark tunnel (thanks, Katie, for letting me hold onto the back of your pants to not get lost in there…what a friend!), which was formed by a waterfall, not by the Incas. It was a great tour, in spite of the fact that dear Alfredo didn’t pay the real tour guide (mullet dude), so he was kinda bummed out until we gave him the biggest tip we could afford (which was not much).

Wait. Now I’m thinking that Tuesday was the best day of the trip. Because that night, though we were supposed to have reservations at that one hostel, somehow we no longer had them, and we ended up across the street (actually one of the many pedestrian-only streets in Cusco, which I dug!) at a much nicer place. Warm water! Comfy beds (not that I slept that night)! And, best of all, a super-fabulous owner, who not only let us use her kitchen to make the best meal of our trip (again, just the ladies that night)—a vegan rice-veggie-soy meat stew featuring fresh herbs from the Sacred Valley—but also hung out with us and made us maté de coca.

That gave us enough energy to go out that night, for sure. We had been kind of upset because The Rave of the Year was happening that night and the next, in the mountains nearby, and we couldn’t afford it. All the hippest Peruvians were in town for it, and we weren’t able to convince the dude to hook us up (though Lelia did a valiant job talking house music with him…), so we were forced to go to Fallen Angel, which was rumored to be the gay bar full of drag queens (I don’t know—I was excited for it!) and house music. It was the night before Fiestas Patrias, so we had to wear red and white to get in free. Anyway, the music was fantastic, and we heard from the locals that the rave sucked anyway, and Fallen Angel was the place to be. I ended up staying out all night and ended my time in Cusco perfectly symmetrically: I walked back to the hostel at sunrise. (Can you believe me? I can’t. I can hardly stay out past 2am in Oakland…I think the night air here makes me crazy.)

From there, there’s not much to tell: we were able to fly from Cusco to Ariquipa (a twelve-hour bus ride was the alternative), where we split with Matt (good thing, because there was about to be bloodshed), who wanted to stay in town for the big holiday celebrations. A six-hour “economy” bus took Lelia, Katie, and I to Tacna, and we were just able to cross the border in time to crash in Arica for the night. The next morning—yesterday—we reunited at the airport for a surprisingly smooth and on-time flight back to Santiago.

Whew! I can’t believe I got that all out at once. I just couldn’t stop writing. It’s kinda unfortunate, too, because I had told Tía Sonia and her son Eduardo (not the creepy guy who lives here; he’s on vacation working for that super-right-wing party) I would make them a yummy dinner…I’m moving tomorrow into Katie’s apartment until I can find something better, and I wanted to do something nice for Sonia before taking off. But it’s been weird. There’s no food in the house!!! And due to my desperate financial situation (and the fact that I paid room and board for a month here), I wasn’t about to go out and buy food to make my famous chili. Argh. So she got home from work starving to death, and I’m glued to my computer, with this excuse that we didn’t have tomatoes and black beans…and I couldn’t think of anything else to make, especially given the limited food supply (I don’t know—can you think of anything to make from almonds, short pasta, cornmeal, iceberg lettuce, avocado, and butter? Because that’s all there was to work with. Yeah, it was one of those awkward moments, because I was too shy to ask her to buy food, and she sure wasn’t offering. Gotta work on getting over that business, but I didn’t want to alienate her on my last day…

Anyway, so the real part of my time begins tomorrow. I was totally supposed to go to campus today and pick up my registration packet and get all squared away for my classes, but I was too obsessed (I know it’s hard to believe) with packing my EIGHT bags (and I came here with four) to get out of the house in time…I need a vacation to get over my vacation first, though, so it’s an early night for me. Hopefully I can cook dinner tomorrow night, and survive the next week in this crazy city.

I'm baaaaack

Back in Santigasco, finally! As they say, it was good to get away, but it can be better to get back (please say I'm slightly more eloquent than dear George W. Bush..."They have a saying in Tenneessee, well actually in Texas, but I'm sure they say it here: Fool me once..." Thank you Michael Moore for finding some of the best horrible Bush quotes).
Since I missed orientation and the first week of classes, I need to spend a few minutes orienting myself at La Chile for the new semester, like registering classes and figuring out where the hell to go on Monday...So I'll try to work on my stories over the weekend (if I get through moving across town), but until then (if this doesn't make you too dizzy), here's what I wrote the night before I left for Peru:

domingo 18 julio 2004 Last-Minute Freaking Out

Argh. Had a little bit too much fun last night and have a subtle yet persistent headache.
Would you believe I spent something like five hours at an Internet café yesterday, doing research about the vacation that I (or somebody!) should have done a month ago…So we had a little emergency meeting to assess the possibility of hiking the Inca Trail. Can you count the number of times the vacation has changed form over the past few weeks? It’s making me dizzy. The rules to protect the trail are obviously incredibly important, but it makes it very hard for anyone on a budget to get to see the ruins along the Inca Trail. Practically the only way to do the classic four-day hike involves a super-expensive tour (including tent, food, and porters for cooking and hauling your over-packed sack), and the tours are solidly booked during the (northern) summer months.
So the latest on our plans is that we’re going to Perú on faith that we can see stuff, assuming that we can do a two-day hike to the main ruins at Machu Picchu. Hopefully we’ll do other backpacking on this trip, because we were more than prepared for that.
Anyway, after the little meeting, Andrés took a few of us to this bar by his house in Ñuñoa that features a film theme. Even though we got there early (9:30ish), it was still one of the coolest places I’ve ever been to. Not only were they showing very hip music videos on the wall, but great movie posters graced the walls, and of course all the drinks were inspired by film. Crazy cocktails like Amélie, Blade Runner, The Godfather, and Clockwork Orange—I wish I could tell you what was in them all, but I’m not very good at that. Fortunately or unfortunately, Happy Hour went until 10, so we all got two-for-one! I didn’t think about the fact that I would therefore have to drink two of these absurd creations until after I ordered, but it turned out ok because they were delicious (I had a Planter’s Punch and Azul Profundo), and I had a great conversation with Lelia about sexism and language and ID politics. Yeah, gotta love those drunken political debates…
I realize this probably sounds like the beginning of one of those boring stories about the dumb college kids who go abroad just to get drunk and have promiscuous sexual encounters. So I’ll spare you the sordid details (of which there are few, but I like to insinuate that this is all very interesting) except to say that after that, we ended up in Las Condes again, this time at a house party on the 18th floor of a posh apartment building (beautiful view). My favorite part of the night was downloading music on the woman’s computer and dancing to Le Tigre on the balcony.
Anyway, that is all to explain why my head hurts today. Won’t be doing that to myself again anytime soon though.
Woke up at noon today to meet friends in El Centro to find this punk-rock flea market along the Río Mapocho. This is the part that deserves some attention. I guess we got there kind of early, because there were only a dozen vendors (punks and other assorted hipsters with sheets on the ground where they showed off their wares, which included some of the coolest clothes I’ve ever seen, including loads of really nice hand-made stuff) set up. They kept coming, so that by 2pm, there were vendors all along the sidewalk on a bridge and along the dirt patches on Santa Lucía, paralleling the river (can I just say how totally cute they were? heavenly). By 3, they swelled so big that they spilled out on the other, nicer, side of the river (complete with grass and real sidewalk). At that point, all the hippy-core punks were selling these wonderful vegan burgers and cookies and other treats. Superb.
The real excitement didn’t start until 3:30, though, because that’s when the caribineros (cops, but part of the military) showed up and started roughing up the vendors on the nice side and rounding them up into their creepy-looking vans. It was pretty ugly, and I had to wonder why they wasted their time trying to wreck the party (it seems that it’s illegal to sit on the ground on one side of the street, but perfectly ok on the side of the river that is not intended for sitting). I wasn’t able to ascertain if that crackdown happens every week (the market is every Sunday afternoon), but people seemed pretty freaked out for awhile, and then the ones that escaped the roundup just set up in a different spot. By then, all the anarchists had shown up, and I found out a bit about that scene in Santiago. There’s loads of stuff going on, and it seems that they use that market space to spread the word. Where are the reds though? I have yet to see them out selling their papers and rallying the masses, but I’m sure I will when classes start.
I finally talked to my host mom about what happens when I get back from the trip, too, which I had been kind of nervous about. But she was really nice about it and didn’t try to guilt-trip me or anything. She’s really sweet, but I’m not digging the family scene and am looking forward to living someplace I can more accurately call my home. People have found lots of living situations, but I have to say I’m crossing my fingers for luck that there’s a spot in one of the good Residentiales when I get back…Yeah, coming back, classes starting, and moving. Fun.
Hoping I can post this before I leave for the grand adventure, but we’ll see. I’m actually kind of nervous about the trip and hoping we can make the best of the situation. I’m so not used to traveling like this, but I guess that’s the way to do it in South America…I keep thinking about how fragile life is and how careful I have to be when I go to Perú and Bolivia, to respect the cultures and stay alive. Both can be hard to accomplish when traveling with 11 gringos to one of the most amazing archeological sites in the world…

quicky

Hola Amigos,
I'm just writing from Cusco, Perú to say I´m alive and doing well (in spite of that nasty stomache problem travelers get...yuck!), and I have sooooo much to tell you about. Not much time at the internet café, but here are the highlights to be flushed out when I get back to Santiago (Thursday the 29th, then classes on Friday!):
-hiking up to and visiting Machu Picchu (not on the Inca Trail)
-seeing the Copa América semi-finals with Colombia and Uruguay (Uruguay won, and it was the time of my life)
-partying til 5 in the morning with a bunch of crazy internationals
-seeing Chinchuro ruins and setting up camp with rockin' Peruvian children (in the ruins!--which was cool with the local Quechuas)
-running out of money
Of course there's so much more, but you'll have to wait. This has been the most incredible adventure of my life, and I have to say that Perú is my new favorite country. We're not going to make it to Bolivia, and of course nothing has gone according to plan, but none of it matters...
By the way, if you're reading this, LET ME KNOW. It's like low-powered community radio--I want to make sure it's getting out there.

the countdown to avoiding disaster

wrote this all last night. only thing to add is VIVA WASABI because i started to feel so much better last night after accidentally ingesting that inevitable huge junk of wasabi, and then as smoking diners began to filter into the sushi restaurant, i was back to sore throat and feeling like i just smoked a pack myself. argh. i´m never going to get better! well, i´ll just have to seek out more wasabi.  oh, i also found out that i picked the wrong website to post my blog, because it doesn´t allow me to directly add photos. so i´m working on an alternative. if yr on friendster (and you should be), you can check my page for some highlights of the first photos i took--which actually turned out pretty crappy, and i´m blaming the developing process. stay tuned...
 
viernes 16 julio 2004
 
Finally wrapped up the class today, and I think I did ok, though it doesn’t count for much. Did I mention that, though I was excited to fulfill my requirements for the Spanish minor here, I found out that none of the classes I take here actually count specifically for my degree? I could probably swing a double major if I stayed in school one semester more, but I’m content to get the hell out in the spring. Así es. So I get to take whatever I want while I’m here. Except I chose to go to La Chile, which has limited resources, so I can’t take mountaineering, as I would if I had picked La Católica. Oh well, I guess I can still find interesting things to do, though I promised myself not to take the joke classes with the gringos. The problem is, however, that my poor university can’t get the course listings up on the Internet until after I leave for Machu Picchu. And to take full advantage of the vacations, I will have to wait until I get back to Santiago on the 29th, though it’s a few days after classes start. Oooh, living on the edge.
 
After much frustration trying to get a hold of camping gear (why are we going camping in the winter?), we finally stumbled across an outdoor outfitter store in Ñuñoa, where we easily made their day by buying one of everything they sold: backpacks, tents, sleeping bags, stoves, flashlights, rain gear. Although I wish I hadn’t taken someone’s advice and left such items at home in Oakland, it worked out well, since everything was incredibly cheap. Nonetheless, there’s yet more to buy, so we’re headed to the mall (“el mall”) tomorrow morning.
 
Not that anyone wants to get up early tomorrow, since I’m pretty sure most folks plan to carretear mucho tonight to let off some steam about the ILP ending. Can’t blame em.
 
So there remains much to do to prepare for the trip. I can’t believe I get to see Machu Picchu! For the good of the group, I had to give up the idea of seeing the Nazca lines in the pampas grass, which I cannot believe I did not explain yet. It’s this spot in Southwest Perú where the Nazca Indians, from 900 BC to 600 AD, “removed sun-darkened stones from the desert surface to expose the lighter stones below,” says my dear Lonely Planet. My guidebook suggests that there is no definitive archeological explanation for this, but the lecturer in my astronomy presentation proposed that the lines, which depict a monkey, a spider, and a hummingbird, among other figures, represent the Nazca’s ideas of the constellations. For instance, the astronomer showed how the monkey looks a lot like what the Greeks saw as a scorpion. The point is that it’s still there, and you can see it from an airplane or from a hilltop, and I was really hoping to check it out. But alas, I’ll have to go back, because I could not convince one of my traveling companions to head west after Machu Picchu.
 
So after the hike we’re going to actually head to Lake Titicaca, which I’m really looking forward to (though it’s not so hard to get to from the north of Chile, so I could have gone back up there later), and then hopefully to La Paz. A lot depends on the political situation in Bolivia, but we’re planning to see Cochabamba, which is the site of very important demonstrations last fall, which helped kick out President Sánchez de Lozada. A year or so before that, similar protests and strikes were successful in showing Bechtel Corporation the door when they planned to privatize the water. I feel somewhat nervous about traveling through Bolivia as a tourist, especially right now, but I’m hoping to stay out of trouble (yes, Mom, I’m going to roll my eyes at you again!). Don’t worry, we won’t go if it’s super dangerous for US citizens. I really want to see the jungle in Bolivia, too, and I think we’ll manage to get to Santa Cruz, which is somewhat tropical and at least close to the rainforest. It’s going to be gorgeous!!!
 
Off to sushi (all you can eat, again!), though I think I’d rather be in San Francisco right now for the Ralph Nader/Peter Camejo/Matt Gonzalez speaking event! It seems to be turning out to be an important election after all (haha), and though I’m enjoying debating with the kids on EAP, I feel very isolated. Oh, some guys on the program met some communists and other assorted leftists, and I’m thinking I’ll get to meet them soon. Everything’s going to be so crazy when classes start, and I can’t believe it’s summer in California! Then again, I’ll get to travel in South America for a month of Cali’s winter…

Vivir para contarla

I was finally able to open my blog (although I think I killed my home computer, an ancient laptop, last night)! So what I post here was written on Monday night and then on Tuesday night, upon returning from the weekend excursion to La Serena:


I’ve been thinking all day, and for the past few days of my traveling, of how much I wanted to write, to record everything I’ve seen and felt and learned. Worrying that I would forget to say something incredibly important, and that you would never know, how different are some of the smaller aspects of life, such as, for example, going to the bathroom (though if you know me, you’re pretty sure that’s not the smallest aspect of my life…). So I will do my best to resumir my recent travels to La Serena and the Valle del Elquií.

First, I have to say that, apart from the years of taking the dear Peoria Charter to visit Dad, I’ve been a stranger to long-distance bussing. And in South America, that’s the way to get around. I don’t know, I guess I’m used to taking road trips in someone’s personal car, or flying, or taking the train…but acá en Chile, the buses are amazingly efficient, safe, and easy to get from one end of the country to another (not to mention from one end of a city to another). So that is how our group traveled Friday night: Tae, Janessa, Stephanie, and I left at midnight and slept on the bus (a CH$5000/US$8 “semi-cama,” meaning the seats go back pretty far but not quite to make a bed, as on the CH$9000/US$14 buses). For some strange reason, every time I lowered my seat, I would wake up some time later and discover my seat more upright (no, it wasn’t my traveling companions messing with me, though I did suspect them!). Nonetheless, I slept okay.

We stumbled out of the bus terminal at sunrise (around 7:30am) and took the first taxi we saw to the first hostel listed in the Lonely Planet guide. Too bad it was ot longer there…So we walked another block to find the Residencial Viña del Mar (funny, since Viña is actually not anywhere near La Serena), a charming but incredibly musty place where we rested our heads for two nights. It felt, however, more like three nights, since we slept there all Saturday morning, and then we got breakfast there (CH$500, or about US$.75)—traditional breakfast, as far as I can ascertain: that famous bread, jam, butter, tea/Nescafé, and orange juice. Supplemented by some mandarin oranges I brought from home.

I’m not really sure what our professors were thinking when they ordered us out of Santiago on a winter weekend, because most stuff in Chile seems to be pretty dead then. At least that was the case in La Serena, which is a lively beach town in summer but still tries to cater to tourists in the winter. Mostly, however, when we walked the town (which didn’t take long, as the “serene” is quite chicitito), we were the only gringos. We thus received much attention as we cruised the Mercado de Recova, looking at the crafts of the Elquí Valley: proprietors and servers at the upstairs restaurants harassed us, trying to convince us of the superiority of their establishments (in English: “Free appetizers and Pisco Sour! Ours is the best—look at the view/look at the sun in our outdoor seating/look at our menu in English!” Quite sad). So we had to succumb to one of them (chosen quite randomly and out of frustration), and enjoyed a meal that would have been identical to those offered at the other restaurants. Ah, capitalism. It was good food, though: being on the coast (north of Santiago), La Serena offers incredibly fresh pescados and mariscos. And if you don’t eat any seafood or any other kinds of meat or poultry, well, you have to get into the bread, because there’s not much else for ya, most of the time. Ah, I also have to mention, as I think I already did, this weekend is the most intense of the celebrations of Pablo Neruda, so even in La Serena, we heard his poetry read and heard eloquent speeches about this poet that means so much to this country.

Alas, there’s not much to see in La Serena in the winter on a Saturday, as all the churches (which make the town famous: they have something like 30 of them) were closed, as well as the museums. We did, however, find a monument, in a park just outside of the centro, for all the assassinated and disappeared in the Fourth Region (oh, I haven’t explained that—Chile’s geographically and politically divided into twelve regions; Santiago is in the Fifth) during Pinochet’s dictatorship. We couldn’t figure out why it was there, in a pretty crappy park, though it obviously cost a lot of money and was well-put-together. There were two plaques listing the names of the dead and disappeared, including the date. Most obviously occurred right after the coup (September 11, 1973), but many were as recent as 1986, four years before the end of his regime: it was quite chilling.

Did I explain why we were traveling? Groups of up to five people had to go out and see places outside of Santiago, but not as tourists; rather, as a specialist of some kind. Each group should have people approaching different aspects of the area, as a sociologist, astronomers, natural historian, colonial historian, journalists, fine arts critic, architect, psychologist, tour guide, resident, social worker, for example. This provides an excellent reason to see and explore everything possible in the area. This demanded three excursions outside of La Serena.

The first night, we took a bus ride out to the sky observatory Mamalluca, outside of Vicuña, as part of a guided tour. This is, according to my Lonely Planet guide, part of “the most important cluster of astronomical observatories in the Southern Hemisphere.” The location is important because it’s away from the foggy coast, in the foothills of the Andes, where it is almost always clear, except for the lights of the nearby towns. We got an incredibly brief astronomy lesson, with no time for audience interaction with the presentation (oh, by the way, the crowd was overwhelmingly gringo: two groups of 15, one of which was a bunch of obnoxious high school students; with a tiny group of Spanish speakers), and then they took us outside to look through some telescopes at the southern winter sky. Needless to say, I was incredibly impressed. You could see everything, to the point of making one dizzy! The best is just seeing the band of the Milky Way and thinking about how incredibly small we all are. Of course, we also got to see the Southern Cross, which is the marker in the Southern sky to point to the south (duh), which you can never see in the Northern Hemisphere, though is akin to our Polaris/North Star. I like that there’s a “false” Southern Cross that’s a bit bigger than the true constellation, and it’s called Carina, which just sounds a lot like Corina, my Spanish name.

I wish I recorded all the astronomical phenomena I saw that night, but aside from the Southern Cross, we saw Jupiter (MEOW!), which was the only planet in the sky that night, but was incredibly bright. And we got to see it through a telescope, which I highly recommend. Those bands you see across the equator of Jupiter are really there! And so are all its moons. Totally amazing. I guess if you’re not a star geek, this is pretty boring, but I’ll keep going…We also saw a star in the southern sky (sorry to say, I can’t remember its name), which, due to its turbulent atmosphere, appears incredibly trippy. The light pulsates with lots of colors, and even with the naked eye, it appears to be moving. We also saw clusters of galaxies, the Horseshoe Nebula (a nursery for stars), and the star that’s closest to Earth (besides our dear sun), whose name escapes me, but whose distance from us is about 4 ½ light years. Just think of all the crazy things that could be going on right now in that sky…Of course it’s a lot to deal with what’s on our own planet/in our solar system, but still…

That’s about all I can get in for tonight, unfortunately, but I have so much more to tell. It’s about 1am, and I need to get some rest. Still battling my cold. Good to be back in Santiago, though I’m not looking forward to class in the morning or the crappy city air I must commence to breathe. Can’t wait to write more.


martes 13 julio 2004

I guess I’m wearing out my welcome here, as winter is finally here. It’s been raining all weekend in Santiago, from what I hear, and it continues today. I was just beginning to regret bringing my duck boots, too, but now I’ll gladly sport them instead of my ratty Converse.

We’re currently putting together our presentation for our trip, which is actually a pain in the ass. Everyone took hella photos this weekend, so we’re making a Powerpoint thing. I’m picking up my photos today; hopefully they came out okay, and I’ll be putting them on here soon. I’m not crazy about group work, but it’s good for me, I’m sure. We also have to write a paper together, which is tricky, but it’s going to include poems and other creative bits from everyone.

So to go back to the trip…we went with the same tour company the next morning, to go through the Valle del Elquí, which would have been hard to do on our own. Our tour guide was awesome (mmm hmmm), as he’s been doing this for twelve years, so he knows everyone in the Valle, and he has a small papaya operation going on in his yard, making natural juices and stuff. They sell his juice at some of the farm stands, and he dropped off some products along the way.

So we took off at about 9am and headed in the same direction as the night before, but it was much more interesting, as we saw lots of small towns along the way. It’s amazing to imagine what it’s like to live there, in the semi-arid valley with pretty much nothing but lots of agriculture around you. Everyone rides bikes everywhere; it’s beautiful.

Highlights:

We started out in the widest part of the Valle, just in from the coast, which is pretty humid. As we headed east, the Rio Elquí was on our left; a tiny trickle of water most of the way. In the 80s, they had a 2-year drought, and so they had a governmental project to build a dam, which creates the Embalse Puclaro (reservoir). I was not able to ascertain whether this was controversial, but I believe that many people were displaced in the process. It is, however, incredibly beautiful and is now capable of sustaining the crazy and expanding agriculture in the Valle.

Nobel Prize-winning poet (1945) Gabriela Mistral was born in Monte Grande (though the pueblo of Vicuña disputes this), a tiny, tiny town outside of Vicuña, another small pueblo. She was amazingly intelligent and began teaching school for other kids at eleven years old—we went to the building where all that went down. She had a newspaper column at the age of 15 and went to school to become a teacher, but in the 1900s, her advocacy for women’s rights was too controversial, and they didn’t give her credentials. Like Pablo Neruda, she came from a very poor background and ended up in a diplomatic career for Chile. She was, however, more famous in México than in Chile, because of her progressive politics. Nonetheless, she is highly respected in the Fourth Region, and there are two museums honoring her in the Valle. Sadly, we only saw the smaller one in Monte Grande, which was more fome than impressive.

Several years ago, engineering students at the Universidad de Chile spent a lot of time on a project in Villaseca, a pueblito in the Valle, installing solar energy in people’s homes, as a cheap and sustainable alternative to gas. This makes particular sense because that area gets sun something like 330 days a year, and when there’s no sun, they use gas. Five years ago, some of the women in the village took inspiration from this and put started a restaurant there, which today is incredibly successful. It uses energy from the sun to cook everything in these little ovens they have to rotate all day to soak up the maximum sun. So we took lunch there, which was totally amazing, and you will soon see what I am talking about, once I get my pictures back.

Well, I have to stop again, because I am still recovering from a nasty cold and must get to sleep. There is sooooooooo much more to say, and I am afraid it will take me all week to get it all down. Tomorrow, the monitores are taking us to Valparaiso, which actually seems kind of funny to me, considering that we all just traveled this past weekend, but I am looking forward to seeing it, since I still haven’t been there. Of course the weather will most likely be quite icky, but I’m hoping it’s tolerable.



There´s obviously a lot more to come, but tomorrow´s the last day of the ILP, and I have to study tonight for our exam, as well as obtain camping equiptment for the Machu Picchu trip, as well as find a place to live when I get back! Yikes. So I may not get much more in until I get back, which is on the 29th. Cheers!

How much does that suck?

Hmmmm, I was all excited to upload the blog I had been working on at home on disc, but unfortunately, I seem to have contracted a virus and therefore cannot open the file. How does this happen? So I need to fix that, but I promise that very soon you will get to read about my trip to La Serena, the beautiful beach town I visited, and the Valle del Elqui, which I toured as well. It will be worth the wait, I promise. But I´m not about to re-type it all, as much as I want to.

But just a little nugget for tonight`s entertainment: I still have a nasty cold, though I`ve been drinking some great salvia tea I picked up in Pisco Elqui. My current dilemma is getting the phlem out. I hate that, and I´m not butch enough to figure out how to spit (like, hock up a LUGI, or however you spell it)! It´s like, I cough or sneeze, and the mucus comes up, but I can`t get it out. Any suggestions? I really hate swallowing it every time.

Now if that doesn`t get you interested in reading the rest of my blog, I don`t know what will. And I apologize if there`s something far more important I should be commenting on, but right now, my snot is all I know. More later. Much more. Not about my respiratory difficulties, I promise.

la casa más romantica (so far)

Yesterday, we had another excursion with our ´monitores,´ the Chilean students who are assigned to hang out with the gringos and show us the city. It was really fun, because two of the women in the group didn´t show up, so it was just me, Manuel, Karla, and Vivi, the ´monitor.´ First, we went to La Chascona, the Santiago home of Pablo Neruda and his ´mujer,´ Matilde. It was amazing, though I hear that the house at Isla Negra is the best, as well as his favorite, where he rests to this day. How can I describe the house? It was a vision of his completely, and he had it built for Matilde, whose crazy hair is its namesake (chascona=crazy haired person). So it´s really something like 6 buildings built into this hillside in Barrio Bellavista, which is where all the bohemians started hanging out after Neruda built the house there. So of course everyone knows he built houses ´to house his things,´ rather than buy things to fill his houses, so he´s got amazing amounts of art and furniture and books (most of his library was donated to Universidad de Chile after he died in 1973), and of course all the most important artists and writers of his day came to visit, plus Fidel Castro! Anyway, it´s amazing, and I can hardly imagine living there, because it´s so magical. The main ´living room´ is in the hillside, and it bears amazing resemblance to the house of Fred´s parents: stone wall, fireplace, super-bacán art from all over the world, and a huge picture window (everything is supposed to resemble a boat) that in his day surely offered an amazing view of Santiago. They don´t let you take pictures in the house, but I took lots out in the garden, which will soon appear on this very site. And of course the most important thing about being in Santiago right now, aside from my education at La Chile, is being here for the centennial of Neruda´s birth, so there are all kinds of festivities all over the country, but especially at his three houses (here, Isla Negra, and Valparaiso), not just this week (his actual birthday), but for the rest of the year. Lucky me!

After that, we took the funicular (super-scary cart that goest up the steep mountain) up Cerro San Cristobol, which is this big hill in the city, where there´s a giant statue of the Virgin Mary (as well as an old church and an outdoor seating thing for masses), which you can, of course, only see from all over the city on days without impossible amounts of smog. Which is to say that it can be a good guide (take that as you will, literal or spiritual: I´m inclided to believe it´s both for many Santiaguinos), as you can associate the Virgin with the North of the city. It´s really beautiful up there on a clear morning, but of course yesterday, we couldn´t see that much, except a beautiful sunset. Photos are coming, though!

After coming back down the mountain (again, super scary, but so far no one has died doing it!), we hung out in Bellavista at this bar for "las onces" (by the way, I just learned another story about the origins of las onces, so now I really don´t know what to believe)/dinner, and then most kids went to watch the all-important fútbol game. Alas, I cannot get that excited about fútbol, though I imagine it will grow on me. We also met some cute Chilean guys (ha!) and shared a big pitcher of what I would call sangría, but they called it something else, I can´t remember...They also took great delight in teaching us palabras feas, or dirty (and not so dirty) Chilenismos, ¡huévon!

I´ve still got this nasty cold, but I have to swear by the nasal douching (funny enough, there´s another Corinne/Corrie--for reals, she spells it exactly like I do!--on the program who can vouch for the nasal douch--but those two things are about all we have in common) and gargling with hot salt water and little aguacitas of lemon juice, honey, and hot water. I hope I get better, because I´m headed for La Serena tonight. I get to see some stars! And galaxies, for sure!

Crossing my Fingers this Works...

So if I can remember all I promised to write about the other day...I decided to do it all in WordPad and copy to the blog, though now that I think of it, I realize I could have written it at home and saved myself some plata, but oh well, next time...

So I started to plan my upcoming week-long vacation to the north. Originally, they had told us that we´d get two weeks between the ILP and the start of classes at La Chile (Universidad de Chile), but now I see how much I have to cram into a week, and it just isn´t right. Especially considering how much it costs to get up there, and if I want to see Peru and Bolivia, it´ll have to be two separate trips (I also get a week-long vacation in the middle of September for Fiestas Patrias and the protests in honor of the anniversary of the military coup on September 11, 1973). And then there´s the fact that I didn´t bring camping equiptment because someone told me I could find it cheap down here. And of course there´s traveling companions. I think that´s getting worked out though.

If you haven´t noticed, I don´t really take the time to edit these posts, so apologies if they´re not entirely coherent.

So I went to the nasty suburban Las Condes two times this past weekend. First, on Saturday, because Lelia and I were looking for someplace to hang out, and Sonia (my host mom) told us of this amazing place at Parque Arauco, which has this amazing cosmopolitan feel because there are all kinds of restaurants with international cuisine and there´s lots of "movimiento" at night because everyone comes out to party when the movies get out (around 1am)...yeah, it all sounded good, and we agreed that it seemed like the kind of place we had to "conocer" here (get to know). Except that it turned out to be nothing but a mall, complete with T.G.I.Friday´s, Benihana´s, Starbucks, multiplex movie theater...ICK. I wouln´t even go there if it was in the States. But at least now I know.

As my Lonely Planet guide says of the Las Condes comuna: It´s where any Santiaguino with aspirations wants to live. All the top-notch hotels are stranded out there (they always speak of the Hyatt, the Hyatt!), and it has such a sterile and impersonal feel, with all these soulless highrises where all the rich people live, so you have to see it to know what the hype is all about.

So Saturday night was a waste of taxi fare both ways (yeah, as in any suburb, you have to have a car to get around, especially at night), but I somehow got tricked into going to Las Condes again, since I thought I was meeting a friend to go to this park, San Cristobol, which provides a good view of the city from a hilltop...but no. We were apparently en route to another mall in Las Condes! Argh. But despite it all, I ended up finding some cute shoes and many kinds of multi-colored, bright tights and leg-warmers. So my new Chilean style might be confused with Punky Brewster. But I like it. It´s different. The mullet is yet to come, but just you wait. It is HOT!!! En serio.

Oh yeah, and after the trip to the malls (yeah, we hit up two), we went to my friend´s house in Las Condes (possibly the biggest apartment complex that is not a public housing project that I have ever seen, including a pool, tennis room, ping pong, etc) for "las onces," which is a snack/tea time that most Chileans consume between lunch (2ish) and dinner (10ish), at 7pm. It was really nice, with this merangue cake that makes your teeth want to fall out, as well as the addictive bread (mmmm, made with animal fat!) that comes with every meal, and tea/coffee (coffee here = Nescafé, with very few exeptions) . I´ll have to tell you about the origins (oral legend) of "las onces" another time.

Ah, but that reminds me of what you should know of the food here. The food economy is run by Nestlé corporation. That means that every last food has as its first, second, or third (mostly the second) incredient as azúcar. Ick. Yeah, and that includes the soy milk Sonia buys me. And most of the food has lots of salt. And it´s not that I´m knocking Chilean food, it´s just that I´m damning the MAN for ruining the public health in this way.

¿Qué más? There´s the "nanas," which have caught my attention. Pretty much every family in Providencia and Las Condes or is just wealthy has a "nana," or "niña" who comes and does all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and childcare the family can´t handle. I just didn´t grow up with that, so I find it very weird. All the nanas wear these uniform-like aprons over their dresses, even when they´re out with the children or gardening. It´s like a caste marking. There´s one in my house, too. Her name is María. For reals. But I talked to her today, and she loves talking about it. She´s convinced that all the Peruvians are taking the jobs, because they get paid significantly more than Chilean nanas, and she also told me about how she was fired once and just kicked out on the street "like a dog." Also about how she hasn´t been paid in a year. And Sonia re-hired her recently because she needed help for having me here! Actually, I need to remember to repeat things back to her to make sure I understand correctly, because I think she may have been talking about Sonia firing her before...Weird. She also talked a bit about what it was like to live under the dictadura (Pinochet), how you couldn´t even leave the house and about how may people were killed/disappeared in those years. Interesting that she just opened up about this, because many Chileans apparently do not like to speak of those years, as they were so traumatized by them. Then she started saying things like that all that´s happening now (the US´s 9-11 and fears in Chile about international terrorism, thanks to its government´s support for many US policies) is predicted by the word of God, and it´s all doomsday. Yikes. I guess I haven´t read Revelations lately, but I think I´m missing something.

I just got the cold everyone´s had, so I stayed home from class today. Dr. Weil (my medical hero) (from the book Natural Health, Natural Medicine) recommends nasal douching!!! So I did that, and I think I´m going to keep doing that because it´s good to clear out all the smog. It´s weird, but you should try it.

I can´t believe I forgot to talk about the caso de Spiniak! It´s the biggest scandal in Chile, so you must know. Here´s a brief rundown. So this super-rich guy named Spiniak had this deal going on where he would take in all these young men (and I think there were young women involved, but of course it´s more scandalous if it invoves HOMOSEXUALITY) from the streets and take care of them and, well, use them sexually. So he´d have these parties and all these important politicians and prominent businessmen would come and get some. Well, he got busted, and it´s all the press can talk about.

The press. So there are about a million national newspapers, and half of them are tabloids. Very humerous, if it wasn´t so sad. The common wisdom is that it at least gets folks reading. Too bad it´s only basura.

Yesterday, our "monitores," who are Chilean students whose job it is to help the gringos adapt to Chile (there are five gringos to a monitor/tutor, and they are super bacán/cool), took four groups to the vinyard Concha y Toro, which is the biggest and most famous Chilean wine-maker. It was just like Napa, only thankfully there weren´t huge clusters of vineyards, so the local ecology hasn´t been as destroyed as that of Napa valley. Very beautiful, though the point was obviously to get us drunk so we would buy lots of wine. Don´t worry, though, I am not an exception to this. You will get to sample the champagne and other wine I bought while slightly curada. Geez, they gave us more wine yesterday than I have drank (alcohol-wise) in the past month. It was mighty tasty and interesting.

Yeah, I realize that drinking wears down the immune system, and I have only myself to blame for being sick today.

We are required, as part of the ILP, to get the hell out of Santiago this weekend. Not so bad. So a group of us is going to La Serena, which is north of here--I think it´s a 6 hour bus ride, to be taken at night. We don´t have class on Monday, so we get to enjoy a long weekend. La Serena is where they have the clearest skies in northern Chile, as well as some of the best astronomical observatories in the Americas. I am really looking forward to it. They also, of course, have the museum of Gabriela Mistral (Nobel Prize-winning poet), as well as a factory producing Pisco, which is the most important beverage in Chile! (It´s a very sweet brandy, and there´s constant rivalry between Perú and Chile over where it originated.) I´ll tell you how it goes.

DAMN!

Excuse the profanity, but I just spent twenty minutes typing a post about my last couple of days, and then the computer shut down. Remind me not to come to this internet café again. Yeah, so I have to pee and will have to remember all this to tell you later. Topics to be discussed:

-The unfortunate outings to Las Condes/the wonderful "onces" at my friend´s house

-The nanas in Providencia

-The obnoxious gringos in this café

-My new Chilean style, minus the compulsory mullet

-My upcoming travels in Perú and quest for a simpático companion

-My upcoming excursion to La Serena

and there will doubtless be more subjects by the time I get back, so stay tuned.

the latest

So I don´t know why this keeps happening, but I´m getting to know the city by going places two days in a row, whether or not I really want to. So for instance, on Saturday, Sonia (my host mother) told me and Lelia that Las Condes is where it´s at, with this cosmopolitan feel because they have all this international food, etc. and all this "movimiento" at night, when the movies let out, etc. etc. WELL, I guess she really likes the mall or something, but I could have been spared the wasted taxi fare (it´s super-suburban, I should really explain this...but there´s not really any other way to get there at 12am on Saturday night) each way. Yikes. Yeah, it´s nothing I wouldn´t have seen in any US suburb, including the TGIFriday´s, Benihana, Starbucks, mutiplex movie theater...YUCK! So we got the hell out of that creepy place.

How do I explain Las Condes? You should get a map of Santiago, because the city is incredibly interesting, sociologically. The closer you get to the Andes Cordilleras, the richer it gets, so that, as my Lonely Planet guide puts it, that comuna is where "any Santiaguino with aspirations wants to move." It´s where all the high end hotels (they always talk about THE HYATT, THE HYATT!) are stranded, and all these terrible malls keep popping up. It looks nothing like the rest of Santiago, because, well, it´s ugly and car-centered, and sterile, and clean, and ABURRIDO!

Anyway, so the next day, I thought my friend Tae told me that we were going to meet in Providencia to head up to San Cristobol, which is a park overlooking the city, but I misunderstood, so I ended up going back to Las Condes yesterday, to TWO malls. It´s really the only kind of shopping, besides the street vendors, that is open on Sundays in this Catholic country (though I´m sure most stores were closed in the US yesterday, too...). So what did I do? Bought lots of cute Chilean-styled clothes at the many "liquidaciones" at the stores. I haven´t gone for the Chilean mullet yet (oh, but I will--it´s bacán, en serio!), but I´m definitely branching out. I´m sure you care.

Now, for something a little more interesting (CAN I JUST SAY HOW ANNOYING THE STUDENTS FROM THE US ARE, WHO ARE SITTING NEXT TO ME IN THIS INTERNET CAFÉ, YELLING ACROSS THE ROOM AT EACH OTHER ABOUT THE BUSINESS COURSES THEY PLAN TO TAKE HERE. ARGH. GIVIN´ US ALL A BAD RAP). In this ritzy neighborhood where I live (Providencia), practically everyone has a "nana," or cook/childcare provider/gardener/laundry mavan/general slave. It´s really weird, I´m not sure if I mentioned that there´s one who comes to Sonia´s departamento, too. She´s super nice and will do anything for me, but it´s so creepy. And all over town, you see these women (all of them more Mapuche-looking than Spanish, unlike the rich folks who hire them), taking care of these people who of course couldn´t bother to take care of themselves...OK, I´m being a bit harsh, but it´s WEIRD. The main reason I find it weird is that they all wear these aprons over their clothes, no matter what they´re doing; like a uniform. I dunno.

¿Qué más? Well, I started to plan my vacations, which are coming up right quick, I tell you. They originally told us we´d have two weeks in July, but now it´s just one week, so I´m planning a whirlwind tour of Perú, including, of course, a short trek through Machu Picchu. I also get a week in September, for Fiestas Patrias, so I´ll go to Bolivia then. I cannot believe I get to do all this! It´s very exhilarating, except that I wish I had more time. And of course I also have to find traveling companions. I´ve made lots of friends on the EAP program, but I can´t say I´m dying to travel to Machu Picchu with 20 people...There are worse problems to have; I´ll figure it out.

We have a long weekend coming up, wherein we have to travel outside of Santiago, and do some kind of cheesy investigations to report to the class when we get back. So five of us are going to La Serena, which is one of the oldest cities in Chile: very colonial and beautiful, from what I´ve read. And very close to the factory where they produce Pisco. Yeah, you have to try that. The national drink of Chile/Perú, but there´s some controversy about where it originated. Anyway. So that´s where I´m going this weekend. Which is good, because I haven´t left the city yet, and when we get back, we only have four more days of class, and then ¡vacaciones!

Melodrama & Sushi

I thought I would try writing with proper punctuataion today. Is it easier to read that way? It´s definitely not easier to write. The things I do for you...

All these things about Santiago I haven´t even mentioned yet.

Like all the stray dogs. Hundreds, all over the city. Just following anyone who doesn´t kick them, hoping for scraps of food. I guess someone takes care of them, but I don´t know who. Also a few stray cats, but they are largely outnumbered by the pathetic looking dogs.

I just found out that there is a Chilean Social Forum happening in November. I don´t know a whole lot about it yet, but it seems very exciting: http://www.forosocialchileno.cl/. I finally found some lefty newspapers here: El Siglo and Le Monde Diplomatique Chilean edition. I´m hoping I´ll be able to participate in some way, like as a diplomat or something, which sounds really weird. I don´t know...

I don´t think I´ve adequately described the neighborhood I´m living in. It´s a great location, as it´s a twenty minute walk to the Campus Oriente, where the EAP Study Center it, and a twenty minute walk in the other direction to the Avenida Providencia, which is the same as Alameda, the most important road in the city. But it´s also one of the bourgier (more bourgeois) hoods: super suburban, as in it´s safe for peds, totally unaffordable, well-kept up, full of cyclists (not just the delivery type, but full-on CYCLISTS: it´s the only place in the city where it´s not weird to see someone riding with any kind of safety implement), AND I just discovered that it´s the home of one of the most right-wing parties: UDI, or Union for Democracy and Independence, or something like that. Yikes. Yeah, I think the left parties are probably a little closer to el Centro, or downtown.

But that is all to say, that it is very difficult living with a family (and not Tom!) and being in a place that reminds me ever so much of a town I will not mention but from which I escaped five years ago! So, I plan to find a spot in one of the Residencias, which are popular with students (especially extranjeros), or possibly in an apartment with my EAP friend´s new buddy from the thrift shop, adorable Leonardo. We´ll see.

The other night, the "monitores" took the gringos out to dinner. They´re Chilean students who show us the ropes by taking us around and out of town and answer all our questions about life in Chile. I´m in a group with five other gringos, and Viviana took us to this restaurant in el Centro Thursday night, where the food was super good. I guess that´s not so exciting, but I thought you should know anyway. In any case, next week she´s taking us to Isla Negra to see one of Pablo Neruda´s houses, as well as to a vinyard for a wine tasting. Yum!

Last night, we took a break from carreateando for a more culturally interesting activity: we went to see García Lorca´s Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding) last night at the theater of the Universidad Católica, in Ñuñoa, which is pretty close by where I live. Do you know the story? It´s super sad, about a woman who tries to marry a man to help get over a heartbreak (her lover married her cousin!), and on the wedding day, the ex shows up (with the suspicious cousin, as well as the groom´s paranoid and depressed widowed mother), and she freaks out and runs away with the ex. The ending is pretty tragic, but I guess you´ll have to see/read it for yourself. It was so beautifully done, with amazing acting. They mostly used dance and music to convey the story, which was so exquisitely artistic. Very impressive. I look forward to other trips to the theater here. Oh, and the student rate was about $6. Super-barato.

Afterwards, we went to this amazing all-you-can-eat sushi (yup) place and gorged ourselves. Luckily I got to walk home (yeah, that tough indie rocker kid, Andrés, protected me again, DON´T worry!) and thus did not burst.

The Intensive Language Program continues, and I´m skeptical about my improvement. I feel like my accent has gotten worse. I am, however, reading and comprehending much better.

Tomorrow we are either going to San Crisobol to see the city from on high, or to one of the many amazing museums in the city, which are free on Sundays. Sadly, there will be no Fourth of July celebrations for me. Boo hoo.

BUT I have to say it´s been fun but also pretty sad some days. For instance, having to miss my best friend´s wedding today was a huge bummer. I knew my life here would be different, but it´s hard to believe that I have six more months of this strange life. So far it seems to be going very slowly, which I think is good. I want to savor it, as much as I know I will eventually come down off my current excitement. I´m still in such a bubble with the ILP and just being around gringos all the time, that I don´t have to speak Spanish as often as I should, etc. It´s amazing, though, and I am happy to be here.

el aire

my mouth takes like smog, just from normal breathing--not to mention the smell in my nose, wherever i go.
i can´t tell if i need to sneeze because of the cold or the contaminación del aire.
i went to the policia de investigadores today to register my visa, and they spelled my name wrong, so i have to wake up super early tomorrow again (today i got up at 6!) to get it fixed and travel once again totally across town to get my nat´l id card. argh.