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…