Three weeks left in my trip!! I cannot believe how fast time flies by. It literally seems like yesterday I was struggling to buy my very first bus ticket in Santiago, and although life is still a struggle for me all the time, things have definately started to become normal. Its weird how the definition of normal can change. Four months ago, security guards at Mcdonalds and paying to use a public bathroom (not including toilet paper) would have seemed weird to me, but now, thats my life. Stray dogs running all over the streets might seem scary in the US, but here they are pretty much considered squirrels. I never, ever, in my entire life would have eaten a plate of crudos - raw ground beef on a piece of bread with a lemon juice and a mayonnaise type sauce- but I tried it here, and honestly it wasnt that bad. This whole experience has really opened my eyes to so many different things, and I think that is something that I never would have been able to learn unless I actually lived it. Its easy to look at a book or read an article and see pictures of a place and their people and imagine their lives, but to actually be a part of a culture that is completely different than your own is really a life changing thing. Some days I struggle to understand why cut up hotdogs on anything is a sophisticated meal, or why you have to go through three lines to buy a pencil, but that is just the way of life here. I have for sure had some ups and downs in this trip. Some days I refuse to speak spanish because its just too hard, and quite simply, I dont feel like it, but other days I look around and am so thankful to be in a country as beautiful as Chile, and am so thankful to be able to say that I lived in a foreign country, basically on my own, for almost 5 months, and dont want it to end. Some days it is so cold in my bedroom that when I wake up, I can actually see my own breath. But then there are days like today, where I went to the beach and it was absolutely beautiful, and just sat and listened to the waves crashing against the rocks for an hour, went to a feria and listened to live music and ate empanadas and anticuchos, and I think that there is no place in the world quite like Chile. My trip is winding down, and its starting to freak me out. My life that I am just starting to get used to is about to do a complete 180. I am SO excited to see my family, my boyfriend and my roommates and I hope they are excited to see me too, but I feel like everything is just going to be weird for me once I get there. At least for a while. I wont have the lovely Marisol to clean my room and cook for me, and I wont constantly feel out of place, which now, is my normal. As much as I am dying to get home, I really think I am going to miss Chile.
And enough of my ranting :) I had a pretty good week here, even though it was EXTREMELY cold. Whenever I see a facebook status complaining about thunderstorms or heat I want to slap that person right in the mouth. There is a common misconception among my friends that I am basking in the hot sun of South America getting a tan while I have been down here, and I regret to inform anyone who previously thought that, that it is simply not true. For me anyway. I am pretty sure I am whiter than my sister Lauren in the dead of winter, and that is a very bold statement. If anyone reading this doesnt know her, just know this: she is a 22 year old female who uses SPF 70 all year long. Enough said.
I have been eating red meat for the past 4 days straight, not the healthiest thing in the world, and had the BEST steak of my entire life on Saturday night at a place called el Rincón Gaucho. It was 8900 pesos (about 19 dollars) for an all you can eat meat buffet, and it was sooooo delicious. If anyone ever finds themself in Southern Chile I highly recommend it. It was the best meal I have had thus far. So fresh and flavorful, they dont even give you salt or pepper or sauce or anything. Just the beef. SOOO good. I cant even get over it. Today, I also had some delicious meat from an outdoor market type thing. Its called an anticucho, basically a shishkabob (sp?), with sausage, beef, onions, and of course hotdogs :),all freshly grilled on a stick with a little chunk of bread on the top of it to soak up all the juices. Disgusting but so good.
School (or lack of school) has been interesting. There are protests and riots all over the country, so I actually havent gone for almost a week. This week probably wont be any different, I will keep you informed!
Monday, June 27, 2011
Friday, June 10, 2011
Bus Rides (An Adventure in it's Own)
Our 4 part bus journey home started in Bariloche at 3:30 PM. We boarded a bus that would take us to Neuquen, Argentina, and would take 5 1/2 hours to get there. We sat down grouchy, ready to be home, and dreading the bus rides ahead. About 30 minutes into the ride, Lena, who was sitting next to me, commented on how something smelled like tuna. My nose, which has been clogged with ash for the past 5 days, didn't smell it at first. Then, I got a wiff. It smelled like death. We were both sitting there talking about it, and decided there is no way in hell anyone in their right mind would eat tuna fish in a confined space, with 50 other people around, tainting the air with that wretched smell. Jake looked behind us and confirmed the bad news. Someone indeed was eating tuna fish, and that someone happened to be a backpacker, and backpackers happen to be people who are usually smelly themselves, which made hate the tuna fish eating backpacker more than I normally would have hated him. We were grouchy to begin with, and even grouchier now. But we got over it, which lasted about an hour, until we yet again smelled something bad from the dirty men behind us. The non tuna eater joined the ranks of his gross friend when he decided to eat a salad. Salad, whatever, salad with hard boiled eggs and peppers, not ok. I hated him. And his friend. They stunk up my 5 hour bus ride.
The next bus left from Neuquen and headed to Mendoza, another city in Argentina. This was an overnight ride lasting for 11 hours. We left at 9:30 PM and arrived in Mendoza at 8:30 AM. Usually I don't mind overnight bus rides, people are usually quiet, you can get some sleep, blah blah. This ride started off well, we got some food, a large comfy chair, and a movie that WASN'T dubbed AND made after the year 2000. Score! Just as I started to drift off into my slumber, the snoring started. A few rows behind me, loud, deep, obnoxious snoring. I don't understand how people don't wake up from their own snores, especially when they sound like a cow, as the man behind me sounded. At least he got a good sleep.
Our third bus was finally going to get us to Chile. Yes, it was Santiago, but still Chile none the less. It left from Mendoza at 10:30 AM, and would arrive in Santiago at 4 PM. This pass would lead us through the Andes Mountains, which was amazingly beautiful and almost worth having to ride 1000 km out of the way just to be able to see it. This bus ride was actually the best of the 4, even though at certain points through the mountains I was sure we were going to fall off a cliff. I was sitting in the front of the bus on the second floor. One of the best seats for being able to see the landscape. It was also one of the scariest seats when we were winding down the mountains on a road that literally had 26 curves that were pretty much U-turns on the side of a cliff. Buses have to make wide turns too, so each one felt like we were going to go straight over the edge and fall to our death. But, we made it through, got to Santiago, and only had one more bus to ride.
We arrived in Santiago at 4 PM and went straight for the bus companies to find the fastest ticket out of there. Our favorite company JAC didn't have a bus leaving until 10 PM. We weren't having that. So, we went with shady shady Tur-Bus, who has a history of deadly bus crashes but also had a bus leaving in an hour. That trumped the chance of death. It was also only 16 dollars for a 12 hour bus ride. That should have been a warning sign, but we were too blinded by the thought of being home in Valdivia to care. We got on our bus, a small small crowded bus, and left. Things weren't so bad at first, but about an hour into the ride we were all sweating balls. For some reason, the assistant closed all the vents, the air conditioning wasn't on, and the bus was packed with people. The windows were fogging up from all the hot breath and carbon dioxide. I had a mild freak out. Still no air. Then, the man sitting behind Lena, who I noticed looked pretty awful, started moaning and literally sounded like he was on his death bed. People were trying to take care of him, he was laying on someone's lap. And finally, a man told the assistant who opened the window. I felt the cool air and felt relieved, but also annoyed that a man literally had to start dying for them to open a window for us. The open window lasted about 10 minutes, until 80 year old woman sitting in front of me complained about being cold. Freaking old people are always cold. I don't understand that either. So the windows shut again, the heat creeps in, some little smelly cholo from Talca comes and sits next to me, and I start dying again. I had been going on 30+ hours in a bus and was starting to lose my mind. But, somehow, with my chair that barely reclined and my mini foam pillow, I fell asleep. It lasted for maybe 30 minutes, until the old lady in front of me started dying too. She either a) had an asthma attack, b) had whooping cough or c) lung cancer. I don't know. I really honestly felt bad for her, because you could tell she was trying to be quiet, but just could NOT catch a deep breath. But it was loud. And contaminating the air along with the moaning man behind me. I felt like I needed a mask to breathe. But, FINALLY, after spending too much of my life on a bus, we got to the bus terminal in Valdivia, and I was home! I had never been so elated/relieved/excited in my life!! It was the longest trip I had ever been on.
The next bus left from Neuquen and headed to Mendoza, another city in Argentina. This was an overnight ride lasting for 11 hours. We left at 9:30 PM and arrived in Mendoza at 8:30 AM. Usually I don't mind overnight bus rides, people are usually quiet, you can get some sleep, blah blah. This ride started off well, we got some food, a large comfy chair, and a movie that WASN'T dubbed AND made after the year 2000. Score! Just as I started to drift off into my slumber, the snoring started. A few rows behind me, loud, deep, obnoxious snoring. I don't understand how people don't wake up from their own snores, especially when they sound like a cow, as the man behind me sounded. At least he got a good sleep.
Our third bus was finally going to get us to Chile. Yes, it was Santiago, but still Chile none the less. It left from Mendoza at 10:30 AM, and would arrive in Santiago at 4 PM. This pass would lead us through the Andes Mountains, which was amazingly beautiful and almost worth having to ride 1000 km out of the way just to be able to see it. This bus ride was actually the best of the 4, even though at certain points through the mountains I was sure we were going to fall off a cliff. I was sitting in the front of the bus on the second floor. One of the best seats for being able to see the landscape. It was also one of the scariest seats when we were winding down the mountains on a road that literally had 26 curves that were pretty much U-turns on the side of a cliff. Buses have to make wide turns too, so each one felt like we were going to go straight over the edge and fall to our death. But, we made it through, got to Santiago, and only had one more bus to ride.
We arrived in Santiago at 4 PM and went straight for the bus companies to find the fastest ticket out of there. Our favorite company JAC didn't have a bus leaving until 10 PM. We weren't having that. So, we went with shady shady Tur-Bus, who has a history of deadly bus crashes but also had a bus leaving in an hour. That trumped the chance of death. It was also only 16 dollars for a 12 hour bus ride. That should have been a warning sign, but we were too blinded by the thought of being home in Valdivia to care. We got on our bus, a small small crowded bus, and left. Things weren't so bad at first, but about an hour into the ride we were all sweating balls. For some reason, the assistant closed all the vents, the air conditioning wasn't on, and the bus was packed with people. The windows were fogging up from all the hot breath and carbon dioxide. I had a mild freak out. Still no air. Then, the man sitting behind Lena, who I noticed looked pretty awful, started moaning and literally sounded like he was on his death bed. People were trying to take care of him, he was laying on someone's lap. And finally, a man told the assistant who opened the window. I felt the cool air and felt relieved, but also annoyed that a man literally had to start dying for them to open a window for us. The open window lasted about 10 minutes, until 80 year old woman sitting in front of me complained about being cold. Freaking old people are always cold. I don't understand that either. So the windows shut again, the heat creeps in, some little smelly cholo from Talca comes and sits next to me, and I start dying again. I had been going on 30+ hours in a bus and was starting to lose my mind. But, somehow, with my chair that barely reclined and my mini foam pillow, I fell asleep. It lasted for maybe 30 minutes, until the old lady in front of me started dying too. She either a) had an asthma attack, b) had whooping cough or c) lung cancer. I don't know. I really honestly felt bad for her, because you could tell she was trying to be quiet, but just could NOT catch a deep breath. But it was loud. And contaminating the air along with the moaning man behind me. I felt like I needed a mask to breathe. But, FINALLY, after spending too much of my life on a bus, we got to the bus terminal in Valdivia, and I was home! I had never been so elated/relieved/excited in my life!! It was the longest trip I had ever been on.
Adventures in Argentina
Holaaaaa! :)
I am sorry to those of you who read this, I am honestly the worst blogger in the world. I always think of something else I would rather be doing than updating my life, but my life this past week has been pretty insane, and I definitely need to keep it in writing. I have also made a pact to myself to update every week until I leave!
This weekend (which turned into a full week) the other CMU students and I made the trek to the beautiful town of Bariloche, Argentina. We didn't have class on Friday and turned in our homework early for our Monday class, so we could have a full, 4 day weekend relaxing (ha) in Argentina. We bought our tickets beforehand to get there and back, so we wouldn't have to worry about buying tickets to get home while we were in Bariloche (once again, HA). We arrived on Friday and it was gorgeous. Our hostel was on top of a hill with views of the lake and mountains behind it, the sun was shining, we went shopping at an awesome craft market and got steak at a famous restaurant. All of Friday we couldn't stop talking about how much we LOVED Argentina and were so pumped for the rest of the trip.
On Saturday, we were thinking about maybe renting bikes to go riding around the city, but decided to save that for Sunday instead. We wanted to just explore the city, eat good food and relax. We ended up at a nice place for lunch that had views of the lake, and when we were done we walked down by the lake to take some photos. We noticed while we were on the beach that off in the distance it looked like it was going to rain, the clouds were really dark and looked awful. Everyone else cleared the beach, so we decided to follow. As we were walking back, I noticed that white things were falling (I originally thought they were coming from the pine trees we were walking under) and one got caught in my eye, and it stung SO badly. Me and Lena kept feeling them, and could not, for the life of us, figure out what the hell was falling from the sky. We were discussing what this weird stuff was that was falling, and I commented on how dusty my jacket was getting. When I said that, Lena finally figured it out: it was ash. At this point, we were a little curious/scared/thinking WTF and it started getting heavier and heavier. We randomly ran into some Americans on the streets, who told us that it was from Mt. Osorno (which we later found of was Volcán Puyehue) and that it was errupting, but we weren't in any danger. We got back to the hostel, turned on the news, and found out that a volcano in Chile was in fact erupting, and the wind direction had lead the ashes to Bariloche. It continued to fall all night, and when we woke up the next morning, the city looked like a giant sandbox.
As you can imagine, a town covered in ash doesn't present many opportunities for doing fun things. Our bike ride was out, kayaking-out, stores were closed, nobody was around, and we had no way to go anywhere, because the bus station and the airport were closed. We were literally trapped in Argentina. The passage way that we took to get to Bariloche was about 2 km away from the volcano, later in the week we learned that the road was covered in 60 cm of ash. The next closest passage, in San Martín, was also closed. Even the passage we ended up taking in Mendoza was closed due to a snow storm. So, we were stuck in Argentina, had nothing to do and nowhere to go. This was Sunday. Our tickets to leave were scheduled for Monday at 9 AM.
On Monday, we went to the bus station hoping that our bus wasn't canceled. It was. All buses going to Northern Argentina were canceled. Anything going to Chile was canceled. We literally went from company to company asking for buses, nearly everyone laughed and told us there was absolutely no way we were getting home. So, we went back to the hostel to try to wait it out. We were going crazy trying to think of what to do. Wait in Bariloche for the pass to open, go to Buenos Aires and hang out there (my thoughts were if we were stuck in Argentina we may as well do something fun), or try to find a way home. We deliberated for a day or so, and decided the best thing to do was get home. We had already missed three days of class, and with finals week approaching, we thought we shouldn't miss more than we had to. Plus, at this point, we were starting to hate Bariloche, and home sounded pretty amazing. We asked the bus station workers, our hostel workers (who were awesome btw), and even one of our professors what we should do. The Bariloche pass would be closed for at least 20 days. The next pass was closed, and nobody knew when it would open. The only sure pass that we knew we could go through was Mendoza, which was 1000 km north. We had to do it. We bought our tickets, and left on Thursday afternoon at 2:30 PM to start our 4 bus journey home.
I am sorry to those of you who read this, I am honestly the worst blogger in the world. I always think of something else I would rather be doing than updating my life, but my life this past week has been pretty insane, and I definitely need to keep it in writing. I have also made a pact to myself to update every week until I leave!
This weekend (which turned into a full week) the other CMU students and I made the trek to the beautiful town of Bariloche, Argentina. We didn't have class on Friday and turned in our homework early for our Monday class, so we could have a full, 4 day weekend relaxing (ha) in Argentina. We bought our tickets beforehand to get there and back, so we wouldn't have to worry about buying tickets to get home while we were in Bariloche (once again, HA). We arrived on Friday and it was gorgeous. Our hostel was on top of a hill with views of the lake and mountains behind it, the sun was shining, we went shopping at an awesome craft market and got steak at a famous restaurant. All of Friday we couldn't stop talking about how much we LOVED Argentina and were so pumped for the rest of the trip.
On Saturday, we were thinking about maybe renting bikes to go riding around the city, but decided to save that for Sunday instead. We wanted to just explore the city, eat good food and relax. We ended up at a nice place for lunch that had views of the lake, and when we were done we walked down by the lake to take some photos. We noticed while we were on the beach that off in the distance it looked like it was going to rain, the clouds were really dark and looked awful. Everyone else cleared the beach, so we decided to follow. As we were walking back, I noticed that white things were falling (I originally thought they were coming from the pine trees we were walking under) and one got caught in my eye, and it stung SO badly. Me and Lena kept feeling them, and could not, for the life of us, figure out what the hell was falling from the sky. We were discussing what this weird stuff was that was falling, and I commented on how dusty my jacket was getting. When I said that, Lena finally figured it out: it was ash. At this point, we were a little curious/scared/thinking WTF and it started getting heavier and heavier. We randomly ran into some Americans on the streets, who told us that it was from Mt. Osorno (which we later found of was Volcán Puyehue) and that it was errupting, but we weren't in any danger. We got back to the hostel, turned on the news, and found out that a volcano in Chile was in fact erupting, and the wind direction had lead the ashes to Bariloche. It continued to fall all night, and when we woke up the next morning, the city looked like a giant sandbox.
As you can imagine, a town covered in ash doesn't present many opportunities for doing fun things. Our bike ride was out, kayaking-out, stores were closed, nobody was around, and we had no way to go anywhere, because the bus station and the airport were closed. We were literally trapped in Argentina. The passage way that we took to get to Bariloche was about 2 km away from the volcano, later in the week we learned that the road was covered in 60 cm of ash. The next closest passage, in San Martín, was also closed. Even the passage we ended up taking in Mendoza was closed due to a snow storm. So, we were stuck in Argentina, had nothing to do and nowhere to go. This was Sunday. Our tickets to leave were scheduled for Monday at 9 AM.
On Monday, we went to the bus station hoping that our bus wasn't canceled. It was. All buses going to Northern Argentina were canceled. Anything going to Chile was canceled. We literally went from company to company asking for buses, nearly everyone laughed and told us there was absolutely no way we were getting home. So, we went back to the hostel to try to wait it out. We were going crazy trying to think of what to do. Wait in Bariloche for the pass to open, go to Buenos Aires and hang out there (my thoughts were if we were stuck in Argentina we may as well do something fun), or try to find a way home. We deliberated for a day or so, and decided the best thing to do was get home. We had already missed three days of class, and with finals week approaching, we thought we shouldn't miss more than we had to. Plus, at this point, we were starting to hate Bariloche, and home sounded pretty amazing. We asked the bus station workers, our hostel workers (who were awesome btw), and even one of our professors what we should do. The Bariloche pass would be closed for at least 20 days. The next pass was closed, and nobody knew when it would open. The only sure pass that we knew we could go through was Mendoza, which was 1000 km north. We had to do it. We bought our tickets, and left on Thursday afternoon at 2:30 PM to start our 4 bus journey home.
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