Settling In

It's nice getting into a routine after the first two weeks of whirlwind travel. My classes are a lot of fun and I think my Spanish is coming along nicely. The school is also great at organizing fun activities. As I mentioned before, we went to a disco last week which was great. However, the nightlife in Chile doesn't get going until at least 1:30am, even on a Wednesday which is when we went. Makes it tough to get up for 9am class the next day.
Thursday we watched "Mi Mejor Enemigo", a film about the southern border dispute (in the pampas) between Chile and Argentina. Very good film. That night I got to jam on the conga and bongo drums with my neighbor's Salsa/Funk/jazz band. Definitely enjoyed that.
Friday night I went to the Modern art museum here and saw some very interesting stuff. I posted some pictures to give you an idea. For example, one piece consisted of several piles of toast.
Saturday the school had an outing to Valparaiso and Viña del Mar (about 1.5 hours west of Santiago). Valpo is a big port city with tons of huge shipping vessels. It's interesting but a little dangerous. At least 7 different locals told us to be careful with our bags and cameras. Turns out they were right as one girl in our group had her camera snatched (broken wrist strap and all) out of her hand. The rest of the group was ahead of her so we didn't see it, but luckily there was a good samaritan nearby who chased the thief down and was able to recover her camera.
The beach at Viña del Mar was nice, but the water was freezing. That night, back in Santiago, we went out to a Brazilian Samba bar that had a live band. We all danced until the wee hours of the morning.
Sunday I went to a free outdoor concert with some friends. Not knowing what to expect, I wore flip flops. Turns out the bands were a little more hardcore (Eric, check out Papa Negro - like Chilean Linkin Park) and it was kind of like one huge mosh pit. If I'd had sneakers it would've been great, but my feet kept getting stepped on. Oh well...it was still a lot of fun.
Last night we had a soccer game which pit the morning classers against the afternooners. I managed to score 5 goals and we won. Very sore today though, as I haven't done much exercise recently.
Right now I'm off to Punta del Este in Uruguay with a friend for the weekend. It's supposed to be a cross between Miami and St. Tropez, so I'm pretty excited.
Adios.

Santiago (no, not you Dad)

If you happen to like waiting in line to get through customs (and you want to pay $100 for the privilege) go to Santiago, Chile. Nothing like a DMV-esque experience after a flight to put you in a good mood. After finally making it through, I hopped in the group transfer bus and we set off. Unfortunately, all I had was the address to my home stay and not the directions. Luckily one of the other passengers was able to call my host Mom and find out where I needed to go. I finally made it there and was happy to see that the house is located on a quiet tree lined street. My Chilean Mom, Maria Fransisca, is a very sweet 70 year old woman. Also in the house were Carmelita, the 50 year old Nanny, Thomas, the twenty something German student and a friend of Maria's from Costa Rica. Upon my arrival, I was offered a tasty Mango Pisco cocktail which went down very nicely. My room is great, with two big windows and a very comfortable bed. I slept like a baby.
In the morning, I said hello to the dog in the backyard - Master - a large, old German shepherd who was very friendly, and then went in because Maria had prepared me a delicious banana milkshake in addition to assorted breakfast items. Muy sabrosa. She even drove me to school for my first day. Thanks Chilean Mom! When I arrived (the school is also located on a picturesque block in a great neighborhood) I was immediately given my placement test. Once that was graded, I was assigned to my class - Principiante 2B. In addition to my teacher, Isabell (who is great) there are 4 others. Three from Switzerland and one from England.
After an hour and a half, the school has a twenty minute break where we grab some snacks and sit outside in the courtyard to chat. Since it's the tail end of spring the weather is fantastic (I'm wearing flip flops, shorts and a t-shirt) and it stays light until around 8:30pm. After some more class, we have another 10 minute break, then we go till 1pm. 4 hours in total. The program had a welcome lunch for the newbies which consisted of some tasty empanadas and then I was off to explore, change some money, and buy some books for class.
The city of Santiago is beautiful. Tons of trees, parks and plazas. I've heard people complain about the smog, but I haven't really found it to be a problem. Around 6pm I went back to the school for a Ceviche cooking class. A lot of fun. After that I was off to dinner with my Chilean family. To get back, I took the Metro which is super clean and efficient and very easy to figure out. It's similar to D.C., also in the fact that they shut it down around 10:30pm. No wonder it's clean.
When I got home, I found out that Master had died that afternoon! I was stunned. I felt so bad for my host Mom who was very sad. It sounds like he had a good run though. He was 14 years old, which in dog years is like 1,000 I think. Someone suggested I buy her a new puppy, but I think I'll hold off on that.
Class today was good, especially when we played Spanish Taboo. Did I win? Ya darn right I did. After class we had an excursion to the Museo Historico Nacional which had exhibits discussing the invasion by the Spaniards back in the day. Interesting stuff. From there, we went to a huge Church that was next door, also in the Plaza de Armas. It was funny to see some workers creating a huge fake Christmas tree in the middle of the Plaza, especially considering it's sunny and about 85-90 degrees. The church was very nice, but what do I know about churches? One thing I found interesting was that, in order to confess, you would sit face to face with the priest with no barrier in between to maintain your anonymity. Not only that, but the line was not too far behind you. Hope you don't mind other people knowing your business.
Off to explore some more now and practice my verbos en pasado. Tomorrow night we head to a disco, Chilean cinema on Thursday and this weekend to Valparaiso.
Hasta Luego.
P.S. This morning my Chilean Mom made me a batida de frutilla a.k.a Strawberry milkshake. I could get used to this.

Inca Trail n' stuff

For most of the 3-4 hours train ride to kilometer marker 104, I spoke to some new friends in my group. There were 9 of us in all...a few of Kiwi's, a Brit and a Canadian. Solid overall. I signed up for the 2 day hike to Machu Picchu and I'm glad I did. I briefly considered the 4 day trek where you sleep in tents for 3 nights. Not my cup of tea...especially considering how much you sweat during the hiking and the fact that you can't shower for 4 days. Our hike was tough at times but really not too bad. Along the route, which went up the side of some mountains overlooking the Urumbamba river, we passed several Inca ruins. In the early early afternoon we made it to the sun gate and got our first view of Machu Picchu. I was fully prepared to be underwhelmed by the sight of it after having seen so many postcards. Nothing could have been further from the truth. It was truly breathtaking. The ruins were relatively empty due to the time (most of the one day visitors leave around 2 or so to catch the train home) and the sun was shining brightly without a cloud in the sky. After we took the obligatory group and individual photos in front of the site, we headed down to the hot springs in Aguas Calientes. After a day of hiking, having a nice soak in a natural hot spring really hit the spot. One little surprise was that the ground in the pools was not hard and smooth, but made up of tiny sand/pebbles which did a nice job of massaging the feet.
The next morning we woke up early and headed back up to the ruins. It's a good thing we didn't try and catch the sunrise because the whole site was shrouded in clouds. It did lend a nice air of mystery to the ruins however. After a two hour guided tour (Our guide Justino and Elvis, the porter who carried the Oxygen were both awesome) where we learned some of the cooler aspects of the ruins (the medidation room for instance was really cool) we were given a few hours to explore the site. I was amazed how big the whole thing is...and the fact that they built all of it on top of a mountain in the middle of the jungle is really impressive. I was going to climb the big mountain that overlooks Machuu Pichhu, Waynapichu, but I was way too tired so instead just had a picnic and chilled in one of the fields that overlooked the river valley. Not a bad way to spend the day.
On the trainride back to Cusco, I upgraded my train ride to take the Vistadome, which has a lot more windows and a fashion show. Fairly strange.
Back in Cusco, I took a free salsa lesson at one of the clubs. Definitely want to get better at that. Because the local (compulsory) elections were on Sunday, none of the bars were technically allowed to serve alcohol. Guess they don't want people sleeping through the voting process or showing up all kinds of hungover.
Sunday morning, the day of my flight to Santiago, was the first time I saw rain in Cusco. Of course this caused pretty big delays and I thought I was going to miss my connecting flight from Lima to Santiago. After a nice sprint through the airport though, I managed to just make the second leg. So relieved as the next flight wouldn't have gotten me into Chile until 4 or 5am. On the plane I was seated next to two very nice Columbian women who were helping me practice my Spanish. In case you're wondering, the movie they showed onboard was "Click" with Adam Sandler. Also, not as bad as I thought it would be.
Next up, Santiago.

Peru for me and you

Well, I wasn't crazy about Lima. The Miraflores area where my hostel was is nice. The highlight there is Larcomar, this open air mall built into the cliff that overlooks the ocean. While I was eating my luch I watched people playing a soccer game on the beach below. At the table next to me there was this group of Chinese kids (Peru has one of the largest populations of Chinese people in South America) and it was interesting to see them all speaking spanish to each other. After that I walked around the central Lima district to check out some of the plazas and museums. Trying to take the bus there was quite an experience. One guy drives the bus, another shouts at people on the street trying to get them to get on the bus and I had no idea which one to take. I made it there eventually and shortly after a girl approached me and asked me to help her with her English homework. The questions were pretty strange and I kept thinking someone was going to come up behind me while she was talking to me and steal all my stuff. A minute after she left a guy came up and asked if he could practice his English with me (I'm seeing a trend develop here). I thought he was just going to talk to me for like 5 minutes, but after 30-45 minutes I still couldn't get rid of him. Finally I told him I was leaving which is when he started asking me for money. Pretty sneaky. The people in my hostel were cool and we hung out till the wee morning hours Sunday night.
Getting up for the flight to Cusco was not fun, but when I got here, it didn't matter. Cusco is beautiful. The weather is warm, sunny and dry, like Arizona, until the sun goes down when it gets fairly chilly. It reminds me of a town you'd see in a Zorro film, with nice colonial architecture and open plazas with big churches everywhere. I took a city tour to see some of the Incan ruins which was fun. The next day I took a tour to the Sacred Valley which was really great. The scenery is amazing. Of course we had to stop in a few markets along the way. If I never see another Alpaca garment, I'll be totally fine with it. At one of the ruins, I met two American girls who are studying in Santiago for the semster. They gave me tons of great pointers on where to go and what to see. Gotta love the insider's info.
Anyway, tomorrow morning I get picked up at 5:30am (ouch) to head off on my two day hike to Machu Picchu. Can't wait. Saturday night I'm back in Cusco and then off to Santiago, Chile on Sunday to get ready for my first day off class on Monday. I've been speaking with a ton of different people and they're impressed by how much Spanish I know, so I'm thinking that by the end of my 16 week program, I should be well on my way to fluency. Maybe I'll even start writing some entries in Spanish. We'll see.
Adios.

I Love Boobies...

Red footed, blue footed, nasca...all of them. My four day cruise around the Galapagos Islands was amazing. I was aboard the Angelique which had very small cabins for the 16 passengers, but a nice crew and surprisingly tasty food. We went to about 6 islands (trying to sleep while we were sailing took some getting used to) and each one had a very distinct character and landscape. The weather was great and I have a pretty good tan going. Our guide Mariuxi, in addition to having an amusing accent, knew so much about the biology and geology of all things Galapagos. Check out her website (Link to the right under the pictures) If I had to do it again, I´d opt for the 8 day cruise. So much to see. Some of the highlights for me were seeing hammerhead and white tip reef sharks, some giant sea tutrles and some sting rays while scuba diving and standing on the bow spit (very tip) of the Angelique while we were sailing as a blue footed bobbie flew alongside me about an arms length away for 20 minutes or so. I also met some great people in my group. Some of us went out to dinner the day after we got back to Quito.
My last two days in Quito I took the Teleferiqo (a gondola) to the top of one of the volcanoes surrounding the city. The view from the top is amazing and gives a great idea of just how sprawling a city Quito is. I also walked around the old city which has fantastic character. Today I was supposed to go to the Mital del Mundo (Equator) but was entirely too hungover after a big night which included a very fun stop at a small karaoke bar.
In a few minutes I´ll be boarding my plane for Lima, Peru so check back for more updates.
Adios.

Volcanoes are high

And this one was no exception. The views were amazing and riding on top of the land rover for part of the trip was a lot of fun. The altitude made the climb really tough and I had a nasty headache at the end, but it was worth it. Click on the flickr box to the right of this blog to see my pictures.
Tomorrow I head off to the Galapagos so I'll upload more pics when I can.
Time for dinner.

Quito is cool...

literally and figuratively...especially at night. My first night here was pretty chilly, but my hostel
(the Secret Garden which is really amazing) had a fire pit on the terrace which has a sick view of the mountains and the old city. I'll post pics once I've uploaded. The prices are great too. I had a three course meal for $5 US.
Today I took a trip north to the outdoor market in Otavalo. Very fun. Tomorrow I climb to the top of a 16,000 foot active volcano called pinchincha. Can't wait. Hopefully the altitude won't slow me down too much. My first day here climbing the stairs to the top of the hostel got me out of breath.
Today on the bus to the market we paid our fare to a passenger (who promptly exited the bus) instead of the bus employee. It was only $2, but a very valuable lesson to learn. I've heard stories of other people getting robbed in the last few days. Guess I'll have to keep my head on a swivel.
Adios for now.

The Night Before

So the cab is coming to pick me up at 5:15am tomorrow. Damn, that's early.
Mom hooked me up with one last delicious home-cooked meal. Jonathan and Allison came out to say goodbye also...and to do some laundry ;-)
It still hasn't really sunk in that I'm leaving. Luckily Allison was able to help me get all my stuff into my backpack. I never thought it would fit.
I'll post pics and stories as soon as often as possible, so keep checking back for updates.
Adios.