It has been quite some time since I last gave an update about what is going on here in Melipilla. Well the short answer is not much. I haven't really met anybody, and Gino, our first friend here kind of turned out to be a weirdo. His friends were awesome, but we haven't really had the chance to do anything with them, plus they are just not my age. I went out with Carlos' niece and her friend one night, which was cool, but we did the clubbing thing which I really don't enjoy all that much. They were super nice, but I haven't heard from them in a few weeks. A couple weeks ago I hung out with this other girl Angie and I met at the beginning of our stay in Melipilla. She is really very nice, and I'll probably hang out with her friends again, even though I turned down a chance to do that last night, because I just was not up to it.
I think after living more or less alone in France two years ago, and then living alone here, I have really become used to it and I think it is somewhat my fault that I haven't met very many people. Plus I am constantly thinking towards the future and the fact that I am leaving in a couple months almost makes me not want to try. It kind of bothers me that I am so used to it, that spending Friday night watching TV and reading is perfectly satisfactory for me and often preferable to going out. I miss Magali too, and I guess this is a good thing, but every time I hang out with someone, I just keep wishing Magali were there, because it would just be better. I don't smoke, I don't like clubs, can't dance, and my Spanish is mediocre, which makes me not the most social being in Chile.
It's also hard because I can't understand everything, even though I assume that I should. Oh my Spanish is much improved, but I now realize how bad it was when I arrived. If I don't go to Santiago on the weekend (to hang out with my English speaking friends), I will spend pretty much most of the time alone. Thankfully Carlos has often invited me to eat with his family, but it's not the same as meeting people my own age.
But I really do like living in Melipilla. It's pleasant, and certainly different and interesting. I am looking forward to going home, but I hate to just sort of give up now and wait for the end. We'll see, things can change pretty quickly!
Friday, May 30, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Some pictures of my southern adventure.
This is Chile. A truck, a flag, and a stray dog.
That is the Cordillera Darwin, with peaks over 2500m. On the other side is a bit of ocean and then Antarctica
Me at Torres Del Paine
This is in Puerto Natales
This is Punta Arenas, the most southerly 'city of size' in the world. The water is the Strait of Magellan, and Tierra Del Fuego on the other side.
Some pictures of my southern adventure.
This is Chile. A truck, a flag, and a stray dog
Cordillera Darwin, over 2500mts. high. On the other side of that is some ocean and then antarctica
Me in Torres del Paine
This is in Puerto Natales.
And this is Punta Arenas, the most southerly 'city of size' in the world. It sits on the Strait of Magellan.
Monday, May 12, 2008
My southward journey part 2
As I could not go to Puerto Williams or Ushuaia, my third option was Puerto Natales where I would do the touristy thing and try to visit Torres Del Paine national park. I bought my bus ticket, which was cheaper than normal because everything had just closed for the season and headed out to Puerto Natales on Friday afternoon. It was an awesome bus ride, and I truly got to appreciate how remote and empty Patagonia is. More remote than Montana, even more so than much of Wyoming—it really felt like northern Alaska. I imagine the Brooks Range looks like Patagonia. On one of the highway distance signs, one town it was noted was like 2250 kilometers away. It was a 3 hour bus ride between Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales and we passed one town of MAYBE 100 people, and 2 or three villages with I’d say no more than 15 people each. This is the main highway between two of the biggest population centers of the region, and the road was largely empty. The empty space between is mostly private land. Every now and then we would pass an “Estancia” which is more or less a ranch. I guess the population density of this region is about .5 people/sq. km. The landscape as I said before is pretty much treeless. It looks a lot like southern Idaho—it’s flat and deserty but with large mountains in the distance. Upon arriving in Puerto Natales, I found a hostel for half the price of the one I had actually reserved. So I cancelled and stayed at this nice woman’s house. The atmosphere was great and I again met some pretty cool people. I really wanted to get up in the park and go hiking, but most things were closed and I was alone, so my only reasonable option was to take a tour. I did so, and I was a bit worried when a woman with a little kid got in the van—this was going to be a photo safari. However, it was not a bunch of old people going to snap pictures, the crowd was young and in the same situation I was. They wanted to do some hiking, but this time of year, it’s just hard to arrange. Again, I met some cool people including a South African banker, a German married to a Chilean, an English couple who has been traveling the world for over a year, and a group of 4 young Basques. I could not for the life of me figure out what language they were speaking—because I could recognize some of the words that sounded pretty Spanish, but I could in no way understand what they were saying. After some time, someone asked them and they said they were Basque. I didn’t know Basque was still spoken on a day to day basis among young people, but there was the proof. They said it’s their mother tongue and they think in Basque, not Spanish. I also ran into a French/Moroccan couple I met at the hostel back in Punta Arenas. They were super nice and were in Brest at the same time I was studying in Rennes. We exchanged e-mails, and since it’s such a small world, I ran into them at just about every next stop in my trip, including the airport.
Our first stop on the tour was the Milodon cave—which is just a cave, but also the ancient home of this weird bear like creature called a Milodon that existed during the last ice age. Looks like a bear with a camel head. Then we headed into the park. You know when you see a picture of Patagonia, and you see these rock spires and glaciers—well that is Torres del Paine. It’s where everyone goes, and where everyone backpacks, and they think they are badass because of it. I originally did not want to come here just because of its popularity—the same reason I don’t have a huge desire to go to Yosemite. But it was off season, so there was really no one in the park except us, and of course the scenery was spectacular. We saw glaciers and lakes and huge spiring peaks—it really is an amazing place. I can see why backpacking there would be really incredible, but in the high season it is crowded. In addition to the scenery, the animals were out and about. Much like the elk in Yellowstone, this park seems to be overrun with guanacos—which are in the dromedary family—so they are like a llama camel thing, but more the size of a deer or large antelope. Like the Yellowstone elk everyone was amazed at them as we entered the park, but then there were so many of them, that by the end I was sick of looking at the guanaco. We also saw this type of deer that apparently is extremely rare and only about 400 of them exist. They looked a little fatter and shorter than most North American deer. Hmmm, what else did we see? A fox that was disgustingly tame—it pretty much came up to us begging for food. And we also saw lots of eagles. So it was more or less a photo safari, but we did get to walk out to a viewpoint that was maybe a 30 minute walk. Oh and the wind—at one point the wind was so strong it nearly knocked me down. So, I would not have enjoyed backpacking in that. Wind I think is even worse than rain.
After we got back, and the next day, I had the chance to explore Puerto Natales. It is a quaint quaint town. I’d call it the Moab of Patagonia—pretty much the same vibe. In fact, I decided that I could live in Patagonia. As I am very attached to the Northwest US, there are few places that I think I really could enjoy living for a long time. Patagonia is one of them. It just felt so familiar. The atmosphere, the people, the weather all reminded me of the kind of place where I truly am happy. For instance, I felt not the least bit nervous walking around alone at night, whereas in Santiago or Melipilla that is something that is simply not done. It’s a rough and tumble kind of place where the dirty pickup truck is the standard vehicle. Ok, so Melpilla is great for a few months, but being in Patagonia kind of made me shudder when I thought of Melipilla. It is soo different. I loved the cold drizzly weather in Patagonia, but whenever it’s cloudy and cool in Melipilla, for some reason it’s kind of depressing.
I headed back to Punta Arenas for one day to conclude my trip. I walked to a viewpoint just above downtown and met two overly friendly Mormons. I knew they were there on their mission, I could spot them a mile away. I wished them well and headed to the airport. It was a great trip overall. If I had organized it better and earlier, I could have fit in a couple more solid days of doing stuff. This was a chill trip and when it comes down to it, I really only had two productive days the whole time. But it was worth it just being there and soaking up the culture at this far desolate corner of the world.
Our first stop on the tour was the Milodon cave—which is just a cave, but also the ancient home of this weird bear like creature called a Milodon that existed during the last ice age. Looks like a bear with a camel head. Then we headed into the park. You know when you see a picture of Patagonia, and you see these rock spires and glaciers—well that is Torres del Paine. It’s where everyone goes, and where everyone backpacks, and they think they are badass because of it. I originally did not want to come here just because of its popularity—the same reason I don’t have a huge desire to go to Yosemite. But it was off season, so there was really no one in the park except us, and of course the scenery was spectacular. We saw glaciers and lakes and huge spiring peaks—it really is an amazing place. I can see why backpacking there would be really incredible, but in the high season it is crowded. In addition to the scenery, the animals were out and about. Much like the elk in Yellowstone, this park seems to be overrun with guanacos—which are in the dromedary family—so they are like a llama camel thing, but more the size of a deer or large antelope. Like the Yellowstone elk everyone was amazed at them as we entered the park, but then there were so many of them, that by the end I was sick of looking at the guanaco. We also saw this type of deer that apparently is extremely rare and only about 400 of them exist. They looked a little fatter and shorter than most North American deer. Hmmm, what else did we see? A fox that was disgustingly tame—it pretty much came up to us begging for food. And we also saw lots of eagles. So it was more or less a photo safari, but we did get to walk out to a viewpoint that was maybe a 30 minute walk. Oh and the wind—at one point the wind was so strong it nearly knocked me down. So, I would not have enjoyed backpacking in that. Wind I think is even worse than rain.
After we got back, and the next day, I had the chance to explore Puerto Natales. It is a quaint quaint town. I’d call it the Moab of Patagonia—pretty much the same vibe. In fact, I decided that I could live in Patagonia. As I am very attached to the Northwest US, there are few places that I think I really could enjoy living for a long time. Patagonia is one of them. It just felt so familiar. The atmosphere, the people, the weather all reminded me of the kind of place where I truly am happy. For instance, I felt not the least bit nervous walking around alone at night, whereas in Santiago or Melipilla that is something that is simply not done. It’s a rough and tumble kind of place where the dirty pickup truck is the standard vehicle. Ok, so Melpilla is great for a few months, but being in Patagonia kind of made me shudder when I thought of Melipilla. It is soo different. I loved the cold drizzly weather in Patagonia, but whenever it’s cloudy and cool in Melipilla, for some reason it’s kind of depressing.
I headed back to Punta Arenas for one day to conclude my trip. I walked to a viewpoint just above downtown and met two overly friendly Mormons. I knew they were there on their mission, I could spot them a mile away. I wished them well and headed to the airport. It was a great trip overall. If I had organized it better and earlier, I could have fit in a couple more solid days of doing stuff. This was a chill trip and when it comes down to it, I really only had two productive days the whole time. But it was worth it just being there and soaking up the culture at this far desolate corner of the world.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
My southward journey continued:
Since I pretty much live on a map, as my mom says, I am largely in a constant state of frustration. Wherever I go, I know that there is something else just a bit farther down the road. It is there on the map, and it bothers me to no end that I cannot go there. That’s why going to Barrow, AK was so fulfilling. I could not go any farther—it was the end of the continent. Needless to say, Punta Arenas was not sufficient, there were still two ‘cities’ even further south—Ushuaia, AR and Puerto Williams, CL. I heard Ushuaia was beautiful and worth the 10 hour bus ride just to say you’ve been there. Sadly, no buses return from Ushuaia on Sundays, making a Friday-Sunday trip impossible. I decided to check on flights to Puerto Williams. Not surprisingly, the return flight on Monday was full, which is what you get for ‘playing it by ear.’
Not knowing exactly what I was going to do for four days in Punta Arenas, I signed up for a tour that would depart from the hostel at 10am on Thursday. Why not? I had nothing else to do, and since it was a holiday, everything was closed. I was joined by two Hungarian sisters, one of whom was an astronomer. They were very interesting and fun to talk to. Then we picked up an older guy who hopped in the van and immediately said “Bonjour. Vous parlez le francais?” One of the Hungarian girls and I both said, “oui.” It was an odd moment, and Jean-Pierre from Toulouse didn’t seem to find it the least bit interesting or surprising that this American could speak fluent French, and that the Hungarian girl could certainly hold her own. Jean-Pierre’s Spanish and English were both fairly atrocious (yet he sure tried hard), so during the tour I often found myself translating to and from French, Spanish, and English. Anyway, the tour took us south out of Punta Arenas. Cruising down the road, we saw porpoises, flamingos, eagles, an eagle eating a rabbit, and numerous other birds. It really reminded me of Alaska or an Indian reservation—right as you leave town the landscape is empty and the people who do live out of town live in crumbling cabins with 14 rusted out trucks on the lawn. In addition it was chilly and right next to the water. It felt so much more familiar, than anything around Santiago or Melipilla. The weather was amazing and as we approached the end of the road, the view opened up and we gazed across the Strait of Magellan at the Cordillera Darwin—a gorgeous and impossibly remote range of white glacier capped mountains—one of them rising more than 2500 meters above sea level. We ended up 60 km south of Punta Arenas as far as the rough dirt road would take us. This was as far south on the American continent as one could go (in a car). The actual Cape Froward was a couple days hike south. So we snapped some pictures and then headed to Fuerte Bulnes. This was the first Spanish settlement in the area. The fort was reconstructed, since thatch and wood buildings last about 20 minutes in the climate of Patagonia. The Spanish did not last long at this rough spot and later relocated to Punta Arenas—which has an interesting history of being settled by Swiss, English, and Croatians—some of whom still retain strong ties to their homeland. The tour was a bit pricey but worth it. I had no other options of getting out of Punta Arenas anyway—so it was nice to see the landscape and go as far south on the mainland as I possibly could.
Later that evening I was hanging out at the hostel and joined a conversation between this Australian couple and the Hungarian girls. I really had no place in this conversation, but it was fascinating. The couple was understandably far more interested in the Hungarian girls’ stories of communism and their take on the war in the Balkans than my white American life. This couple was about the age of my parents, and (sorry mom) way way way cooler. They have pretty much been everywhere. They visited Boeing and stayed in the San Juans. Not to mention Europe, Asia and Africa. They have also driven the remote dirt highway to Inuvik, Northwest Territories on the Arctic Ocean—which they did with their children in an old VW bus. Talk about a family vacation. “It’s a great road, but no one ever takes it!” Their son is currently backpacking across China or something, and their 16 year old daughter is on a high school exchange program to Vladivostok. Of course, why not Vladivostok? The father was telling these stories in that over-excited passionate Australian way. Everything was funny, including the fact that upon reentering civilization after hiking for a week in Torres Del Paine national park, they found several text messages from their daughter along the lines of “Help dad.” “I have a BIG problem, call me NOW.” “Where are you guys?” “I need money to leave the country NOW.” It turns out Russia decided to change their visa policies, and their daughter had 2 days to leave the country and re enter. So apparently she went to Korea and has been hanging out there until the visa issue is resolved. Did I mention she is only 16? Possibly my favorite story of theirs was about the boa. They were trying to convince us that Australia is not really THAT full of poisonous things, and it’s just as normal as anywhere else.
That was it for the first part of my journey. I’ll add another post about the next few days soon.
Not knowing exactly what I was going to do for four days in Punta Arenas, I signed up for a tour that would depart from the hostel at 10am on Thursday. Why not? I had nothing else to do, and since it was a holiday, everything was closed. I was joined by two Hungarian sisters, one of whom was an astronomer. They were very interesting and fun to talk to. Then we picked up an older guy who hopped in the van and immediately said “Bonjour. Vous parlez le francais?” One of the Hungarian girls and I both said, “oui.” It was an odd moment, and Jean-Pierre from Toulouse didn’t seem to find it the least bit interesting or surprising that this American could speak fluent French, and that the Hungarian girl could certainly hold her own. Jean-Pierre’s Spanish and English were both fairly atrocious (yet he sure tried hard), so during the tour I often found myself translating to and from French, Spanish, and English. Anyway, the tour took us south out of Punta Arenas. Cruising down the road, we saw porpoises, flamingos, eagles, an eagle eating a rabbit, and numerous other birds. It really reminded me of Alaska or an Indian reservation—right as you leave town the landscape is empty and the people who do live out of town live in crumbling cabins with 14 rusted out trucks on the lawn. In addition it was chilly and right next to the water. It felt so much more familiar, than anything around Santiago or Melipilla. The weather was amazing and as we approached the end of the road, the view opened up and we gazed across the Strait of Magellan at the Cordillera Darwin—a gorgeous and impossibly remote range of white glacier capped mountains—one of them rising more than 2500 meters above sea level. We ended up 60 km south of Punta Arenas as far as the rough dirt road would take us. This was as far south on the American continent as one could go (in a car). The actual Cape Froward was a couple days hike south. So we snapped some pictures and then headed to Fuerte Bulnes. This was the first Spanish settlement in the area. The fort was reconstructed, since thatch and wood buildings last about 20 minutes in the climate of Patagonia. The Spanish did not last long at this rough spot and later relocated to Punta Arenas—which has an interesting history of being settled by Swiss, English, and Croatians—some of whom still retain strong ties to their homeland. The tour was a bit pricey but worth it. I had no other options of getting out of Punta Arenas anyway—so it was nice to see the landscape and go as far south on the mainland as I possibly could.
Later that evening I was hanging out at the hostel and joined a conversation between this Australian couple and the Hungarian girls. I really had no place in this conversation, but it was fascinating. The couple was understandably far more interested in the Hungarian girls’ stories of communism and their take on the war in the Balkans than my white American life. This couple was about the age of my parents, and (sorry mom) way way way cooler. They have pretty much been everywhere. They visited Boeing and stayed in the San Juans. Not to mention Europe, Asia and Africa. They have also driven the remote dirt highway to Inuvik, Northwest Territories on the Arctic Ocean—which they did with their children in an old VW bus. Talk about a family vacation. “It’s a great road, but no one ever takes it!” Their son is currently backpacking across China or something, and their 16 year old daughter is on a high school exchange program to Vladivostok. Of course, why not Vladivostok? The father was telling these stories in that over-excited passionate Australian way. Everything was funny, including the fact that upon reentering civilization after hiking for a week in Torres Del Paine national park, they found several text messages from their daughter along the lines of “Help dad.” “I have a BIG problem, call me NOW.” “Where are you guys?” “I need money to leave the country NOW.” It turns out Russia decided to change their visa policies, and their daughter had 2 days to leave the country and re enter. So apparently she went to Korea and has been hanging out there until the visa issue is resolved. Did I mention she is only 16? Possibly my favorite story of theirs was about the boa. They were trying to convince us that Australia is not really THAT full of poisonous things, and it’s just as normal as anywhere else.
“Except for this one time…I came home late and was opening the garage door. Suddenly this huge thing fell from the roof and landed on my head. I let out quite a scream, and then realized it was a boa. The thing was like 4 feet long! Living in our garage, imagine that!”
He told this story with the accent and all the excitement of the crocodile hunter RIP. But other than that, Australia is perfectly safe…
That was it for the first part of my journey. I’ll add another post about the next few days soon.
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