Hey Kids, I´m in the Desert!

I just wanted to write a quickie before I take off for Bolivia tomorrow, I have been told by the tour guides that the accommodations will be ¨rustic¨ and ¨basic¨ and since hot water=luxury here, I am going to infer that the next few days will be internet-free.

So I left Valpo on Sunday, which was super-sad because, although I will be back next week for one day only, I said goodbye to my apartment, had breakfast for the last time there etc. Next Tuesday I´m going to be staying at the boy´s house (yes, there is a boy, come on, of COURSE there is a boy. That´s all I´m saying about it.) so no more Casa Peral for me:((( So, I hopped on a micro to the bus station, bus to Santiago, the subway from the bus station to another station(for some reason, the bus didn´t go to Pajaritos, who knows why)to catch the shuttle to the airport. Got on a plane, landed in Calama, cab to the bus station, another bus to San Pedro de Atacama, goddamn, I am tired just thinking about it! Then I couldn´t find/get in touch with the woman who I´d arranged to stay with so I got to walk around town at 11pm looking for accommodations. Did I mention that I went out the night before in torrential rain and so my coat was still soggy? It was awesome, let me assure you!

I managed to find a slightly overpriced room, but it was mine, all mine, no sharing. No internet or breakfast, which kind of sucks and the water wasn´t working when I wanted to take a shower but these are just small details, right? I walked around town looking for a place in the morning with these ¨luxuries¨ and everything was full or way overpriced. Hotel Puritama turned out to be just fine in the end.

June 29th also happens to be the festival of San Pedro and what better place to be than San Pedro de Atacama? I took some pictures before my camera finally committed suicide (yeah, it´s been working pretty well for the last month or so but I think it took it´s final swan dive yesterday. Fantastic timing. There was mass outside in the plaza, followed by a parade with some decent marching bands, altiplano dancing and men dressed as chickens inexplicably lassoing me. Hmmmm. Then I had a DELICIOUS empanada, one of the best I´ve had in Chile, that was full of olives, egss, onions and meat that I will pretend was llama. By the way, I love llama. I had a llama skewer today in a little town called Machuca, on the way back from seeing the Geisers del Tatio. I thought the geisers were totally overrated and getting up at 3:30am in -15 degree weather even worse. But once the sun came out, the scenery was absolutely breathtaking. I´m so pissed I can´t take pictures!!!!!!!

Ok, my time here at the internet cafe is running out, I gotta run, see you soon!

Four Month Check-In

That's right, it's been four whole months since I left Buffalo, a bittersweet day indeed. I've had a wonderful journey so far, and I still have a month left, but it's official. I'm ready to come home. Don't get me wrong, I will be SUPREMELY sad to leave here when the time comes but the life of an ex-pat is a sort of lonely one. Sure, I've met great people but meeting other travelers/English-speakers mean that they are inevitably leaving, and many of them have. My Chilean friends are fantastic, I feel really blessed, but being really ME is limited, which I have mentioned before. At first I thought I wasn't really ready to leave or homesick for home, just a little lonely. But now I know, that just ain't true. I miss YOU, my garden, my niece, cheese, the library, my gym, ole Blo, picking up the phone to call people. In short, it'll be time to go when the time comes. However, I've got one more trip planned before I jet, on June 28th, I will fly to Calama, in northern Chile, to visit San Pedro de Atacama, the desert, Valle de la Luna etc. Then I will go on an expedition to Uyuni, in Bolivia. Back to Valpo on July 7th to pick up my stuff and say my goodbyes and I am OUT OF HERE July 8th. Anyway, soon enough I will have my own photos to post but in the meantime, here are some titillating shots of both locations!

Daytripping in Quintay/Picture of the Day 18

I've been kinda lazy about exploring lately and my time here is winding down, que lata. So the other day I decided to start taking some small day trips and remembered several people telling me to go to Quintay. It's about an hour south of Valpo and was the epicenter of Chile's whaling industry in the late 1800s/early 1900s until 1967, when whaling was officially banned worldwide due to hunting the poor things until near extinction. (Everyone signed the treaty but Norway and Japan, what's up with them?). Quintay also has a number of good seafood restaurants, so no one had to twist my arm to get me there!!!

I tried to go last week but I got to the bus station at 11:20 and the bus left at 11:15, since when do things happen on time in Chile? Pucha! The next bus wasn't for several hours and since winter is approaching, the sun sets early and I decided to wait for another day. Monday broke, gloriously sunny and oddly clear. I could see all the way to the snow-capped Andes, past Santiago, which I have never seen from this far away.

On the bus ride, I watched the beautiful interior glide past me and I realized I had become complacent about how gorgeous Chile is. I noticed that the other day too, walking down a street in Valpo and it just seemed like a street to me, not a fascinating, ramshackle, South American alley. So it was a good reminder not to lose my sense of wonder and HOLY SHIT, LOOK AT THIS PLACE AND TAKE IT ALL IN!!! Just before we got to Quintay, we were treated to the most breathtaking view of the beach and cove below from the incredible height of the incoming road, I couldn't take a picture because, well, we know how well pictures through windows turn out. Trust me though, my day would have been complete just seeing that view.

The town is pretty much nothing but if you walk down the path to the harbor, you can see the old whalery??? Is that a word? I don't know the word in English. 500 pesos got me into the old place, there was a pretty uninspiring exhibition hall that had pictures of starfish and excerpts from Moby Dick pasted on warped cardboad. But touring the old, abandoned complex was totally worth it, the day was perfect, the camera was behaving, sort of. Magnificent.



The water had a brillo especial about it.




Eerie.




Sky.




Whales are big.

I wrapped up my afternoon with a big pastel de jaivas, which I could describe as a an enormous dish of local crabs, baked au-gratin style. Mmmmm. On the way home, I realized I completely missed walking along Playa Grande, which is supposed to be quite lovely. Maybe another day...

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I'm a thief. I was walking to the store the other day after work and saw this MAGNIFICENT sunset. Sadly, I didn't have my camera, and even if I did, I'm having so many problems with it that I can't rely on it at all. Anyway, you can imagine how happy I was to see that Matt at corrugatedcity.com posted this picture and more of this very same sunset! Thank you Matt!

Things I Don't Miss About Home/Love About Chile

Perhaps I should split this into two separate lists, as I was noticing when I did the combo Things I Miss in the US/Things I Hate in Chile post, but I think there is too much interconnectedness.

-I do not miss my car. Not one little bit. See, that leads into THREE things I love about Chile, which is public transportation, the brilliant colectivo system and living in a walkable city. Or rather, these are things I love about Valparaiso because this sure as hell is not the case in Santiago, ugh. Valpo has innumerable micros, or buses, which are very easy to figure out because they have signs in the front window listing major stops and streets. Unlike Blo, which just lists the end station, where the hell is Elmwood Loop? I have no idea. There are trolleys and buses within the city, buses to Viña, Reñaca and other cities nearby for a paltry sum. Then there are colectivos, which are cabs that run on a fixed route and are often just as cheap as the bus or cheaper. The system fails sometimes though, around rush hour when there are lines 10 deep of people waiting to catch a colecivo up the hill after work and before I figured out where to catch certain routes, I had a couple of long waits. But generally, I can get around in minimal time with a couple coins, or, better yet, I can just walk pretty much anywhere I want to go.

-Don´t miss my TV. Actually, I kind of wish I had one here because I have learned a lot from watching shows with subtitles. But overall, I don´t miss the distraction. OK, I admit, I found projectfreetv.com this week and devoured the second season of Mad Men in no time at all. But that is neither here not there.

-Work. You think I'd be bored down here, now work or school to speak of. Actually, I have started working for a friend who has a gallery here but 10 hours a week doesn't really count for anything. Plus, I am at work right now and I am sitting on my butt, writing to you all. Anyway, my days feel full and happy and I could easily live as a leisurely lady who lunches for the rest of my days.

Well, that ends the Things I DON'T miss, now on to Things I Love.

-The feria. I love, love, love the biweekly market that sells fruits and vegetable and flowers and eggs and kitchen utensils and so on. It is super cheap and I would imagine it's mostly local produce. It's funny how quickly I got acclimated to prices. A few months ago 500 pesos (less than a dollar) for a bag of brussel sprouts seemed great, now I scoff if they are asking more than 250 pesos. Also in the beginning, I was less than willing to call out a vendor when I knew I was getting the short end of the stick, now I just cut them my "Are you kidding me" eyes and they sigh and concede. In keeping with how much I adore living in a totally walkable city, it is just so EASY here to go to the market every few days and load up, making my three weeks without a refrigerator much less of a pain in my ass. Sidenote: In my new apartment, the sink didn't work and so we had to empty out a big bucket every time we washed dishes, there was no hot water so we had to heat it up to wash said dishes and I had to cook on a hot plate for three weeks. We all know how much I LOVE camping! All remedied now, except the hot water in the kitchen sink thing but something tells me this is not a matter of urgency for the roomies.

-Street Vendors. Yes, I know they exist in the US but not so much in fair Buffalo and I don't mind if I do partake in a manjar-filled churro as I stroll to the feria and a sopaipilla on the way home. Except, good Lord, the churro-lady in Plaza Victoria is so disgusting, every time I pass her by and think I could be tempted by the hot, sweet fried dough, I see her commiting yet another egregious act. If she's not smoking and letting the ash blow all over the treats, she's letting birds roost on a mountain of churros. The other day, she was mopping the ground with a horrifyingly dirty mop and no bucket of water or sink in sight. She makes me sick, that lady. But the guys in Parque Italia are pretty friendly and clean, although they're kinda stingy on the sugar. Oh, and those hot peanuts with sugar, which I've never sampled but the smell....ooooooooWEEEEEE. Actually, speaking of smells...

-...there are innumerable bakeries here and while I am generally unimpressed with a lot of their sweets and the daily pan amasado, the smells just kill me. A while back, I was lamenting about the lack of bakeries in the 'Lo, a friend new to the area asked me about a good place to get baked goods on a lazy weekend morning and I had to say Wegmans. I love Wegmans just as much as anyone but it's not exactly what you think of when you conjure up images of quaint, neighborhood bakery. I found a place recently on Plaza Victoria that has LOVELY stuff, including these glazed, whole chesnuts that are DELICIOUS!!!!

-Speaking of chesnuts, have you ever had chesnut puree? I know it exists other places, I'm just wondering if it tastes the same as it does here so I know whether or not to fill up my suitcase with it on the way home. Lucuma puree is another current favorite, it's a fruit here that I suppose has no translation, wiki calls it eggfruit, like chirimoya/custard apple, this does nothing for me. The flavor reminds me of maple syrup (and wiki says sweet potato, I can see that), the good stuff, and it is a wonderful addition to yogurt, oatmeal or straight out of the jar. I have no shame. It's also my current, favorite ice cream flavor, mixed with a little Cuatro Leches (yes, like my beloved Tres Leches cake, but as an ICE CREAM flavor. And with coconut milk as the fourth milk!!!!!)

-Fixed lunches. I mentioned above that I would like to be a lady who lunches. In fact, I do quite often. Most places do a fixed lunch menu, three courses, for anywhere from $1400-$3500 pesos ($2.50-$6). Well, the really ritzy places might be as high as $5500 pesos but I'm not referring to them. At that price, I could eat out daily and often did when we were, ummm, "camping" those first few weeks in the new place.

-I realize I have been talking only about food, sorry! Even though I sometimes get annoyed with the relaxed sense of time here, I have learned to take advantage of it. For example, the other day I was supposed to work at 11 but I didn't feel like it so I called the boss and told her I'd be there at 3. She does it to me all the time so why not turn the tables? And it was totally fine! That would NOT fly at home. I learned this tactic from my bestie Amy-she used to drive me crazy when we'd be sitting on the couch and she'd say "Cleatis (that's what we call each other)? Get me a glass of water?" I'd look at her exasperated and say "But you're closer!" to which she'd reply "Yeah, but I'd do it for you!" And she would, so instead of being annoyed about it, I just started asking her to pick stuff up at the grocery store for me when she was on her way over. Likewise, instead of getting crabby that someone is 45 minutes late, AGAIN, hit snooze! Let 'em wait! Have another cup of coffee, whatever!

-Back to things that crack me up linguistically, I am super-enamored with the use of the words super,yapo and especially appropriated words form English. Chileans like to put super in front of everything and for some reason, I find this super-chistoso. It's also super-easy to do in English so you can expect to hear it super-a lot from me. We've already discussed how the suffix 'po' is used and I especially love it after 'ya,' which means already but here people use it in many ways like "ok, got it, ready to order? be right there, enough, cut it out." Add po on the end and I am dying. The little boys I live this would use this all the time with each other, drawing out the syllables "Pero Manuel, yaaaaa-po!". You can imagine my delight when I came upon the Yapo store.




Excuse the abrupt ending, but I need to close up shop and head home!

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Looking over Santiago from Cerro San Cristobal.

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The other day, while wandering around Playa Ancha, I turned around and saw this view. Will I ever tire of seeing the bay and the hills offered up around every bend?