Jillian`s Chilean Updates

See, that blog title is funny if you pronounce “Chilean” incorrectly, as the Chileans actually do, so it rhymes with Jillian. I feel like the way we pronounce it is probably correct- as in “ChiLEan,” but maybe we are the wrong ones after all.

Just wanted to do some updating on here, as it´s been awhile and if I wait too long, everything just piles up and then I`d have to write a 14 page long blog entry, which I know no one feels like reading. So here goes.

First off, better start with our New Year`s plans and post Christmas fun. We stayed in Santiago until the morning of Dec 29th because we had to wait to get our $140 (evil) Brazilian visas back from the Consulate. I know that all these things are reciprocal, but that amount of money seems entirely harsh when working on such a small budget. Luckily, we were approved and will now be allowed to enter Brazil- good thing since our flight to London is out of Sao Paulo. I also got some great advice from Madison -  she said, “I think the next time you run into people that are rude to Americans, you should tell them that America is going to come after them next and that Bush is your uncle and you have a weapon of mass destruction in your backpack and then do the pledge of allegience!” Thank you Mad-dawg!Nothing too exciting about the rest of our time in Santiago though.  

We decided to go check out Valparaiso & Viña del Mar, which are two little cities right next to each other on the beach, and about two hours north from Santiago. While looking for hostels in Valpo (as the locals call it), we discovered that the city has one of the biggest New Year`s Eve celebrations in all of South America! We couldn`t find a room that we could afford for the night of the 31st, so we just booked rooms for the 29th, 30th, and January 1st, and decided to do as the locals do and stay out all night on the 31st and not worry about not having a room. Valpo was pretty sweet- they call it the San Francisco of South America because of all the hills. The houses up there are gorgeous and all painted different colors. I`d injured my back in Santiago, so took advantage of the adorable cafè culture up in the hills to rest it up. Luckily, now I`m back to 100% again.

So, on to New Year`s Eve…

We met a kid in our hostel who was actually friends with the people we partied with on Christmas Day (random), so we were going to spend the night with them. We had to check out of our hostel by 1pm, though they allowed us to leave our backpacks there. Since we didn`t want to risk getting robbed, we only brought our money belt with us. We wandered up into the hills again and enjoyed smoothies (they make the BEST ones in Chile!) and read books that the cafe had in their stash, until around 5pm, when we went to meet our Xmas day friends in their hostel. We found our friends who told us they weren`t leaving the hostel until 8 and to meet them at that time, so we wandered down the street and I eyed a little place with books and figured we could continue reading until we were going to meet them. Turned out that this little place was the cultural center of Valpo, run by crazy Professor J, a 65 or so year old gentleman, who also happened to be the independent candidate for Mayor of Valpo and the current “president” of the neighborhood we were in. We stayed at his little house from 5pm until 1030pm or so. He served us Cuba Libre`s (with rum actually FROM Cuba) and we chatted and he had tons of visitors throughout the evening, as he IS the president! The first visitors were this hippie kid around our age, who worked in a sort of artist commune, and an older gentleman who looked like he was from India, but was actually an Indiginous Chilean man, who worked as a storyteller, magician, singer, musician, etc. He told us that the word “indiginous” was actually insulting to him, because it means “Without God.” Interesting. Anyway, they were both very hippie-ish and kept getting up to dance to this crazy music and played native instruments for us, etc. At one point, they went outside to pour some wine on the earth and some other hippies walked by and they all started forming a little circle on this one square of earth that was in the middle of the sidewalk. They called us out there and told us that we were going on the subway, as we all just huddled together on the little square of earth. I thought they meant some virtual subway for our minds or something equally “hippie-ish,” but turned out they were just testing the amount of people that were supposed to be able to fit in each 1 sq meter of the ACTUAL subway. It was pretty confusing, but HILARIOUS when I thought that they expected us to go on some mind-subway. Maybe you had to be there, I dunno… Anyway, the Professor was hosting a big dinner that night, so we helped him prepare the salad (I think I must have cut up cilantro for about 2 hours) and made mashed potatoes without a masher.  Around 11pm, we left the professor to go find other friends, and we ended up running into these two guys from Santiago, who were really nice and invited us to their bbq with their family and friends up in the hills. We needed a spot to watch the fireworks from, so we went up there with them. They were all super nice and the fireworks were seriously spectacular- they went on for about 20 mins and covered the entire bay- absolutely gorgeous. I`m sad I don`t have any pictures. Dee tried explaining to one of the Chileans how she was sick of throwing toilet paper in the garbage can next to the toilet (like you have to do in all of South America), and the guy was confused and just like “what do you do with it? Throw it on the floor?!” She then said that no, in the USA, we can throw toilet paper IN the TOILET! He was absolutely FLOORED and actually didn`t even believe her for awhile! It was hilarious.  After the fireworks, we went to go find this big dance party that was in the middle of one of the main plazas. There were probably around 2,000 people there and a live band. We made new friends- some Brits, a Colombian, and some Germans, and danced the night away with them. We left the party at 7am, when the sun came up!! Seriously, probably not ONE person left before that…I`ve never been to a party like that in my life- it was really a cool experience. I was absolutely pooped by this time though, so I got a bite and got back to the hostel by 9am, expecting that they´d let me in even though we weren`t supposed to check in until 11. Unfortunately, the mean lady running the hostel made me sit on the street, outside the steps to the hostel, until 10:15am, when her son finally let me in! No one was in our room either, so she was just plain evil making me sleep out there! I felt like a little orphan, but it was a really fun experience and I certainly will never forget that New Year`s!

After Valpo/Viña, we caught a 10 hour, double-decker bus down to the top of the Lakes District to the city called Temuco. We rented a teeensy little car from there and are currently in the midst of a week long road trip around the Lakes District. Our first stop was Pucon, which is a really cute little town by the Volcano Villarrica. Companies all charge you $80 to climb it with them, but Dee and I decided to save money and try it ourselves. We could only get about half way up because from then on it was covered in snow and we did not have any equipment to scale a snow-covered steep volcano. I was proud of us for getting as far as we did though! I`ve become quite the little trekker- who would`ve thought?! A lot of it is thanks to Dee though- she has an endless amount of energy and since she is a marathon runner, always wants to run around and walk for miles and miles UP things! Good thing though, or else I`d probably weigh 200 lbs by now with all the crap we`re devouring. After our climb, we drove to the natural hot springs and soaked for awhile.

Yesterday, after a yummy breakfast, we drove all the way down to our farthest point south for this road trip to Puerto Varas. We managed to buy a used CD for our car, which has an incredible song on it called “Freaky Time” by Point Blank. PLEASE download it- it is ABSOLUTELY hilarious!!!!!

Well, might as well wrap things up for now. I added more pictures- so click on the CHILE PICS link in the blogroll and enjoy!

xox

Happy 2008!!!!!!

 

PICTURES!

Added pics from Easter Island and our Santiago Christmas finally! Link is in the blogroll.

Have a fantastic New Year`s everyone-I`ll be celebrating on the beach in Viña del Mar/Valparaiso a few hours from Santiago.

Til 2008…

xoxo

 

My Very Merry Santiago Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy Boxing Day!! Still in Santiago figuring out how we will be spending our last month in South America. We have to decide a route and if we will be visiting just Argentina and Brazil, or if we´ll throw Bolivia into the mix. It´s very difficult to choose- benefits to each course of action- and up until this point, we have pretty much had things planned out. From now on, we are kind of on our own and have to actually figure out the next steps. We did change our flight to India- we are now leaving 3 days earlier from Brazil and spending those days in London! Dee has never been and I´m really excited to meet up with Ali and all of my other English friends who live in and around London, including the new ones we have made thus far along the way. I´ll keep you updated on our plans.

Meanwhile, managed to have a fantastic Christmas! On Xmas Eve, Dee and I separated for three hours and bought each other stocking stuffers. Other than a vast amount of sweets, her gifts included canned peaches, yummy smelling deodorant, sunscreen, gummy pizzas and candy canes. I attempted to get her “Siddhartha,” because I really think she should read it before we get to India, but the tiny English book store closed 5 mins before I got there! I also tried to get her a gift certificate to Pizza Hut (she is beyond obsessed with pizza), but after spending 20 minutes trying to explain in Spanglish (mostly English actually) what a gift certificate is, I found out they don´t do that here. Being away from my translator was QUITE the challenge!!  On Christmas morning, we exchanged pressies underneath the tree in the hostel. She got me an adorable tank top (that I´m now refusing to take off, as having a 4th shirt to choose from is beyond exciting!), a huge Toblerone bar, and a mani/pedi set- along with a “coupon” for one free pedicure courtesy of Dee. After present time, we completely vegged out in the TV room and watched Frasier, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, The Office, Friends and ER. Since everything else in the city was closed, we ordered Domino´s pizza for delivery! It was fantastic to do absolutely nothing.

In the eve, we met up with Romayne and Darren, our Aussie friends from the Galapagos, at their hostel across town. We had an awesome night making new friends and hanging out with everyone at their hostel. They are pretty much the cutest couple ever.

We have run into some problems being American lately though. I tried befriending a Russian girl last night by telling her I was part Russian, but she just berated me for about 20 minutes about how Americans and the USA completely suck and what an idiot I must be for being an American, etc. The previous night, Dee and I had a similar situation with some Brazilians, who went on for about an hour about how we are all completely brainwashed losers and should be doing something to stop the war. This one guy also kept going on about how all the citizens of the country should just come together and bring down Bush, etc. It was absolutely TERRIBLE and made us both feel like shit. We are getting that a lot lately. It´s pretty awful being personally blamed for all of the horrors going on in Iraq and in the rest of the world. He also insisted that the US govt planned 9-11 and we were all assholes for not understanding that. It´s like we are expected to keep apologizing for things we can´t control- ie the privileged country we were born in. UGH!!!!! NOT fun, let me tell you.

Anyway, I hope you all had a very merry Christmas too!! Not sure where we will be for New Year´s Eve yet, though I´m sure it will be someplace exciting. We are in Santiago until Friday waiting on our Brazilian visas to be okayed by the Embassy, but will let you know where we go after that. I love that we have no idea and it´s just a few days away. :)

Peace in the middle east!

xo

Jillian 

***************UPDATE****************

We decided! We are going to skip Bolivia on this trip. Logistically, it doesn´t make too much sense to go ALL the way up there, then go back down to Buenos Aires, then all the way across to Rio. Check out the map below to get a better idea of these distances:

So now, we´re going to head down to Puerto Montt in the Lakes District of Chile, then cross over in Bariloche to Argentina, make our way up to Buenos Aires. From there, we´ll either go to Iguazu Falls (one of, or possibly the biggest, falls in the world) or through Uruguay to get to Rio de Janeiro! Yay- very exciting to have the groundwork for the next month all set.

 

Moai, Moai and more Moai

Oh boy, is island life SLOOOW! Was just on the extremely remote and tiny Easter Island (65 sq miles total) and I don´t think I´ve ever managed to do less in a week! It certaintly was interesting to go from the intense Inca Trail to a week of nothingness- talk about polar opposites. It was a vacation from my vacation. Horses, cows and bulls just seem to roam free (though they all do belong to the locals) and everyone rides horses around instead of driving cars. I can just imagine growing up there and instead of begging to borrow my parents car, we´d argue about which horse I was allowed to take out for the day! Also, the entire place shuts down for the hours of 1-5pm for siesta time. Ah- heavenly!!

After a bout of food poisoning, or something equally traumatizing, on the 5 1/2 hour plane ride from Santiago to Rapa Nui (as Easter Island is called in the local tongue), we made it to Camping Mihinoa, our hostel overlooking the ocean where we spent a great majority of our week. On our first day, taking the advice of our Canadian roomie, we went on a seven hour hike to check out some Moai (the giant statues the island is famous for) and find some caves.The Moai were pretty easy to find, as they are around 27 feet high, but we couldn´t find the caves for the life of us. We gave up and hired a taxi to take our tired feet back to the dorm.

 Before I go any further, let me take a moment to explain a little about the Moai (pronounced Mo-eye) and the origins of Rapa Nui. This information may be a little off base, as I´m reproducing it mostly from memory, but you´ll get the general idea. I´m also taking some of this information from the fictional movie “Rapa Nui,” produced by Kevin Costner, but let´s just go with that and whatever I learned on my tour today, since I´m not claiming to be a Moai scholar. It is theorized that the island was first inhabited by Polynesians, who managed to get to the most remote island in the world on their little wooden boats by following sea turtles and the stars. Once settled here around 600AD, they divided into seven clans and set up villages on the coast. After about six hundred years, the King of the most powerful clan (The Long Ears) started forcing one of the clans with less clout (The Short Ears) to build Moai to honor the spirits and give everyone good Mana (energy). They carved the Moai out of rock in the volcano quarry, which I saw first-hand, then would push them down the hill into a hole that was already dug for them, then would use ropes and pulleys to get them upright, and the Moai would “walk” to it´s Ahu (ceremonial platform) where it would finally be placed. VIPs of the villages were buried underneath the Ahu and their spirit would come alive in the Moai and they would protect the village in that way. All of the finished and placed Moai, except the 7 who were built to honor the original 7 explorers who first came to the Island, are facing the villages for protection. There are 887 Moai in existence, though most of them are still in the quarry either unfinished or awaiting transport to their ahus. No one knows exactly how they were moved six miles, as some weigh 80 tons! They think that they used wooden logs in order to roll them and that would explain why no trees were left on the island by the time the modern day explorers found it in the 1770´s. Some of the Moai even have hairstyles- they have red “topknots,” which basically makes them look like they are wearing hats- very stylish indeed! I also quickly want to explain the “Bird Man Competition.” A man was chosen from each clan to compete in this competition, which decided who would be the next king. The competitors had to run a great distance along the top of a volcano crater, climb down the cliff to the sea, swim to a tiny island off the coast where a special bird lays its eggs (while avoiding the sharks in the ocean), grab the first egg, and bring it back to the village unharmed. Whichever clan´s man did this the quickest, would be the new clan who ruled. Pretty interesting if you ask me. Imagine if Presidents were picked that way?!

And here endeth the history lesson.

Other than learning about the great mysteries of the Moai, Dee and I basically explored the entire island by foot. It was just waaay too expensive to rent a car, or even a scooter, for a day, so we did a lot of wandering. I managed to get the most tan I´ve probably ever been, just by roaming around and laying on the beach. I am paying for it now though and peeling like a mo´fo.´ There is only one real BEACH on the whole island- the other two are in town and are ridiculously small, so I wouldn´t even call them real beaches to be honest. I was surprised. The real beach is 18km away from town and had to take a taxi there and back, which is an annoying and expensive process.  

On the second night, we went to see the “Rapa Nui” movie, but before the movie started, they showed a tourism documentary about the island. It was completely pointless because as Dee proclaimed, “You already convinced us- we´re here!!!” There were tons of Japanese people at our hostel and they insisted on cooking fish heads over the fire nightly, and it was absolutely disgusting. They even ate the eyes, which they said are the healthiest part because they make you smarter! Sick!! We also cooked nearly all of our meals at the hostel, though they were a little milder than fish heads, and it was a nice change to cook.

The highlight of our week there was going to the local prison to buy handicrafts. The inmates make these crafts themselves, so they are a lot less expensive than buying them anywhere else on the island. I was trying to bargain with one of them, and he told me that it was already so much less than it´d be at the market, and Dee was like, “Oh yea?! When was the last time you went to the market?” Haha.  Anyway, the prisoners are made up of two robbers and a murderer who killed his wife after finding her in bed with another man. It was pretty crazy to be in this laid-back prison, where the gate is simply left open, and the prisoners are roaming around using CHAINSAWS to carve wood during arts and crafts time. They were all very nice and gave us lots of free presents- I think they are starved for attention from the ladies- so rewarded us for our presence quite generously. We both got necklaces made out of conch shells and chicken feathers. Dee received a pencil holder made out of the stump of a tree that was supposed to represent one of the three volcanos on the island. He insisted that Dee “practice” putting a pencil in the hole, because you know, putting a pencil in a hole is a pretty difficult art to master (insert sarcasm here). My free gift was a strawberry carved out of volcanic rock, which is also ridiculously random, but how can you turn something like that down!

On the full day tour we met this guy, David, who was about 65 and had a 32 year old physician girlfriend. He asked me if I could choose three places in the world to reside in for four consecutive months at a time, and I had all the money in the world, where would I live? I chose NYC for spring, Sydney for fall (their spring) and York, England for winter. EVERYONE thought that was absolutely hysterical- who would choose York?! Ali and I went there on our England road-trip last year, and I really just thought it was the cutest place in the world and would be so cozy for winter- like Kate Winslet´s little cottage in Surrey in the movie “The Holiday.” Anyway, thought that was hilarious.

On the 23rd, the man who ran our hostel drove us to the airport for our flight back to Santiago. The girl sitting in the front seat went to put on her seatbelt, but he wouldn´t let her put it on. I was appalled, as I am quite obsessed with putting on my seatbelts and get made fun of quite often for even using them in taxis, so I asked him “por que?” (why?). His reply was, “that´s just not how we do things here.” What is WRONG with putting on a seatbelt though?! Still confused about that one. Honestly though, most of the cars I´ve been in in all of South America don´t even OFFER seatbelts to put on.

Overall, I definitely enjoyed my “vacation,” although we did find it very difficult to fill all of the hours of the day since it didn´t get dark until 10pm and there wasn´t really a lot on the island, other than all the Moai. Had some amazing local fish and amazing papas fritas (french fries). Just to give you an idea of how pricey the island was, one night we went out and each had a cocktail and split a plate of fries and it cost $28! Ridic- just ridic.