What a Trip!

The trip to Punta Arenas (PA) was filled with a lot of unexpected curve balls.  First of all, before even going to PA we had a dilemma with purchasing the plane tickets.  There were 4 of us in all traveling: my friends Susan, Hannah and Emily and myself (I know, lucky guy traveling with 3 girls! Bound to happen when there’s 22 girls and only 6 guys in our group)  Susan is our designated travel agent and she was the first to buy her ticket.  I tried to buy the same roundtrip ticket she had through airline “A” a couple weeks later but discovered the return flight was full.  So I bought a one-way ticket going to PA on the same flight through airline “A” and a return ticket through a different airline, let’s call it airline “B.”  Hannah and Emily bought roundtrip tickets through a completely different airline.

 

Anyways, long story short, airline A went out of business so airline B took responsibility for airline A’s flights.  So, Susan and I ended up having our flight to PA changed from 8:00 in the morning to 10:30—ate away at part of the day but not a big deal.  The bigger problem was the return flight.  Since I had already bought my return ticket through airline B, nothing was changed with my flight.  But the return flight Susan had (the original roundtrip ticket through airline “A”) did get changed and she ended up (supposedly) on the same flight as me going home.  When we got to the check-in counter however, we realized that this wasn’t the case because her flight somehow didn’t get confirmed.  The lady told us that there was no room and she would have to wait until the next day to fly out.  This was a bit of a problem since Hannah and I had our flights all set to leave that afternoon (Emily left PA a day earlier).  We talked to the lady at the counter in Spanish to see if there was any other option but she said the only option was to go on the next day’s flight, which was at 9pm, which means that it would be too late to get a bus back to Vina from Santiago when the flight arrived at around midnight.  I even asked about changing my ticket to the following day so there would at least be 2 of us together but there were only high class seats left so it would have been uber expensive. 

 

We ended up having to board our flights leaving Susan at the PA airport by herself in tears.  Hannah and I felt terrible!  We were planning on spending Monday in Santiago since we didn’t have class due to a national holiday, but when Hannah and I met up in the Santiago airport we just decided to get a taxi to the bus station and take a bus back to Vina after all that had happened.  Susan went back to the hostel that we were at in PA (fortunately it was a pretty sweet hostel, keep reading to hear why) and spent another night there.  Now we are all safely back in Vina, thank God. 

 

I don’t want to make it sound like the trip sucked, because I actually really liked it.  It’s just the whole airline issue part was pretty lame.  The first 2 nights (Tuesday and Wednesday) we spent in Puerto Natales, a city about 3 hours from Punta Arenas.  Susan and I were travel companions the whole way there since we had the same flight.  We had to take off and land 3 times because of two stopovers on the way to PA, the southern most city in the world apparently.  Then we had to take a 3-hour bus to Puerto Natales where our hostel was (Hospedaje Maria)—Maria even came to meet us at the bus drop-off point.  Emily and Hannah were already at the hostel.  We were pretty wiped out from traveling so we all just went and got some dinner and went back to the hostel. 

 

I was surprised how late it was when the sun finally went down—around 10:30 or so.  PA is like 53 degrees south, so it’s farther south than Minnesota is north (MN is about 45 degrees).  The first full day in Puerto Natales we went to Torres del Paine national park. We had an option to do a full day hike to the top of the Torres (towers) or do a drive around tour from below.  I pushed to do the day hike to the top, even though I think some of the girls may have rather done the drive around tour (not to name any names COUGH COUGH, Susan and Hannah). I give them credit for going on it with me though.  Emily was at the other end of the spectrum—I had to work hard to keep up with her.  The hike to the top was almost 4 hours and then another 4 hours back to the bottom.  I thought the view was totally worth it, except we didn’t get to stay up there very long because we had to make sure we made it down in time to catch the bus back to town, since we were pretty much in the middle of nowhere. 

 

At the top the climb got rougher and rockier.   Hannah decided she had enough about half way up the rocky part and found a rocky seat where she waited until we came back down.  Susan and I kept going while Emily was ahead of us almost out of our site.  We found out that Susan’s the accident prone one in the group; she endured a few minor injuries during the expedition.  We took the bus back to Puerto Natales and went to a Pizza place where we met some Australians.  We each ate an entire pizza, and they were fairly generous portions! 

 

The next day, Thursday, we left our hostel in Puerto Natales and bussed it back to PA.  Before catching the bus to PA however, the girls (minus Hannah who stayed back at the hostel) made me go shopping with them.  Well, they didn’t so much as make me, as much as there really wasn’t anything else to do so I just went with.  I’m not going to complain because they came with to Torres del Paine without fuss, so I’m just going to zip it!  The hostel that we had in PA was more like a house with extra rooms than a hostel.  It was run by this older woman and she lived there (she wasn’t really old, just old to me—like 60’s).  The first night we were there we met these other two travelers: one from San Diego and the other from Boston.  They accompanied us on the tour to see the penguins on Friday.  On Friday in the morning we went on a historical tour and saw a reconstructed military fort and some other stuff.  It was kind of relaxing compared to Torres del Paine, but I thought it was kind of boring.  After the tour we had lunch in PA and then went on a tour to see the penguins with our new hostel friends.  These were the Magallanes penguins (I saw the Humbolt penguins when I went to La Serena in the north).  They were in a natural habitat and there was a path constructed for viewing.  It was super windy too. After the tour we went with our hostel friends to a Chinese/international food buffet.   

 

The next day, Saturday, Emily left in the morning and the 3 of us slept in and went to the centro, or the main plaza with our hostel friends in the afternoon.  We got some lunch and then our friends had to leave for the airport.  We went back to the hostel and relaxed for a while.  Saturday was also Susan’s birthday, so we went out eat at another Chinese place for dinner.  We tried to rent a movie afterwards, but they wouldn’t rent to us because we didn’t have a local address.  It worked out OK though because we had some free entertainment back at the hostel. It ended up that this woman’s family came to visit from Argentina, including two ten-year-old twin grandkids and they were fun to have around.  They entertained us with these little puppets and then they came into our room and got into our cereal and we somehow ended up having a sort of a contest to see who could catch the most cereal in their mouth and in the process made kind of a mess.  They were up until about midnight and then their mom made them go to bed.

 

The following afternoon, Sunday, was when we were all supposed to leave PA.  Once again the twins were our entertainment.  I brought out my camera to take some photos and I let them have it for a little while.  They had fun making goofy videos.  We also had a pillow fight until their mom put a stop to that.  I may or may not have been the culprit there. 

 

Susan, Hannah and I took a taxi to the airport and that’s when that whole drama began. 

 

This week we’re finishing up classes—have some papers to write but it’s so damn nice out I have 0 motivation!  Friday the 12th is officially the last day of classes, but I don’t have class on Fridays so I’m done on Thursday.  I’m leaving for Buenos Aires Argentina Friday and I’m excited!  Come back to Vina the 18^th and then my flight home leaves the 22^nd.   It’s going too fast!  I’ll see everyone very soon!  

Photos

Photos

 

 

  

 

 

 

I’m #$%&ing tired!

As I write this it is almost 11pm and I haven’t slept in like 30 something hours.  I had a final in my Chilean history class today and an essay that was due for my Latin American cinema class and, since I’m kind of a procrastinator, I left writing the essay and studying for the test until last night and ended up not going to bed.  My bad.  I’m glad to almost be done with classes.  Tomorrow I’m leaving with 3 others to Punta Arenas, a city in the way south of Chile.  I’m really excited to go!  Our bus to the airport leaves from Vina at 5am so I have to get up at about 3:30, yay!  Sleep is overrated anyways!

 

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!  Our group had our own Thanksgiving down here with our host families on Friday.  MY host dad and host sister came with me.  We each brought something and shared a part of our American culture with our Chilean friends and families.  There was like 90 people, so it was a pretty good sized thanksgiving dinner.

 

This past month of November

the six of us guys here participated in a “no shave November.”  I also got a tattoo, but it’s fake—just henna, and I shaved so I no longer look like a bad-ass.   

 

I’m gonna have to be done because I’m exhausted.  I just wanted to post before leaving.  I come back to Vina on December 8^th.   

I'll post sometime soon after I get back.

Back from Chiloé

Last week our group traveled south to the Island of Chiloé.  In all, it’s about a 20-hour bus ride, but we made stops along the way to break it up a bit.  The first day, Saturday, we left Viña in the morning and drove for like 9 hours to the city of Concepción where we spent the night in a hostel.  Sunday morning we left Concepción and drove to Lota, an old mining town.

 

 In Lota, we toured the “Chiflon del Diablo” (The devil’s whistle) coal-mine that's no longer in use, but is now open to tourists.  That was kind of neat because we put on helmets with headlights (like real miners) and walked through parts of the mine, which goes underground

about 140 feet and then turns and goes underneath the ocean floor.  While we were in the bus on the way to the mine we watched a video called Subterra (Underground) about life in Lota during the early 1900’s.  In the town of Lota during this period, the mine was all that existed, so that’s where all the men worked.  There were no labor laws back then so it was basically mandatory to put in 14+ hour workdays six days a week doing extremely labor-intensive work unless you were physically unable to do so.  Even those who physically shouldn’t be doing such work did because they needed to eat.  The workers got paid in tokens that could only be used at the company store.  Because miners were paid so poorly, families often had to take male children out of school to work in the mine at young ages just to afford food.  Workers often died young from black-lung disease or from frequent accidents that occurred in the mine (explosions/cave-ins).  From the late 1800’s to when the mine closed in 1997, thousands of workers had died either due to accidents or diseases caused by working in the mine.  In a way, touring the mine was more like touring a massive tomb than it was like touring an industrial work place due to how many people have died inside of it over the years.   

 The owner of the mine in the early 1900’s was a North American (a Gringo, as they say here). He and his family had one mansion in Lota and another one in Santiago.  The movie Subterra is a documentary that depicts life in Lota during this time based on the writings of Baldomero Lillo, the company store tenant who kept a diary that focused on the sufferings of the miners and their families.  In the movie, the workers form a workers’ union and elect Baldomero to lead them.  They write a list of demands for the owner such as reducing the workday to 12 hours and banning child labor in the mine.  These humble demands are met, but the mine continues its operation as a death camp. 

Eventually the Chilean government took over the mine until it was closed in 1997.  Watching the video made me appreciate not being a miner!  When we toured the mine, I was reminded of an episode of the Discovery Channel program Dirty Jobs.  In this episode, Mike Rowe spends a workweek with a miner from West Virginia in a West Virginian coalmine.  These workers put in a grueling, labor-intensive 10-12 hour workday six days a week and often come from a long line of miners.  One big difference between these miners and the miners from Lota in the 1900s is that the West Virginian miners are raking in over $60,000 a year for their labors and, fortunately, they’re not forced to spend that money in a company store!  We left Lota and drove to Villarrica where we spent the second night.             

 

On Monday morning, we left Villarica and drove the rest of the way to Chiloe.  Before crossing the ferry to get to the island of Chiloe, we had lunch in the city of Angelmó.  The southern part of Chile is known for having really good seafood so, naturally, that’s what a lot of people had for lunch in Angelmó.  Fortunately for me, I’m not such a big fan of seafood.  I say “fortunately” because many who had seafood got sick. 

After lunch, our bus crossed on the ferry to Chiloe and we set out to find the house that the girls were to stay at.  The girls and guys had to be separated the two nights we spent in Chiloe because there wasn’t enough room for the whole group to stay at one house.

 

The houses that we stayed at were kind of like a bread-and-breakfast type set up.  They were out in the boonies with rural families.  The guys’ house was pretty big and had a bunch of small rooms for us to stay in.  The family is apparently used to having large groups of people stay with them; they definitely know how to cook for large crowds and are generous with their provisions.  We stayed with them two nights.  The first night we had a big dinner

accompanied with wine and then some of us stayed up for a while conversing.

 The second day (election Tuesday), we drove around the Island of Chiloe in our big bus.  The landscape was gorgeous.  We were supposed to see 3 historical wooden colonial churches, but we only saw 1 because the other 2 were closed for construction, which we discovered when we got to them.  Nonetheless, it was a pretty drive.  

During the evening the whole group came over to the guys’

 house for Curanto prepared by the rural family we stayed with.  Curanto is a type of food that is typical of southern Chile.  It’s a custom that comes from the indigenous peoples of that region.  To make it, basically you make a big camp fire hole in the ground, get a fire going and then form layers of food over the fire—first the meats and chicken, then, on the top layer, sea food and clams.  Between layers they put some type of leaves in there for flavoring.  Then you cover everything with some type of a fire-retardant tarp and let it cook for a few hours.  That was another feast, with wine of course—very good!  

We were then all excited for the election.  Since we were with a rural family out in the boonies, we didn’t get CNN or anything.  But, we did get some Chilean news station on one of the three channels that came in and it provided coverage of the election in Spanish.  I went to bed because I didn’t want to stay up all night watching it. 

 

On Wednesday morning, after breakfast and a walk through the woods, we left our rural family’s house and drove to Castro, one of the main cities on the island of Chiloe, where we had lunch. Then, with our bus, we boarded a ferry back to the main land, stopped for a while at the artisanal fair and started driving to Puerto Montt, where we spent the night in a cabin.  

We left Puerto Montt in the morning after breakfast and started driving towards the city of Valdivia.  On the way, we stopped at an old military fort.  Once we got close to Valdivia, we stopped at the Kunstmann brewery, where we had lunch.  After lunch we went on a tour of the brewery.  Kuntsmann is a well-known Chilean beer.  German immigrants started the brewery at the beginning of the century (go figure!).  In the south of Chile, there is a strong German presence because many Germans immigrated to the southern part of Chile in the late 1800’s (kind of like Minnesota!).  Therefore, it’s not uncommon to see German food on the menu in restaurants in this region.  We spent the night in Valdivia and left on Friday morning for Curico, where we spent the next night. 

 

Saturday morning we went to this huge museum in Curico and wandered around the main plaza before boarding the bus to head back to Viña.  We got back to Viña at about 6 in the evening.  For other photos from the trip click here.

 

This past week has been kind of crazy for my host family.  My host dad’s father has been sick with cancer and this past week he got gravely ill.  Thus, my host family has been spending a lot of time at the hospital and helping out my host dad’s mom.  Don't like to end on a sad note, but on Friday, his dad past away and I went with to the funeral today (Saturday).  

Mendoza, Argentina

OK, it’s been a while since I’ve written about what I have been doing (about 3 weeks or so).  Things have been picking up here and I’ve been a lot busier than the first couple months.  That and I probably don’t manage my time very well, so I keep putting off writing on the blog.  Anyways, part of the reason I am a little busier now is that I finally started my service learning.  Service learning counts as one of my classes—I get the same number of credits as I would for a normal class (4).  We choose from a list of service learning sites and document our hours and, at the end of the semester, write a paper about the experience.  For my service learning, I am volunteering at a private k-12 English school (St. Peter’s School).  I know, it sounds kind of ridiculous to say that I am volunteering at a private school—not really what one thinks of when talking about service.  We were able to choose from various different places to work at, one of them being a poorer school attended by kids from poorer families.  However, that school only had 3 openings and it involved working with early elementary age kids.  I wanted to work with older kids, so I was paired with St. Peter’s, where they had like 7 openings.  Anyways, I help out with the English classes (grade 7, 8 and 10).             

            When I first started a couple of weeks ago, it was really chaotic and they basically just put us in any class that they felt like (one day I ended up in a 7^th grade tech. class that was in Spanish and I just basically sat there because I didn’t know exactly how I was supposed to be helping—awkward!).  Then I went to one of the English classes and the teacher basically let me take over.  I started out just introducing myself and then I took up the rest of the class asking the kids questions and answering theirs.  That was in a 7^th grade class and now that teacher is having me come with her to her 8^th and 10^th grade classes also.  Now I prepare exercises and activities for the classes and I like it a lot more than I did at the beginning. 

 

            I’ve definitely noticed how different schools are here compared to schools in the US.  For example, I can literally just walk in St. Peter’s School with out stopping at a desk or getting a visitor’s pass or anything.  Also, the school is much smaller with about 30 students per grade.  Also, the school, since it is private, is family owned and operated more like a business.  Other private schools in Chile are considered corporations.  Another thing I’ve noticed is that the teachers are often late to class and, in general, very disorganized.  Often times the class will be completely nuts and the teacher won’t do anything.  Sometimes the teachers will just leave the classroom for a period of about 10 minutes or so.  I was really surprised that day that I “helped out” in the tech class when I saw that a student had brought a paintball gun to class and was showing it off to his friends after class had ended!  The English teachers I’ve been working with don’t put up with any bull crap, however.   

 

I go to St. Peter’s on Wednesdays and Fridays in the mornings.  Since I have class Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, that means no more sleeping in.  I’m somehow supposed to get 80 hours in before the end of the semester, but I don’t see that happening, since I’m limited to Wednesday and Friday mornings and will have to miss some days for traveling.  

A couple weeks ago our group went to a partido de futbol (soccer game) at the national stadium in Santiago.  It was Chile Vs. Argentina, their historic rival.  Argentina always wins—they’ve won every game in the past thirty-something years.  But, this time Chile won!  It was a pretty exciting game to see.  On the bus ride back to Vina people were honking their horns and waving their Chilean flags out car windows, it was wild. 

 

We got back to Vina at about one something in the morning after the game, a Wednesday night.  A group of us skipped our senior seminar class on Thursday and went to Mendoza, Argentina, about an 8-hour bus ride from Vina del Mar.  We drug our sleep-deprived bodies to the bus terminal at about 7 in the morning.  I slept a little on the bus.  The bus ride through the Andes was gorgeous.  Click here to see photos  We got to Mendoza in the

afternoon and found our hostel.  Mendoza, and Argentina in general, is known for having excellent food that’s reasonably priced.  The first night we were there I confirmed that popular belief.  A large group of us went to an all-you-can-eat buffet that was a-m-a-z-i-n-g!!! Hands down, best buffet ever!  For those of you who have eaten at the Mystic Lake buffet, this one was better, and I love the Mystic Lake buffet.  The buffet was like 20 Argentinean pesos, which equals about 7 US dollars.  Since the buffet was so cheap, we decided to buy a few bottles of cheap wine.  We all ate WAY more that we should have and left feeling like we had bowling balls in our stomachs. It was awesome!  

We all went out that night and got back to the hostel late (like 4 am late).  We were all signed up with the hostel to go on a bike ride wine tour the following morning.  However, I decided in the morning that I didn’t want to go so I stayed at the hostel and slept most of the day.  I don’t regret that decision one bit.  On Saturday, a group of us went on a white water rafting and canopying excursion through our hostel.  Some others went paragliding, which I almost did but decided not to because I don’t really like heights, and it was expensive.  The white water rafting and canopying was super fun.  

 

On Saturday evening, we went to this really good Mexican restaurant.  Sunday, we walked around the city a little, well, actually a lot, checking out the main plaza.  Our bus back to Vina left Mendoza at about 10 pm.  I actually slept a little, but had to get up at 2:30am once we reached the border to go through customs.  That took about an hour and a half.  It took a while to fall back asleep, but I for sure slept because the next thing I remember was waking up from a deep sleep as we pulled into the bus terminal in Vina.  That was at about 6am.  I caught a cheep cab back to my host family’s house but I didn’t bother sleeping anymore because I had classes at 9:30 and I knew if I went to sleep, I wouldn’t be getting up for class.  I took a huge nap after classes to make up for lost sleep.   

 

When we got back from Mendoza we had a nice little present waiting for us: a midterm exam for our senior seminar class!  It was a take-home midterm: basically write two, three page essays.  Our profe emailed it to us on Thursday, but, since we left for Mendoza on Thursday and didn’t get back until Monday morning, we obviously didn’t have time to work on it at all.  I had to pull a straight-up all nighter to get it done, and I don’t feel like it was very good. 

 

Homework is starting to be kind of a drag.  It’s definitely the biggest challenge while studying abroad—it’s very difficult to focus.  Also, I’m getting kind of bored of having all humanities classes because all you do is write.  I kind of miss my psych. classes.  

 

            This coming week, our entire group is traveling south to Chiloe.  We are gone from Saturday to Saturday.  This is the one big excursion that is part of the program so we all go together.  I’m excited because it sounds like we’ll be doing a lot of cool stuff (like going inside a mine that goes underneath the ocean floor, and touring a brewery).  Also, we don’t have classes and no homework! 

 

We only have about 7 weeks left in Chile.  I’m looking forward to seeing everyone at Christmas time.  I’ll post the week I get back from Chiloe.  Hope those of you in Minnesota are enjoying the snow! Ha ha!                          

It's hard to believe it has already been a year

Instead of writing about what’s happening in Chile, I decided to comment on something much more important, at least for me.  It’s now been about one year since my mom passed away.  Let’s not be euphemistic, this past year has sucked!  It has sucked a lot.  To say I think about my mom daily is an understatement—more like constantly.  Especially here in Chile, where I wish I could tell her about all the cool stuff I have been able to see and do and show her all the photos that I’ve been able to share with all of you who read my blog.

 

I cannot quite grasp that she is not here.  I half expect to come home in December to her waiting for me with open arms realizing that these past 12-16 months were mysteriously just a nightmare or some crude joke.  Despite that these last 16 months have been horrible, a true nightmare realized, I try and adopt an attitude that can be summarized by an album title, “When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint that Shit Gold” (Atmosphere).  It is hard to imagine how one could figuratively paint anything even close to gold with something so sour as the death of a parent, and such a great parent my mom was.  Still, I know that she would want for me, for us, to continue trying to enjoy life, as difficult as it may be. 

 

This is what I have been trying to keep in mind while in Chile.  Many of you probably know that I was originally going to go to Chile last year until I canceled the trip when my mom got sick. The day that my mom found out she had cancer, the first thing she said to me when I walked in the house, while giving me a big hug, was that she didn’t want to ruin my trip to Chile.  Obviously I didn’t care the least bit about going to Chile then—it was the last thing on my mind at the time.  But she did care.  In a very characteristic and selfless way, mom continued expressing more concern for others than she did for herself, despite that she had just received pretty grave news about her own health. 

 

Now that it has been a year, we have to ask ourselves what she would want us to be doing, as there is no better way to honor someone than to fulfill their wishes when they are no longer here. I think this year she would have wanted me to take up this opportunity and to try and make the most of it.  This is what I’m trying to do here—take those lemons and try and make something good of them.  Some days I’m somewhat successful, others not so much, but the least one can do is try, it’s what she would have wanted. 

The following photo was taken during memorial day weekend while camping about a week before we found out it was cancer.   My mom would probably be upset with me for putting a picture of her in her pajamas on my blog for all of you to see, but I really like this picture.  Forgive me mom! 

I’ll post again soon to keep people up to date on what I’ve been doing the past three weeks.  

La Serena

Hey all,

It looks like the last time I wrote was before we went to the Obama-McCain debate, so I’ll just start with that.  We went to watch the debate at our university’s other campus in Santiago.  It turned out to be kind of a big deal because they had local news station cameras and photographers on site.  It looked like we were the only “gringos” in the audience of about eighty people or so, but everything was still in English.  Some people in our group even got interviewed by one of the news channels and some got their picture taken and were on the front page of a Santiago area newspaper.  I was just glad that I didn’t get interviewed!  The only disappointing thing was that there was no cocktail party beforehand like I was told there would be! 

The Sunday after the debate (the 28^th) we went on a group excursion to La Isla Negra where we saw another one of the eccentric houses of Pablo Neruda, the famous Chilean poet.  This one was located on a beach with a really nice view (photo to the right). 

 

Between excursions and during the week I spent a lot of time reading because 

we have had an overwhelming amount to read lately for one of my classes. 

 

This past Thursday afternoon, after my last class, I went with a group to La Serena, a beach city about six and a half hours north of Vina.  (The photo to the right is from the Valle del Elqui just outside of La Serena)

It is one of the oldest cities in Chile and it is very touristy.  Since it isn’t tourist season however, it was pretty laid-back and not a lot of people were there.  On the way up we rode in a double-decker bus on the top floor in the front, so we had a pretty sweet view while driving.  We got there at about 8ish and walked around for a while trying to find our hostel, and then got dinner at a restaurant.  Friday we wandered around town during the day.  Then some others from our big group joined us in the evening (some have class on Fridays so they came up later).

 

Friday night I went with three others to an astronomical observatory.  We rode on a bus for about an hour to get away from the city.  Up in the hilly terrain out in the boonies conditions are ideal for astronomical observation because over 300 nights of the year are clear and light pollution is minimal.  One of the U.S.’s main research observatories is located there.  There are also several other observatories for tourists.  We went to one of those.  We got to see the moon through two telescopes and we could see the planet Jupiter and three of its moons.  We also saw some nebulas and constellations, some of which can only be seen in the southern hemisphere.  I really like astronomy so I thought that was pretty neat!

 

Saturday morning we got up and went on a trip that we arranged through our hostel to Valle del Elqui, which is kind of where we went the night before to look at stars except it was daytime so we could actually see.  The landscape in this area is spectacular.  We saw a big, man-made dam on the Elqui river.  We also took a tour of a Pisco factory.  Pisco is a very typical Chilean drink that’s made kind of like how wine is made.  Valle del Elqui is considered the Pisco capital of Chile because the majority of Chile’s Pisco is produced in this region.  I bought a bottle there to bring back to Minnesota in case anyone wants to try some!  We also saw the birthplace and tomb of the well-known Chilean writer Gabriela Mistral.  We ate lunch at this place that heats its food from the sun.  Pictures of the "sun ovens" are in my La Serena album below.  We didn’t get back to La Serena until about 7 so it was kind of a long day.  We just went and got dinner and then headed back to the hostel and hung out. 

 

Sunday morning, two compañeros and myself went on another excursion to La Isla de Lamas, an island out in the ocean somewhere.  We drove for a couple of hours in a van until we were in the middle of nowhere and then we got in this small boat and drove out to an island.  I’m pretty sure I’ve never been in a boat out on the ocean before and I got kind of nervous when I saw huge waves coming at us while we we’re in this boat that was about the size of a long fishing boat.  While driving around the island we saw penguins and sea lions, it was pretty sweet!  Then we went to another island and walked around for a while before heading back to shore for a late lunch.  We got back to the hostel at around 6 and then went and walked around for a while and then got some dinner.

 

Our bus back to Vina left from La Serena at 11:30pm.  We had sleeper seats on the first floor this time so I attempted to sleep, although it wasn’t very consistent.  We got back to Vina at about 6:00am and I had class at 9:30 this morning, so I was fighting to stay awake in my classes. 

 

That’s all the news for now, I’ll post next time I have something worthy of posting.  You can check out some sweet photos from La Serena by clicking on this link: La Serena

The other photos, including new ones I've added from La Isla Negra, are accessible via this link: other photos