I spent the last day of my trip venturing around the city of Salta itself.
Here is the inside of a Catholic church I found - super ornate and VERY pretty!
They have a huge hill and you can take a cable car to get to the top (takes at least 5 min to reach the top). It was only then that I realized just how big the city really was!
It was hard to believe though that my month-long vacation had finally come to an end! How can I work it out so I am permanently on vacation? Any ideas? LOL
So here are a few lessons learned on my trip/advice for you all ;)
1)NEVER leave the place you are staying without the names, address and phone numbers of the people who you are staying with! (just in case you get lost in say Montevideo...if you have these things, you won’t look foolish when people who are trying to help find your way ask “where are you staying?” and your answer is “no idea” or “what is their phone number?” “again, no idea”...you get the point!)
2)ALWAYS try and get rid of your change before leaving a country. The change houses will only change bills, NOT coins and so now I am stuck with all this random coinage. Kinda cool except I really don’t need like 20 Chilean coins!
3)Definitely take care of your camera at the beach or any other place with sand or dirt.
Just trying to help you all out! LOL =)
So, some of you know that I was not able to go back and teach at Trinity School. A long, frustrating story that basically ends up with them telling me right before xmas that I needed a work visa to keep working there. Getting this visa is expensive and takes LOTS of time, so I had to tell them that I wasn’t going to get it. Pretty frustrating since I turned down 2 jobs to keep teaching at that school! ugh
I tried to forget about the fact that I wasn’t coming back to a job on my vacation. I did a pretty good job of it actually. But then I got back to Asuncion and had to start thinking about what I was going to do. If I couldn’t find a job, it probably meant coming back to the States earlier than expected. However, God obviously wants me here a tad longer because I was fortunately able to find a job here right away. The week I got back, I sent my resume to an English institute and quickly got an interview. I am not sure of the specifics yet, but I will be teaching English classes there. However, they also run a regular K-12 school. Turns out the third grade teacher is pregnant and can’t start teaching at the beginning of the school year. So I am going to be covering for her until she comes back, sometime in May or June.
These kids are probably more like 2nd graders to us, but I will technically be the third grader teacher teaching them English Mon-Thu, 12:30-3:30pm. Hmmm 7 year olds... I have always said that I would rather teach a 7th grader than a 7 year old, a comment which always tends to surprise people! I have taught this age group before, but it has been A LONG time! So, I am going to have to get rid of the sarcastic teen/middle schooler in me and bring on my motherly elementary kid side (I am sure it is in there somewhere! HAHA). But hey, it is for 3 months and can’t be worse than some of the crazy 7th grade classes I have taught before (many of you know the stories!). Hey, I may even grow to love this age! =) Classes start March 2nd – pray for me please! =)
Quick weather update - sticky and hot here. Although I am told I missed the worst of it. Apparently the week before I got back, it was close to 115 here WITH high humidity. 115 in dry Arizona, is bad enough, I can't even imagine that heat with humidity. Thank goodness I was out of the country for that! (praying it doesn't come back either!)
Stay dry and warm all my "in the middle of winter/fighting snow storms" family and friends!
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
The tour that spoke to my love of Ecology
The last city I hit on my tour was in northern Argentina. A friend of mine here in PY highly recommended that I visit a city called Salta and I was NOT disappointed! I was expecting a small town nestled in the mountains. It turned out to be quite a large city, yet it didn’t feel like a big city. There was green and mountains everywhere, just beautiful.
Of course it turned out to be quite an adventure to get there. I took a bus from La Serena, Chile to Mendoza, Argentina and then a second bus up to Salta. The bus ride to Salta started off without a/c, which NO ONE was very happy with. What I also realized was that about every so often the bus would pull over and the guys would run with water to the back and throw it on something back there! Yea, that wasn’t super encouraging! We finally got to a bus terminal and they just threw buckets and buckets of water on some mechanical part in the back. Fortunately, that somehow gave us a/c for the next part of the ride. When we got to another terminal, we actually ended up switching buses! Because of all that, I knew we would be getting into Salta late. Around 8am, we pulled over to the side of the road and a bunch of people got off the bus and onto another bus. I didn’t think much of it b/c I was VERY tired and the trip had already been a little weird. After that we hit a car accident and had to sit on the bus for an hour and wait for traffic to clear. It was when we finally hit a city called Jujuy that I started to think something was wrong with this picture. I recognized the name of the town and knew it was near Salta. So I decided to ask the bus driver how much time was left. This is when I discovered that all the people who had gotten off the bus earlier were the ones going to Salta. From that intersection we stopped at, Salta is about 45 minutes west. So the bus drops the Salta people off and then continues going north – it doesn’t actually go into town to the terminal (I of course kept expecting us to show up in the Salta terminal). The bus driver was a bit shocked I was asking him this to say the least. I asked him for my bag and he then told me it was in Salta. At this point in time I had been on a bus for close to two days and therefore was VERY tired, hungry and now very embarrassed by my situation – yea NOT pretty. Fortunately, the guy was very nice. He called the bus terminal in Salta and found out that my bag was still there. He also showed me the bus company where I needed to buy my bus ticket to get back to Salta (a 2 hour bus ride south!) In end, I ate lunch, got on a new bus and finally made it to my hostel in Salta. Whew, was that exhausting!
Once I got settled into the hostel and talked with the guy who worked there about cool stuff to do in the area. I decided to take an all day tour the next day and it was awesome! The tour was small – only 4 of us, plus our tour guide. Our guide’s name was JuanJo and he and I actually have the same birthday – crazy! We drove in a big loop northwest of Salta – 520km to be exact and it was amazing. I studied Ecology in college, so I have always had a love of nature/plants and animals. This trip ended up being perfect for me! As you can see from the pictures below, the landscape changed like every 10 minutes. One minute it was green and lush, the next minute it was filled with cactus and the next minute it was brown and dry. Just beautiful and unbelievable at the same time!
Along the way we saw a ton of llamas. The people in Argentina use the wool to make blankets, sweaters… I thought about buying something made with this wool, but then quickly realized that I don't live anywhere where I need to wear llama wool to stay warm! (thank goodness for that LOL) (BTW : totally felt like the Yellowstone tourist here- as in everyone stopped on the side of the road to take a photo of the bear!)
We also saw an animal called a Vicuna. It is related to the camel and we are told can run SUPER fast! We walked up slowly to get a few photos so we wouldn’t spook them.
For the first half of the trip we were heading up in elevation. San Antonio de Cobres is about 12-13,000 feet up and is where we stopped to have lunch. We were def a bit short of breath, with heads and chests hurting a bit – it was a weird sensation actually! But we all def felt better after eating some lunch and drinking some caffeine.
After lunch, it was off to the salt flats –the white line in the distance is the salt flats!
I don’t even know if I have words to describe just how amazing the salt flats were! We came at a super cool time – the rainy season. This meant that a) we had to take off our shoes to walk on the salt flats and that b) all the water made it look like icy and snowy. What was weird was that the weather was warm and the salt and water weren’t cold and icy so the whole thing definitely messed with your mind a bit! With the white clouds in the sky and the white on the ground, there was just white EVERYWHERE – gorgeous!
We quickly realized that the water was giving us super cool reflection shots. So we first started by taking our “Jesus walking on water photo” LOL. Does it look like I am walking on water??
Then we just had fun and took a bunch of fun photos.
By the way, walking on salt is definitely not easy or all that pleasant. It looks like sand, but it is millions of tiny salt crystals that you are walking on. We found a few soft spots, but my feet were definitely hurting the next day!
But despite that, it was an amazing experience to be there. We stayed there for about an hour before our guide reminded us that we needed to get going!
After that we drove to the highest spot on our trip – 4170m up (like 13,000 feet or so). I got out of the car to take a photo and was definitely feeling a bit light-headed and dizzy…so weird!
The windy rode we drove back down after reaching the highest point.
After that it was time to head back down and finish the day. We saw some remarkable landscapes and animals on this trip. It was after this tour that I quickly realized that I am officially addicted to traveling now. I have done quite a lot of traveling in the US, but not much internationally. I had been a little nervous about traveling around South America by myself. But at the end of the trip, I realized that I had been able to get myself from place a to b, eat and sleep, and fortunately, the worst things that happened to me was my camera breaking and me missing a few buses (yes more than one! LOL) … so I am definitely coming off this trip with A LOT more confidence about seeing the world! I was actually having a hard time wanting to come back to PY - despite feeling pretty tired, I really wanted to keep traveling. I also realized that while seeing the cities and monuments is nice an all, history and such just really isn’t my thing. Yes it would still be cool to see the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the Coliseum in Rome. But after this trip, I want to see the places in the world that I have learned about in my Ecology classes or that I have taught my students about. The world is absolutely gorgeous out there and I can't wait to see more!
Of course it turned out to be quite an adventure to get there. I took a bus from La Serena, Chile to Mendoza, Argentina and then a second bus up to Salta. The bus ride to Salta started off without a/c, which NO ONE was very happy with. What I also realized was that about every so often the bus would pull over and the guys would run with water to the back and throw it on something back there! Yea, that wasn’t super encouraging! We finally got to a bus terminal and they just threw buckets and buckets of water on some mechanical part in the back. Fortunately, that somehow gave us a/c for the next part of the ride. When we got to another terminal, we actually ended up switching buses! Because of all that, I knew we would be getting into Salta late. Around 8am, we pulled over to the side of the road and a bunch of people got off the bus and onto another bus. I didn’t think much of it b/c I was VERY tired and the trip had already been a little weird. After that we hit a car accident and had to sit on the bus for an hour and wait for traffic to clear. It was when we finally hit a city called Jujuy that I started to think something was wrong with this picture. I recognized the name of the town and knew it was near Salta. So I decided to ask the bus driver how much time was left. This is when I discovered that all the people who had gotten off the bus earlier were the ones going to Salta. From that intersection we stopped at, Salta is about 45 minutes west. So the bus drops the Salta people off and then continues going north – it doesn’t actually go into town to the terminal (I of course kept expecting us to show up in the Salta terminal). The bus driver was a bit shocked I was asking him this to say the least. I asked him for my bag and he then told me it was in Salta. At this point in time I had been on a bus for close to two days and therefore was VERY tired, hungry and now very embarrassed by my situation – yea NOT pretty. Fortunately, the guy was very nice. He called the bus terminal in Salta and found out that my bag was still there. He also showed me the bus company where I needed to buy my bus ticket to get back to Salta (a 2 hour bus ride south!) In end, I ate lunch, got on a new bus and finally made it to my hostel in Salta. Whew, was that exhausting!
Once I got settled into the hostel and talked with the guy who worked there about cool stuff to do in the area. I decided to take an all day tour the next day and it was awesome! The tour was small – only 4 of us, plus our tour guide. Our guide’s name was JuanJo and he and I actually have the same birthday – crazy! We drove in a big loop northwest of Salta – 520km to be exact and it was amazing. I studied Ecology in college, so I have always had a love of nature/plants and animals. This trip ended up being perfect for me! As you can see from the pictures below, the landscape changed like every 10 minutes. One minute it was green and lush, the next minute it was filled with cactus and the next minute it was brown and dry. Just beautiful and unbelievable at the same time!
Along the way we saw a ton of llamas. The people in Argentina use the wool to make blankets, sweaters… I thought about buying something made with this wool, but then quickly realized that I don't live anywhere where I need to wear llama wool to stay warm! (thank goodness for that LOL) (BTW : totally felt like the Yellowstone tourist here- as in everyone stopped on the side of the road to take a photo of the bear!)
We also saw an animal called a Vicuna. It is related to the camel and we are told can run SUPER fast! We walked up slowly to get a few photos so we wouldn’t spook them.
For the first half of the trip we were heading up in elevation. San Antonio de Cobres is about 12-13,000 feet up and is where we stopped to have lunch. We were def a bit short of breath, with heads and chests hurting a bit – it was a weird sensation actually! But we all def felt better after eating some lunch and drinking some caffeine.
After lunch, it was off to the salt flats –the white line in the distance is the salt flats!
I don’t even know if I have words to describe just how amazing the salt flats were! We came at a super cool time – the rainy season. This meant that a) we had to take off our shoes to walk on the salt flats and that b) all the water made it look like icy and snowy. What was weird was that the weather was warm and the salt and water weren’t cold and icy so the whole thing definitely messed with your mind a bit! With the white clouds in the sky and the white on the ground, there was just white EVERYWHERE – gorgeous!
We quickly realized that the water was giving us super cool reflection shots. So we first started by taking our “Jesus walking on water photo” LOL. Does it look like I am walking on water??
Then we just had fun and took a bunch of fun photos.
By the way, walking on salt is definitely not easy or all that pleasant. It looks like sand, but it is millions of tiny salt crystals that you are walking on. We found a few soft spots, but my feet were definitely hurting the next day!
But despite that, it was an amazing experience to be there. We stayed there for about an hour before our guide reminded us that we needed to get going!
After that we drove to the highest spot on our trip – 4170m up (like 13,000 feet or so). I got out of the car to take a photo and was definitely feeling a bit light-headed and dizzy…so weird!
The windy rode we drove back down after reaching the highest point.
After that it was time to head back down and finish the day. We saw some remarkable landscapes and animals on this trip. It was after this tour that I quickly realized that I am officially addicted to traveling now. I have done quite a lot of traveling in the US, but not much internationally. I had been a little nervous about traveling around South America by myself. But at the end of the trip, I realized that I had been able to get myself from place a to b, eat and sleep, and fortunately, the worst things that happened to me was my camera breaking and me missing a few buses (yes more than one! LOL) … so I am definitely coming off this trip with A LOT more confidence about seeing the world! I was actually having a hard time wanting to come back to PY - despite feeling pretty tired, I really wanted to keep traveling. I also realized that while seeing the cities and monuments is nice an all, history and such just really isn’t my thing. Yes it would still be cool to see the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the Coliseum in Rome. But after this trip, I want to see the places in the world that I have learned about in my Ecology classes or that I have taught my students about. The world is absolutely gorgeous out there and I can't wait to see more!
Monday, February 8, 2010
La Serena, Chile/a few observations about Chile
La Serena was my very last beach town to visit. It is about 6 hours north of Santiago. I thought I had read “white sand, turquoise water” somewhere and knew I had to visit. Unfortunately, the white sand was someplace else! Oh well, next trip I suppose! But I did get to hit the beach and hear the sound of the ocean waves one last time (that is definitely my favorite sound on the planet!). Here are a few photos of the area.
Cool bird I saw in the water.
I was a little surprised to see people swimming in the water when I realized there were lots of sea jellies washed up on the beach. Most were small, but I saw this big one and had to take a photo. Hopefully from the white seashell on top of it, you can get a sense of its size!!! It was definitely bigger than a dinner plate!
But the one cool thing about visiting La Serena was getting to go on a tour to visit an observatory at night. With it’s dry air, and mostly cloudless skies northern Chile is one of the top places to observe the stars! We left at like 9pm and got up to the Mamalluca Observatory around 10pm.
What’s great is that they offer tours in Spanish and in English. I went on the English tour, which was nice because there were only like 7 of us on it. We first went to the big telescope.
Here we got to see stars in Orion, and Gemini. We also got to see Mars, which was cool. Then we went downstairs and talked about the universe, planets and constellations. After that we went to a smaller telescope where we got to see the moon and Saturn. Yes, we could even see the rings around Saturn – it was awesome! The guy added a magnifying lens to the telescope and then took pics of the moon for us - I think these photos are amazing! The whole tour definitely filled my science nerdiness need for the month! HA
At the end of the tour, our guide gave us a small snack (it was like 12:30 at this point). We got these chip/cracker things and a pisco sour. Pisco Sour seems to be the national alcoholic beverage of Chile. It was pretty good. But after 2 of those, I quickly fell asleep in the van on the way back home! LOL
The next day I hit the beach for a bit before getting onto a bus and heading into Argentina. My first bus took me to Mendoza. I only hung out there for a few hours before getting on another bus and heading up to Salta, Argentina.
So a few last thoughts/observations about Chile.
1)The Spanish is CRAZY hard there. I am at the point now where if I talk to someone from Paraguay, Uruguay or Argentina I can usually understand about 80-90% of what they say, depending on how fast they talk. In Chile, that number dropped to about 30% - even with someone speaking slowly! From what I gather, PY, UY and AG more or less have a similar vocab base. But Chile just has its own unique vocab that I was just completely lost with! I was starting to feel discouraged about my Spanish until talked with a guy at church from Peru. We had a perfectly fine conversation, so then I realized it was more about Chilean Spanish and less about my personal Spanish!! (if that makes sense!)
2) Another interesting fact is that they don’t eat dinner here. Seriously! I guess most Chileans like to sleep late, which means given the choice they will wake up and eat breakfast at like 11am/noon. Then it will lunch time around 4-6. Then they have “once” sometime that evening. I would have thought this would have been the time for dinner. But they normally just have bread and tea/coffee and that’s it! They do eat a “real” breakfast though. In PY, breakfast is usually coffee/tea and like bread/toast and that’s it. In Chile you can find waffles, pancakes, even Dunkin Donuts – lots of restaurants serve breakfast foods. They are NO breakfast places in PY except for maybe at hotels!
3) Here is a photo of another interesting drink they have. I will quote from Wikipedia here “Mote con huesillo is a traditional Chilean summer-time drink, known as the “refreshing national drink.” It is a non-alcoholic beverage consisting of a sweet liquid syrup made with dried peaches (huesillo) and mixed with fresh cooked husked wheat (mote).” (the wheat part are the things that look like corn). This stuff was seriously on every street corner in Santiago. I didn’t get a chance to try it until La Serena and to be honest I just don’t get it. The juice is sort of a bland apple/peach juice. The dried/rehydrated peaches are ok. The wheat is just weird! I think I like the Pisco Sours better! LOL
4) So as many of you know, my brother and his wife went on a tour last year through S. America. I went to their blog and found they had written a few observations about Chile as well. I am going to quote them since their observations are SUPER true and most of my friends didn’t read their blog.(thanks Neal and Laura! LOL)
• “Public displays of affection are acceptable. Especially if you're 15 and in a public park.”
o Been a long time since I have seen some much PDA!!
• “Nescafe (instant coffee) is a way of life”
o Unfort this is true in PY as well, but ironically NOT Argentina!
• “The most popular snack is a hot dog with everything ("Completos"). The toppings are usually ketchup, avocado, and lots and lots of mayonnaise. Really, anything with lots and lots of mayonnaise is popular.”
o Didn’t try it, not sad that I missed it. But you could def find them everywhere
• “People really like Megadeath here. We have seen lots of T-shirts and goth-y folks”
o I will add here that any heavy metal group is acceptable and popular.
Metallica came to concert while I was there and one girl was really bummed
that she couldn’t go!
o I was also told that the people who are considered cool here are the ones who can
play guitar and/or drums and listen to heavy metal NOT the jocks in any way!
5) My last two are that:
a) apparently everyone in Santiago needs multiple photocopies every day b/c literally like every 3rd store had a sign offering photocopies.
b) I saw multiple places and kiosks I saw selling booklets on Chilean laws. Not quite sure what that was about though and never got a chance to ask!
Chile definitely has amazing places to see. I pretty much only saw the center of the country. Hopefully one day I can head south and/or visit the north as well!
Cool bird I saw in the water.
I was a little surprised to see people swimming in the water when I realized there were lots of sea jellies washed up on the beach. Most were small, but I saw this big one and had to take a photo. Hopefully from the white seashell on top of it, you can get a sense of its size!!! It was definitely bigger than a dinner plate!
But the one cool thing about visiting La Serena was getting to go on a tour to visit an observatory at night. With it’s dry air, and mostly cloudless skies northern Chile is one of the top places to observe the stars! We left at like 9pm and got up to the Mamalluca Observatory around 10pm.
What’s great is that they offer tours in Spanish and in English. I went on the English tour, which was nice because there were only like 7 of us on it. We first went to the big telescope.
Here we got to see stars in Orion, and Gemini. We also got to see Mars, which was cool. Then we went downstairs and talked about the universe, planets and constellations. After that we went to a smaller telescope where we got to see the moon and Saturn. Yes, we could even see the rings around Saturn – it was awesome! The guy added a magnifying lens to the telescope and then took pics of the moon for us - I think these photos are amazing! The whole tour definitely filled my science nerdiness need for the month! HA
At the end of the tour, our guide gave us a small snack (it was like 12:30 at this point). We got these chip/cracker things and a pisco sour. Pisco Sour seems to be the national alcoholic beverage of Chile. It was pretty good. But after 2 of those, I quickly fell asleep in the van on the way back home! LOL
The next day I hit the beach for a bit before getting onto a bus and heading into Argentina. My first bus took me to Mendoza. I only hung out there for a few hours before getting on another bus and heading up to Salta, Argentina.
So a few last thoughts/observations about Chile.
1)The Spanish is CRAZY hard there. I am at the point now where if I talk to someone from Paraguay, Uruguay or Argentina I can usually understand about 80-90% of what they say, depending on how fast they talk. In Chile, that number dropped to about 30% - even with someone speaking slowly! From what I gather, PY, UY and AG more or less have a similar vocab base. But Chile just has its own unique vocab that I was just completely lost with! I was starting to feel discouraged about my Spanish until talked with a guy at church from Peru. We had a perfectly fine conversation, so then I realized it was more about Chilean Spanish and less about my personal Spanish!! (if that makes sense!)
2) Another interesting fact is that they don’t eat dinner here. Seriously! I guess most Chileans like to sleep late, which means given the choice they will wake up and eat breakfast at like 11am/noon. Then it will lunch time around 4-6. Then they have “once” sometime that evening. I would have thought this would have been the time for dinner. But they normally just have bread and tea/coffee and that’s it! They do eat a “real” breakfast though. In PY, breakfast is usually coffee/tea and like bread/toast and that’s it. In Chile you can find waffles, pancakes, even Dunkin Donuts – lots of restaurants serve breakfast foods. They are NO breakfast places in PY except for maybe at hotels!
3) Here is a photo of another interesting drink they have. I will quote from Wikipedia here “Mote con huesillo is a traditional Chilean summer-time drink, known as the “refreshing national drink.” It is a non-alcoholic beverage consisting of a sweet liquid syrup made with dried peaches (huesillo) and mixed with fresh cooked husked wheat (mote).” (the wheat part are the things that look like corn). This stuff was seriously on every street corner in Santiago. I didn’t get a chance to try it until La Serena and to be honest I just don’t get it. The juice is sort of a bland apple/peach juice. The dried/rehydrated peaches are ok. The wheat is just weird! I think I like the Pisco Sours better! LOL
4) So as many of you know, my brother and his wife went on a tour last year through S. America. I went to their blog and found they had written a few observations about Chile as well. I am going to quote them since their observations are SUPER true and most of my friends didn’t read their blog.(thanks Neal and Laura! LOL)
• “Public displays of affection are acceptable. Especially if you're 15 and in a public park.”
o Been a long time since I have seen some much PDA!!
• “Nescafe (instant coffee) is a way of life”
o Unfort this is true in PY as well, but ironically NOT Argentina!
• “The most popular snack is a hot dog with everything ("Completos"). The toppings are usually ketchup, avocado, and lots and lots of mayonnaise. Really, anything with lots and lots of mayonnaise is popular.”
o Didn’t try it, not sad that I missed it. But you could def find them everywhere
• “People really like Megadeath here. We have seen lots of T-shirts and goth-y folks”
o I will add here that any heavy metal group is acceptable and popular.
Metallica came to concert while I was there and one girl was really bummed
that she couldn’t go!
o I was also told that the people who are considered cool here are the ones who can
play guitar and/or drums and listen to heavy metal NOT the jocks in any way!
5) My last two are that:
a) apparently everyone in Santiago needs multiple photocopies every day b/c literally like every 3rd store had a sign offering photocopies.
b) I saw multiple places and kiosks I saw selling booklets on Chilean laws. Not quite sure what that was about though and never got a chance to ask!
Chile definitely has amazing places to see. I pretty much only saw the center of the country. Hopefully one day I can head south and/or visit the north as well!
Friday, February 5, 2010
Viña del Mar/Valparaiso = chill place to hang for awhile
I decided to make a last run to the beaches before heading inland and Valparaiso and Viña del Mar definitely did not disappoint! 2 hours from Santiago, Viña and Valparaíso are two separate and distinct cities but are only separated by a quick like 10-15 minutes bus ride. We have a small church there, only about 20 people actually, but they truly are an amazing group of people. What´s cool is that for whatever reason, this weekend the church had visitors from Santiago, Concepción (other city in Chile) Argentina and the US ( I was note ven the only one visiting from the US!). It was quite the international group!
I got in on Friday evening and immediately joined in on going to a surprise birthday party. Here is a photo from the bday party:
The girl who I was staying with, Pachy, actually lives in Viña. But I was able to spend all day Saturday in Valparaíso. Every Saturday the members of the church go to a soup kitchen to feed the homeless. We made turkey sandwiches and this HUGE vat of hot tea. We even had a a guitar player from the street join us for the first time. He played for everyone and even got a few people to get up and dance. I think it was an encouraging morning for everyone. After that we made our way over to a museum for Pablo Neruda, a famous Chilean writer. I know I read stuff by him in high school - couldn´t tell you what though! LOL.
Valparaíso is actually known by all its hills. It has like 44 or 45 to be exact. They are all completely covered with houses. Since many of them can be quite steep, they have built quasi-elevators to take people to the top (or you can climb the streets or stairs!). I knew I couldn´t leave without going up in one. We didn´t have time to hit a big one, but we still managed to visit and go up a small one. FUN.
Some shots from the city:
After that it was ANOTHER birthday party. How the heck I have managed to go to 4 birthday parties during this 4 week adventure is beyond me – I think it should be statistically impossible! LOL. But one of the guys taught me the basic steps to salsa, so that definitely made it a lot of fun to go to.
Sunday was spent in Viña. Viña seems to have a bit more natural areas left. It has fewer hills and the few that they do have aren´t completely covered with houses, which gives the city a nice feel. I first went to church service and it was great.
Everyone there was just so warm and friendly. It was really nice to visit with them all! This is Pachy and I after church.
Afterwards a bunch of us went out to eat lunch. I had been dying to get some seafood on this trip so I definitely made that happen. I got fish and some super yummy shrimp! A photo of the group having lunch:
After that it girl time! Pachy and I hit an artesan area. I bought a cool bracelet and some earrings. Then we headed to the beach. The waves were HUGE that day - just unbelieavable to watch. We sat in the sand, chatted and just enjoyed listening/watching the ocean waves.
It was really hard to leave Viña. I would definitely love to go back and visit and spend a bit more time there. I don´t know if/when that is posible, but I just felt so much love there I would love to try and make it happen!
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
smog, shrimp and sweet summer fruit in Santiago
My time in Santiago ended up being pretty low key, which was nice. A girl I met through church who has an apartment in the city, but she works about 2 hous away with her family; she just uses it mainly on the weekends. So I was able to stay in her apt by myself for the week, which was fabulous! When I got there on Saturday, I was able to go to a birthday party. Then I went to service Sunday morning. They had service in the park actually, which was cool. We hung out there for most of the day. The park was actually next to this gigantic mall. I went there afterwards with a couple of new friends, who were also visitng from the US. What´s funny is that walking around the mall, talking in English, but having everyone around us speak in Spanish made me feel just like I was in a mall in Miami! (For those of you who have been to Dolphin Mall in Miami, you know exactly what I am talking about! LOL)
The rest of the week I just spent touring around a bit. On Monday, I was able to meet up with John and Kay Hoyt (they lead the university students at the church). We went to a cool place called Cerro Santa Lucia.The view wasn´t too bad. But behind me there should be LARGE mountains, you just can´t see them because of all the smog! LOL
Here are some shots of the city:
After that we hit a cool artesan place where I bought fun arts and crafts stuff! (I just love going to arts and crafts fairs! My mother and sister and I were regulars at the ones they had in Arizona!)
The next day I went to a place called Mercado Central. Kay told me to follow the smell of the fish to find it. I assumed that meant people were cooking fish. But as you can see from the photo, it was this huge place where they were selling fish, fruits, vegetables and then also had restaurants. Quite the surprise!
Here is my yummy garlic shrimp lunch that I ate! At the restuarants they also serve you bread with the red sauce in the bowl called Aji. It is kind of like a very spicy salsa. It is SUPER yummy! I do miss spicy food (they don´t really like spicy food in PY)
Every restaurant seems to have their napkins displayed like this. The actual napkin is probably about 4 inches square and so they just pile them up in these metal vases!
One of the things I absolutely loved about Santiago was all the yummy fruit that I was able to buy! I think the strawberries were the best I have ever eaten. I would swear they were covered in sugar, they were so sweet and juicy! I was also fired up to find raspberries (my fav fruit, in case you didn´t know!)
I also went to Cerro San Crstobal (cerro by the way = hill). This one was cool though because you take a cable car-like thing to get to the top. Despite the smog, the view was still amazing! Here are a few photos:
I finished my week by visiting a natural history museum and a science museum. I even got an english tour guide for the science museum, which was cool!
Next stop: Viña del Mar.
The rest of the week I just spent touring around a bit. On Monday, I was able to meet up with John and Kay Hoyt (they lead the university students at the church). We went to a cool place called Cerro Santa Lucia.The view wasn´t too bad. But behind me there should be LARGE mountains, you just can´t see them because of all the smog! LOL
Here are some shots of the city:
After that we hit a cool artesan place where I bought fun arts and crafts stuff! (I just love going to arts and crafts fairs! My mother and sister and I were regulars at the ones they had in Arizona!)
The next day I went to a place called Mercado Central. Kay told me to follow the smell of the fish to find it. I assumed that meant people were cooking fish. But as you can see from the photo, it was this huge place where they were selling fish, fruits, vegetables and then also had restaurants. Quite the surprise!
Here is my yummy garlic shrimp lunch that I ate! At the restuarants they also serve you bread with the red sauce in the bowl called Aji. It is kind of like a very spicy salsa. It is SUPER yummy! I do miss spicy food (they don´t really like spicy food in PY)
Every restaurant seems to have their napkins displayed like this. The actual napkin is probably about 4 inches square and so they just pile them up in these metal vases!
One of the things I absolutely loved about Santiago was all the yummy fruit that I was able to buy! I think the strawberries were the best I have ever eaten. I would swear they were covered in sugar, they were so sweet and juicy! I was also fired up to find raspberries (my fav fruit, in case you didn´t know!)
I also went to Cerro San Crstobal (cerro by the way = hill). This one was cool though because you take a cable car-like thing to get to the top. Despite the smog, the view was still amazing! Here are a few photos:
I finished my week by visiting a natural history museum and a science museum. I even got an english tour guide for the science museum, which was cool!
Next stop: Viña del Mar.
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