Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
After a couple hectic weeks I finally have some time to update my blog. I already feel like I've been gone a lot longer than two weeks with everything that's been going on. It's crazy!
After lovely Santiago I went to Valparaiso which is like 2 hours away and located by the water. This city is soo different. It's pretty much made up of cerros (hills) on which people built all their extremely colorful houses. It's really cute with the dusty, narrow streets, uneven stairs and all the playful murals (wallpaintings - kind of like graffiti only pretty). Nacho, the guy I stayed with, didn't fail to show me the view from his roof at night time. WAUW! Colors and lights all over the place reflecting in the water. I live on Cerro Placeres - Pleasure Hill. Doesn't get much better than that!
So anyway, the first day I kind of just walked around the city and enjoyed it's prettiness when suddenly a guy asks me if I'm lost. With my guidebook I must have looked like a lost gringa! I try to explain in Spanish that I'm not and end up spending the whole day with him and his friend - their names were Daniel and Aquiles. They took me out for chorillana, which is fries, meat and onion with eggs on top, and we walk around on Cerro Bellavista, where true to its name the view really was pretty good. At night Nacho took me to Cerro Concepción where there was a cute little restaurant, UNFORTUNATELY I forget the name of it, but the food was absolutely delicious, and I dont think we finished eating until around 1 in the morning! Not a bad first day here I should say. The next day I also did a little sightseeing on my own, since Grace (the girl I met in Santiago at the bike tour) and I had had some trouble with the communication so unfortunately in the end we didnt meet up in Valpo. I at first went to Cerro Artilleria and got lost (not really) in all the little streets taking as many pictures of the wallpaintings as my camera could handle. There was a great view of the harbor from this Cerro. After that I went to Cerro Bellavista to see another one of Pablo Neruda's houses, La Sebastiana. It was so cool, he was this crazy collector so there's stuff from all of his adventures gathered in the house. I couldn't help but feel a bit inspired, so lets see what I end up bringing home with me. I did quite a bit of exploring for several hours, and it was worth it climbing the 5 floors just to be rewarded with a at least 180 degree view of Valparaiso and a funny little story of how Neruda had figured out exactly at what time every day a woman would go out on her roof and sunbathe naked. O la la!
By car I went to the top of one of the hills and I was told that this is where the poor people of Valpo live and that it's dangerous for everyone to walk alone here. It was so sad in contrast to the rest of Valparaiso. Also I was a little bit scared up there, not so much because it was supossedly dangerous, but because it was so steep and the truck had difficulty holding on to the loose sand both when going up -- and down! Ajajajaj! This night Nacho invited me to go to a party at his friends' house. Everyone spoke Spanish so it was quite a challenge but I did my very best to comprehend and talk with them and they were all very nice and we had a good time. We decided to hit the town at 3 am, but sadly when we managed to get there, the club was closed, so we eventually took a colectivo (like a taxi but only with a set route and muuuuch cheaper) back to Nacho's. I said Buenas Noches right away.
The next day was extremely chill, I was trying to decide where to go from here and landed on Chiloé, which is a little island off of the westcoast of southern Chile. It was a small 18 hour bus ride, nothing to talk about. When I was in the bus, leaving Valparaíso, I made up my mind to come back one day for New Year's. I hear it's spectacular.
Ciao ciao Valpo, hola Chiloé!
After my 18 hour overnight, backbreaking busride I arrived in Ancud in the morning of the 8th of March. Here I got off for two reasons only: 1) to eat the famous dish curanto at the restaurant Kuranton, 2) to check out the local museum. The museum was pretty cool with some local handmade weavings of little weird figures (they have some extensive mythology going on here) and a big battleship plus some pretty good views of the nearby islands and the grey sky (first time to ever have grey sky in Chile). Being a food fanatic, the food was what really made it worthwhile though: it was AMAZING!!! Curanto is a huuge dish: it's steamed oisters, mussels and clams, a spicy sausage, "stegt flaesk" (surprised to find that in Chile), chicken and three different kinds of potatoes, two of them that I wouldn't even have guessed were potatoes had I not known. Needless to say I wasn't even able to finish half of it, but it was worth every peso (CH$6.000 = 60 kr = US$10). When I was done exploring Ancud I went to Castro which is like the major city on Chiloé, and which is where I had a place to stay with my friend Marie's host family. They picked me up and after a light after-dinner meal I took a shower and went to bed, exhausted and excited to sleep in a real bed instead of a bus seat.
The following day I went to Parque Nacional de Chiloé and walked around for hours (yes, I got lost along the way, but that's what makes it fun, right?). There was a cool beach that I had to cross a strip of water to reach, so my pantlegs got soaked but it was worth it to stick my toes in the Pacific and enjoy the awesomeness of the landscape, the cliffs and the roaring waves. When going home late in the afternoon I met some fellow travelers, a girl from Holland whose name I never got, a girl from Germany named Hanna and a girl from the US named Elisabeth. They were very cool and we agreed to stay in touch in case we were the same place at the same time for some future travelling. Back in Castro I hung out with Clemente. We enjoyed a completo, mine was Mexican style with extra avocado, nom nom. He showed me the palafitos - houses on sticks in the water. They're pretty spectacular and very typical Chiloé.
The next day I went to the market in Dalcahue and to Isla Quinchao with Elisabeth. We had a great time checking out churches only made of wood and spent HOURS at the markets where they sold almost everything from weird little mythological creatures to woolen socks and sweaters to foods and drinks. On Chiloé there's this drink called Liquid Gold. It looks like pee but tastes like mediterranean Christmas. True story! Unfortunately I didn't get a bottle for the road... I did go home with a pair of really ugly but extremely comfy slippers though, real Chiloé-style. They smell but I think they're worth it.
Everything I've seen of Chiloé has been so beautiful especially the nature, and all the little cities are so tranquil and most of them kind of sleepy. It's true what people say that Chiloé is like it's own little country. Luckily for me, it was NOT true that the weather is always bad because after the first day with the cloudy weather, the sun was shining all the days I was there. HA! Thank you Chiloé!
I had been planning on heading back up north after my visit to Chiloé but those plans changed. The German girl I met at the Parque Nacional, Hanna, talked about going to Pucón and as I had heard from Nacho and other people it was a pretty cool place, so I decided to be all spontaneous and try it out. SO, I jumped on a bus from Castro to Pucón - I think it was like a 12 hour drive. Horay for long distances!
Pucón is a city in southern Chile famous for its surrounding nature that allows tourists to do pretty much every kind of outdoor activity there is. They have rivers, mountains, waterfalls, areas belonging to Mapuche, one of the indigenous tribes of Chile, canopy lines and the big Volcán Villarica overlooking the little town. I got there late at night the first day and got a room at one of the local's house. After trying out the local bar I went to bed pretty much right away. These long bus rides are tiring even if I'm just sitting on my ass. The next day I woke up refreshed and went downtown to see what they had to offer. As Pucón = activities there were plenty agencies to go around. I decided to go with Aguaventura which I had heard should be very good, and I asked them about their hike to the volcano. Since the trip left at around 7 in the morning and meeting time was 6.45 I booked it for the following morning and decided to start out my stay in Pucón with some relaxed horsebackriding in Mapuche areas later in the afternoon. Yes go ahead, laugh, I'm sure you have funny mental pictures of me on the back of a horse BUT it actually went really well so no mocking me here! Jajaja. We were a great little group of people, two were a married couple from Santiago and two were a couple guys from England, Ben and Andy, that I quickly made friends with and tried to convince to go to the volcano with me tomorrow. The trip was so much fun, the area was absolutely beautiful and our guide was really cool. The horses were so tranquil that even I weren't scared. Only as we began to ride uphill on some pretty steep and pretty small trails, and again as we went downhill, did I feel like I was going to fall off the back of the horse, but no, it carried me like it was supposed to, sometime's unhappy to not be alllowed to eat while we were supposed to move. Halfway through the trip we made a stop on the top of a viewpoint and our guide, who was of Mapuche origin, told us about all of the plants and herbs that were used as different kinds of medicines. Very cool. At the end of the trip, once we were all securely off our horses, we went to the house of our guide's Mom who had prepared an original Mapuche meal for us. She was a tiny wrinkled woman living in a tiny hut and oh could she cook. We had three or four different kinds of bread with homemade jam, pebre (which is tomatoes, onion, garlic and different herbs, supposed to be put on bread), meatballs, empanadas con queso and some sweet drink that I suspect to be some kind of beer as it had that specific taste to it. It was wonderful.
After the trip Ben, Andy and I went to get a couple beers (I really felt in the company of Britishmen) and then after I won the toincoss that decided that they were going to hike the volcano with me, we went out for dinner and had a lovely evening. They have some influence on my English definitely, it' funny.
The next day I woke up excited as ever. I was going to climb a volcano, how crazy is that! I swallowed my breakfast and packed all I needed for snacks and drinks, sunscreen, sunglasses and extra layers and got a ride down to Aguaventura. We were told that the weather was good but since the wind was coming from the south we might get the smoke from the volcano in our faces so MAYBE we couldn't make it to the top. We decided to go anyway, of course, and after getting the last info and packing out backpacks we were driven to the foot of the smoking volcano. At first we took a lift up the first piece. I paired up with a German guy. We had been given icepicks that we were now allowed to use just for support since the rocky volcanoside could be tricky. We walked maybe 45 minutes before the first break. The view was spectacular. We were all advised to take off our jackets and fleeces and put plenty of sunscreen on as the sun was burning and hiking the volcano was really HOT. Going uphill with a somewhat heavy backpack on my back I think is the best exercise I've had in a while. We made a few stops to take pictures and get some water. All the guides were running around like mountain goats while we were struggling to keep our balance. Ben made a comment on how steep it looked further up where the glacier was and I could only agree with him and wonder how we'd ever make that. I was to find out a while later when we stopped right before the glacier and were instructed to sit down and relax so the guides could help us put on our crampons which are these devices with sharp metal pieces on the bottom for better footing on ice and snow. Ahaaa. How could I not feel just a little hard core? We were told to put back on our jackets and to put on gloves because if we fell on the ice our skin would just be scraped off. Then Ruben, one of the guides, showed us how to use the icepick in case we fell. I reeally hoped that wouldn't be necessary. As one of the first, I slowly made my way out on the glacier, not at all trusting my crampons to do their job and expecting to fall anytime. But with some instruction from the guides it went well and after 10 minutes I got used to the weird sensation of walking on the hard ice. This is the part where it got really steep which I actually didn't notice (I was too busy looking at my feet) until I decided to look down. Oh my oh my oh my was it far down and how steep it was! I couldn't believe that I was actually keeping my balance here. And I did not want to think of the descend.
As we got up further, two things started happening. One, we were warned of rocks falling down and got a pretty good example of this as several hundred stones on the size of my fist fell down the side of the volcano not too far from us. So that's what the helmet is for. The second thing is, we could start smelling the gas fumes from the volcano. It definitely was not pleasant, and the guides told us that we could use our gasmasks if we felt like we had to. I decided to just take the fumes as a part of the experience, we'll see if it does damage to my health on the long run. By now, there was nothing stopping us from going the whole distance, and as we finally reached the top of the volcano I felt like I just climbed Mount Everest. It was a feeling like no other, after all those hours of climbing and climbing we had finally made it. I went to the crater from which all the smoke and gases were rising. What a sight. And there was one spur of lava! I think this is the craziest thing I have ever experienced! And it only got crazier when on our way down the volcano we got little boards of plastic tied to our waist and were told to slide down on our butts. Slide down the glacier on a volcano! How surreal! We all got ready, using the icepick as a break and then off we went! It was HILARIOUS, I will never settle for anything less now. When there was no more gletcher to slide on we walked the rest of the way. Everyone was getting tired so it was very chill and we just looked at the view and the condors above our heads. Back at Aguaventura we all shared some beer. The perfect way to end the perfect day.
On the next day, my final one in Pucón i took it a little more easy. I slet in and then went to Ojo de Caburgua which is a waterfall nearby. Also I went to the black beaches in Pucón. It was all very beautiful and idyllic and I just enjoyed my last day. That night I jumped on a bus to go back up north all the way to La Serena.
That´s all for now, enjoy and hopefully I will be able to update this thing sooner rather than later. Ciao ciao!
- comments
Jacob Bennedsgaard Jørgensen Jeg elsker dig, Ida! Gift dig med mig! Please! Be om! Jeg vil være så fantastisk! Så fantastisk, at jeg vil lade dig dyrke kønslig omgang med en mand med sydamerikanske aner, så vi kan få børn med rumba i rumpen!