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I hope that this post finds you all doing well.Sorry it's been a while since my last entry.I just spent the last 8 days on a bus trip through the south of Chile without internet access.
It's November already?Wow!I can't believe how quickly my time here has gone by, it seems like just a few weeks ago I was stepping off the bus in Viña, terrified and overwhelmed and in a strange city.And yesterday when we got off the bus at the same theater where I met my host family 3 months ago I couldn't believe how happy I was to be "home" in Viña.But in just a few weeks I'll be packing up my stuff, saying good-bye to my host family and beginning my last round of adventures before going back to Minnesota.I am so excited for my next two months, and I will be really sad to say good-bye to South America, but I am also getting excited to come home.I think when the time comes I will be ready to get back.
As I said already we just got back from an 8 day trip to southern Chile.It was quite an experience.We spent over 50 hours in a bus, ate more gas station food than anyone should ever have to, stayed in a different hostel every night and despite it all had a great time.We traveled with all 28 CSB/SJU students, our two program directors and their two young children, two of our UAI professors, and 7 other Chilean students.It was definitely an experience!
The first city we stayed in was Concepcion.It is about 9 hours from Viña, and is the second largest city in Chile.My favorite part about the city was the university there, which is one of the most gorgeous campuses I have been on in Chile.The few Chilean university campuses that I have been on have been very different from campuses in the U.S.They are very compact and small with only a few buildings.There are almost no green spaces or open areas.But the university in Concepcion was much more like the Universities back home.There were many large buildings, lots of green spaces, and a really pretty plaza area with fountains and art work.We all agreed that it would have been a cool place to study.
The next day we visited a town called Lota and toured a now closed coal mine there.It was very interesting to learn what it was like to be a miner, not an easy life at all.And after our 45 minute tour through the mine I appreciated the physical hardships that the miners must have had to go through.Tall people are definitely not meant to be miners and by the end of the tour my back was killing me from crouching so much through the mine.Mining is also very dangerous work, especially when they began the mines in the early 20th century.There were lots of explosions and deaths in the mine and the miners were not treated with respect by the owners of the mine.If you're interested in learning more about the mine there is a Chilean movie about the mine we toured called Sub Terra that will definitely give you a better idea of what it was like in the mine.We also toured the house that the owners of the mine lived in, which was very interesting to see and we got to see a gorgeous park that overlooked the ocean.Overall it was one of our most interesting days on the trip.
That night we stayed in a town called Villarrica.We didn't get to spend very much time there because we arrived late in the evening and left early the next morning but what we saw was gorgeous.The farther south we traveled the more it felt like going to Northern Minnesota, but with mountains and volcanoes too.Villarrica is right on a lake and seemed to be a resort town, with lots of cabins around the lake.My friend Chelsea and I woke up early and ran down by the lake and it was so beautiful.There was a large volcano across the lake from us and it was a cool misty morning so the volcano was partially covered in fog and was even more gorgeous.I wish we could have spent more time in this town.
That day we drove to Puerto Montt which is another port town famous for its seafood.We had lunch there and I ate a fish called merluza which was delicious.I also tried some oysters and a few other types of sea food which were all really good.From Puerto Montt we took a ferry across the ocean (about a 30 min ride) to the island of Chiloe.There we stayed with rural host families, which were kind of like boarding houses, out in the country.The island is gorgeous, with rolling green hills, and lots of farms.It seemed a lot like how I would imagine Ireland to be.We spent two days there, toured some churches, talked with our rural families, and ate a traditional meal called curanto.It's a mix some types of meat, mostly pork I think, clams, oysters, and potatoes.It is traditionally cooked in a pit dug in the ground heated by stones.We got the opportunity to eat a curanto with our rural host family and see some of the process of cooking, which took all day to prepare.I unfortunately got sick from the water in Puerto Montt and was not feeling well that night, so I didn't actually get to eat any, but it was still interesting to see the process and everyone I talked to said it tasted delicious.
We were in Chiloe on Tuesday, for the presidential elections and it was quite an interesting experience being away from the U.S.It felt very strange because we hadn't been around for all the campaigning and things, so it really didn't feel real.The host family that we stayed with that night had a little TV in their kitchen area and all of us staying there (about 18 girls) sat around the TV with our host family watching CNN broadcasts of the results.Our host parents were really cute, asking us questions about it and stayed up until 1am with us when we found out the results, even though they had to be up at 6 to start preparing breakfast.It was a really fun experience and just another example of how interested the rest of the world is in U.S. politics.
After spending two days in Chiloe we began our journey back towards Viña.We spent another afternoon in Puerto Montt, visiting an artesian market and eating more sea food.I was more careful though this time, and didn't drink the water J.The next day we drove to Valdivia, toured a museum and saw wild sea lions.We had so much watching the sea lions, but I was surprised at how vicious they were, I definitely wouldn't want to get to close to them.We also got the opportunity to tour the Kunstmann brewery outside of Valdivia.It is a Chilean beer with a lot of German influence because Valdivia and a lot of the cities in this part of Chile have a lot of German immigrants.It was funny to be in Chile but be surrounded by German beer, food and atmosphere.I really enjoyed seeing the brewing process and get to try all the different kinds of beer.It's quite a process.I would tell you all to go try Kunstmann but they only export to Mexico and in very small quantities.
After Valdivia we spent the next day pretty much only driving, and got within 4 hours of home by that night.We stayed in an uneventful town called Curico, nothing very exciting there.And the next day visited a touristy town called Santa Cruz.We went to a huge museum that had a lot of Incan and Mapuche artifacts.The Mapuches are the main native people of southern Chile and pretty much the only surviving group today.There was a lot of really cool pottery and jewelry.There were also cool Spanish conquistador artifacts like armor and paintings.We also got to see an interesting South American artisanal art fair which was selling handmade goods from Chile, Peru and Bolivia.There were some amazing handmade weavings and pottery that I wished I had the money to buy.After spending a few hours in Santa Cruz we finally headed home and made it back to Viña that night.Despite all the time in the bus, it was great to see a bunch of cities in southern Chile that I would have never seen otherwise.But I'm definitely ready to spend a few weeks at home before I go back to living out of a suitcase again.
Thanks for sticking with me through this long post.I hope you all are doing well and enjoying fall.I miss you all!
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