San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

This weekend, my program, CIEE, took everyone to San Pedro de Atacama, one of the driest deserts in the world in northern Chile. We left Thursday morning and got back to Valparaíso on Sunday evening.

When we first got there on Thursday, we had about an hour to explore town. It was not what I expected at all. All the buildings were made of adobe and one story. The streets were made of dirt and there seemed to be a tourist agency or souvenir shop in every other building. After exploring town, we had a short lesson about the history of the people of Atacama and the land. After dinner, we went to sleep in anticipation of a full day the next day.

Saturday started with a hike at Pukara de Kitor. It ended up being two mountains that we hiked up and got amazing overarching views of the desert and the Andes that surrounded it.

Then we went hiking in a place called Devils Gorge. It used to be a gorge with a river running through it, but because we were in a desert it dried up. In order to get there, our bus took us to a certain point and then had to drop us off because there was a river it couldn't cross. So my entire program had to take off our shoes and cross the river in order to get to the hike. It was pretty funny seeing a group of 36 students and 3 trip leaders up to their knees in the river.

After lunch, we went to the National Flamingo Reserve, which encompasses the Atacama Salt Flats. The Salt Flats were bunches of salt that took over the entre ground. I tasted some of it and it just tasted like table salt! It was incredible. The flamingos live in the lagoons of the salt flats and eat the small crustaceans that live in the water. There are three types of flamingos in the reserve: Andean flamingos, Chilean flamingos, and James' flamingos. The Andean and Chilean flamingos looked very similar to the flamingos we have in the US. But the James' flamingo was really small and like a bird. The difference between all of them and the ones in the US is that the ones in Chile could fly!

Our third day started bright and early at 5:30 am. We drove two hours to Tatio Geysers to watch the sun rise. It was so incredibly cold (like 14 degrees farenheight). The geysers were really cool (I had never seen any before) but the cold made it hard to appreciate them. One of the coolest parts was that we ate eggs that had been hard boiled in the geysers! They tasted like normal hard boiled, which was incredible. In addition to the geysers, we got to go to hot springs that were heated by the geysers. It was fun! The hot springs weren't as warm as I had hoped though, and could only spend about 10 minutes in them before I froze.

After lunch, we went to Death Valley and Moon Valley. Moon Valley was probably the most beautiful place we went in Atacama. We hiked up to the top of a sand hill and watched the sunset over the Andes. It was absolutely incredible. The pictures I took can't even come close to doing it justice. The reds, pinks, and oranges of the sunset were so beautiful.

That night we did my favorite thing of the entire trip: we went to an observatory. According to scientists, Atacama is the best place in the world to go star gazing and I can entirely see why. The tour started with a PowerPoint lesson of the sky. Our guide told us a really interesting story about how the Incas saw negative space in the Milky Way and saw different animals in it; they saw a sheppard, a big llama, a little llama, a snake, a frog, and many more. They believed that when the sheppard, which is the first negative space in the Milky Way, touched the ground, it was time to plant their harvest.

After the presentation, we went outside and looked up at the stars. It was INCRESIBLE! Seriously probably the coolest thing I've ever seen. You could see everything. I clearly saw the Milky Way and all the negative spaces and animals, Jupiter (which is always the first star visible in Chile), and another galaxy.

Then we went up to a giant telescope on top of the observatory. Through the telescope we saw the lines on Jupiter, Saturn and its rings, and a black hole. It was absolutely incredible.

Unfortunately the next day we had to leave. San Pedro de Atacama was easily one of the most beautiful places I've been in Chile. The nature was incredible and the desert was unlike any desert I've seen in the US. I'm sad that my time there is over but I'm so glad I got the chance to experience it.

Mendoza, Argentina

This weekend, I traveled to Mendoza, Argentina with one of my Chilean friends. We left at 10:00pm on Thursday evening, spent 3 hours waiting at border control in order to cross into Argentina, and finally got into Mendoza around 9:00am on Friday morning. We got really lucky with weather the entire trip; it was around 80ª everyday.

Going to Mendoza, I knew very little. I knew it was a wine town in Argentina, not too far from the Andes. I expected the Argentinian version of Napa. However, that’s not what I got at all. Mendoza is actually a pretty big city. The population is 115,041 people. Mendoza is the capital of Mendoza Province (which are the equivalent to states in the US). It actually reminded me a lot more of San Francisco than Napa, but if you traveled an hour outside the city into the suburbs, you got into wine and olive oil territory.

We spent a good portion of Friday hanging out after not getting much sleep the night before. The one thing we managed to do was walk to Parque San Martín, a giant park in the middle of Mendoza. The park really reminded me of Golden Gate Park in terms of how it looked. There was a giant lake in the middle that we walked around, dirt paths everywhere, people running, and trees everywhere you looked. One thing about South America is that juice is really popular here; you have it with almost every meal and it’s everywhere you look. So, not surprising, there was a woman making homemade juices and smoothies in the park and we decided to stop and get some. You got to choose the fresh fruit that went into your smoothie (I chose mango and Eduardo got mango, pineapple, and kiwi) and then she made them into a smoothie. It was probably one of the best smoothies I’ve ever had, and my biggest regret was not going back to get another one.

Saturday was spent trekking around mountains in Parque San Martín, specifically Cerro La Gloria, and walking around the city. From the top of Cerro San Gloria, you got a panoramic view of the city. It was incredible! The entire city is surrounded by the Andes so everywhere you look there’s mountains. At the top of the cerro there’s a statue paying tribute to the Army of the Andes, the army used to free Chile from the Spanish Empire in 1817. I also found some flowers that grew in our backyard when I was growing up so I made sure to take a selfie to send to my mom.

Sunday, we went to Las Termas, which are hot springs an hour and a half outside of Mendoza. I had never been to hot springs before so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but they were really cool! Because it’s the off season, it’s fall here, half the pools were closed so only 12 were open. Each pool was a different temperature and they recommended only spending 10 minutes in each pool. So every 10 minutes you moved to a pool with a different temperature. Half the pools were inside and half were outside, but I definitely liked the pools outside more. When you were outside, you were surrounded once again by the Andes.

Monday, our bus didn’t leave until 10:00pm again so we had basically the whole day to hang out. Eduardo doesn’t drink for religious reasons, but if I was in Mendoza I was going wine tasting. So I dragged him out to a vineyard with me to go wine tasting. It was probably my favorite thing I did in Mendoza. We tried five different kinds of wine: a chardonnay, three kinds of red wine (one of which was a Malbec, the most well known wine from this region), and a sparkling wine. Since I turned 21 while in Chile, this was my first wine tasting and it’s definitely something I’ll be repeating. The whole thing was in Spanish so I’m excited to come back to the US and do it in English and be able to understand everything. I bought a few bottles of wine, of course I had to get a Malbec to bring back to the US with me. When I did the conversion, I realized the winery was selling the wine for a little over $8. Definitely the best $8 bottle of wine I’ve ever bought.

The other little known thing about Mendoza is that they have a lot of olive oil and olive groves. So, of course, I had to go check one out. We did a tour of a grove and then a tour of olive mill. The guide kept asking us questions, and Janell would be proud, I blew the guide away with my knowledge. After, we got to do a tasting of some of the oils they do. Unfortunately, the mill we went to doesn’t do very many different kinds; they only do one type of blend, and then four different infused oils. The infused oils were garlic, oregano, rosemary, and basil. As good as they were, I do have to say that those from Olive This Olive That are much better. However, after not having had good olive oil in three months, it was nice to get a little fix.

 

I’ve been in Chile for a little over two months now, and have grown really accustomed to the Spanish there. However, the Spanish in Argentina is vastly different and I definitely noticed that it was harder for me to understand. Had you asked me two months ago if I would have been able to tell the difference between someone from Argentina and Chile just from hearing them speak, I would have called you crazy. It’s really interesting to see how much my ear has changed in just two months and I’m excited to see what happens in the next three.

Santiago, Chile

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of going to Santiago for 3 days and 2 nights. Originally, I went to Santiago with my program to visit El Museo de la Memoria y Derechos Humanos, in English the museum of memoria and human rights, for my history of Chile class. However, I stayed in with three friends from the program.

Our day Friday started bright and early with our bus leaving from the university at 7:45am. After our 2 hour bus ride to Santiago, we stared at La Moneda which is the Chilean version of the White House. We got there just in time to see the changing of the guards. There were tons of people surrounding La Moneda taking pictures, drums going, and of course, plenty of carabineros (Chilean police officers) changing position. From there, we went to the museum. The museum was one of the most eye opening places I have ever been to; in my journal, the only relation I could think to give it would be going to the Dachau concentration camp in Germany. The museum is a historical museum about the Golpe de Estado, the coup d'état, on September 11, 1973 in Chile.

For those who don't know much about the history of Chile, from 1970-1973 Chile had a president, Salvador Allende, who identified heavily with communism. Although he did a lot of good things for Chile, because of his ties to the Soviet Union, the U.S. placed a blanket around Chile so that other countries couldn't do trade with them. Because of this, during Allende's reign, there was severe rationing in the country. Eventually, Allende was forced out of office and his successor, Augosto Pinochet, ruled in a dictatorship for the next 17 years. During this dictatorship, Pinochet approved many actions, such as torture, against human rights. Pinochet took hundreds of thousands of Chileans from their homes and tortured them, eventually killing them.

The museum talks about the coup d'état and what happened in Chile during Pinchoet's reign. There were interviews with people who we're tortured and had their families taken by Pinochet, and it was one of the saddest things I've heard. The amount of pain that existed during that period of time is unreal.

I spent Saturday and Sunday exploring Santiago with three of my friends. We went to the central market that sells fruits, vegetables, and fish and had lunch at one of the fish restaurants. I got a salmon and it was the best salmon I've ever had. Considering I didn't start eating fish until five months ago, who would have thought I would have started loving it. We also went to Cerro San Cristóbal which is a big hill in the middle of Santiago that overlooks the entire city. It had amazing views of the city and you could see the Andes behind the city.

Overall, it was a really fun weekend in Santiago and I will definitely be going back soon.

Quema de Judas

Feliz Pascua! Or for those who don't speak Spanish, Happy Easter! Yesterday was my first major holiday in Valparaíso and it was pretty fun. I got to experience a cultural event unlike anything I've experienced in the US and it's called Quema de Judas, or in English, the burning of Judis.

My friend Paloma and I went high into the hills of Valparaíso to a little square called Plaza Waddington. We got empanadas for dinner from a little panaderia right across the street, and the headed over with the masses to watch the Quema de Judas. There were many families and kids there, all there to watch the burning.

There was a giant doll built of paper in the middle of the square, and it was honestly one of the ugliest things I've ever seen. A group of drummers started the festivities off while someone lit something that looked like a giant sparkler. Then they lit the giant doll on fire. It was pretty amazing seeing how everyone reacted to the experience.

The significance is that you're burning away the old year and all your past problems so that you can go into the new year without anything from the old year holding you back.

This is probably the most accurate representation of my trip thus far:

The Dunes of Con-Con

Yesterday I went to the dunes of Con-Con, which is an area of Viña del Mar. They were absolutely incredible! One moment, you would be immersed in the sand and it seemed like there should be camels around you because it looked like a desert, and the next you would be on top of the dunes and could see the water right in front of you.

Classes Galore!

I have officially completed my first week of school as an exchange student! This semester, I am taking classes at Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso. The university houses 13,000 students, 10 different colleges with varying majors, and multiple different campuses through Valparaíso and Viña del Mar.

The school system in Chile is extremely different from our own. When you apply to college, you apply to a specific college, and a certain major within that college. You only take classes in that major, only with other people from your college. You can't change and you can't take other classes. For example, if you are in the school of law, you only take law classes with other law students.

As international students, we aren't forced to have a set class schedule like that. We can take classes from virtually any area of discipline. So, after much consideration, I finally decided on my classes for the semester.

Through my program, I am taking a class called Chile: Contemporary History and Cultural Geography. This is the one class I haven't had yet, so I guess I'll have to find out next week how the class is.

Through the exchange students portion of the university, I am taking two classes. The first is Advanced Spanish Communication and Chilean Culture. The second is History of Latin America in the 20th Century. Because both of these are through PIIE, the classes are only for exchange students. The teachers understand that Spanish isn't your first language, so they talk much slower than other classes. Funny thing about my Spanish communication class, my professor taught at Lewis & Clark for a few years! It was a funny coincidence learning that. The class looks like it is going to be really interesting. The professor said she likes us to go around the city and have class outside. 

My history class also looks like it will be interesting. The professor seems nice, and I think taking it in Chile will give it an entirely different perspective.

Through the university, I am taking two classes. This means that I'm taking two classes with Chilean students, that they need in order to graduate, even though I'm taking them for fun. The first is Traditional Mapuche Games and the second is Multimodalidad and Multimedios (I'm sorry, I don't know how to translate that). The Mapuche Games class is the class that came most highly recommended. You spend most class periods on the beach playing games that you've learned about! Multimodalidad and Multimedios is a linguistics-type class. We're going to look at the different forms in which we view language, such as written, oral, pictures, etc. In this class, I am the only foreign exchange student. It's extremely nerve racking being in a class with all native Spanish speakers when you're still learning. However, I think it'll be my most interesting, and also hardest, class.

But, the best part of my schedule, is that I have no class Monday's or Friday's. Which means that I have a 4 day weekend every weekend. I am so excited for the opportunities this will allow me to travel and explore, without the possibility of missing class.

So far, my classes have all seemed wonderful. I'm excited to see how they continue as the semester progresses.