Southern Travels ed.1

While California received one of the best November storms in history, and early season skiing was absolutely going off all over North America, I tried to put it out of mind and know that I should 'APROVECHAR!!' and have a great time travelling around southern Chile.

As I quickly finished finals/final papers, I took a bus from Santiago to Pucon. This is a famous backpackers/summer destination as it has access to multiple national parks, lakes, hot springs, volcanoes and lots of outdoor fun.
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This picture was taken on the bus, leaving Temuco heading east for 'la cordillera'. This river was lit up during the sunset. In this picture are two men fishing in this river. Fishing is southern Chile is unreal, more to come on that later...

The next morning we scheduled with a guide to climb the Volcan Villarica that looms over the towns of Pucon and Villarica. It is 9, 341 ft tall and is very much active. It is constantly smoking, and at night time if there is no wind, you can look in the direction of the volcano and see red smoke. This happens because the smoke reflects the lava below in the massive crater. According to Wikipedia it is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and is 1 of 5 in the world to have a 'pool of lava' churning around in the open air, deep within the crater.
Awesome, lets climb it. and then stay in a town at the base of this monster hahaha. no, tranquilo


This is me at the summit. The crater below goes down 500 meters. The last time a climber actually saw lava was 2008. Bummer. The smoke was pretty intense up there though.

Again at the summit. Quick note, do not climb mountains covered in snow/glaciers in jeans.
Regardless, the views were awesome. The volcano in the back in is the Villarica National Park. Our guide told us that it is a 2 day climb due to large glaciers. This National Park is famous for having a great 3-4 day backpacking trail. Yet while it is famous, every local in town mentions how each year the authorities have to go searching for lost tourists. solid.

Looking down the valley from the summit. All this steep hills surrounded the towns. They were so green and completely covered with dense vegetation. Hopefully in the future they will develop a trail system from town up each of these really cool little volcanic formations.

Another pic.

That night after the long hike, we took the transporte over to 'Las Termas Los Pozones'. This was a good choice. Termas are natural hot springs from all the volcanic activity that have in this area.

A view from the parking lot. The termas ran parallel to a river down a mountain side. The higher up the mountain side, the hotter the water. The first pool was ridiculously hot, after less minute in the wait deep water, your body was literally cooked. We found the many lower pools were much more enjoyable and low key.

This little cabin/changing room was built over one of the termas. Steps led directly into the termas from inside the cabin, kinda cool.

......termas/hot tubs after a long day in the snow.....sounds like skiiing???

(photo UnofficialSquaw.com)
meanwhile tahoe was getting dumped on and Jackson Hole Mtn Resort opened the resort with a 130 in base. That is awesome.

okay enough for now,

more to come from Pucon, mainly the Araucania forests/snow/lakes en Parque Nacional Huerquerhue.

4 days left, nuts. Pichilemu TR

lets do it big.

Pichilemu trip report
Morning view (south) while making a nice Nescafe (granulated coffee).


Afternoon view (north). This place is awesome. We surfed this little point break. It is right in the town of Pichilemu, called 'la puntilla'.


Star gazing is amazing in Chile, even though the constellations are upside down from our N.Hemisphere stars.

solid, perect little trip.....moving right along.

Slice of Life

Here are a few pictures from various excursions and everyday life here. I hope that you enjoy. I will be leaving Santiago in 30 days. Kinda nuts. This has been an unreal experience, and it is tough to leave. At the same time, I am happy to be going home for the holidays and cannot wait to see everyone.

Alright, pictures......

This is a homemade empanada. Filled with diced beef, onions, a hard boiled egg and an entire olive(including pit or its a bad empanada!).
Empanadas make me happy. I am going to miss these, unless anyone wants to learn how to make them, I hear that it is fairly easy?

Hiking in the Andes just south of Santiago.
Haircut from the host mom and Kelly, my housemate from UCSB. They did a great job hahahahaha, but seriously my hair looks amazing as usual.
This is my host mom at the largest cheese shop in Santiago, so they say. I think they just mean that it is really big and well known. It is located at "La Vega" marketplace up in comuna Recoleta. This is a huge market that covers a fee acres of land that sells anything you could ever need in food. They have barrels and barrels of everything from onions to olives to some fruit that has not yet been identified. The best is shopping in the large lots behind the market where vendors come with fresh produce. They sell behind the market so they do not have to pay a fee. There, bargaining and haggling is law. If you are not yelling, then you are not buying or selling. The entire dynamic out there was crazy, I kept expecting fights to break out among the vendors, loiterers and just people whom seem to hang out there. Regardless you could buy 10 heads of iceberg lettuce for $1.50. That makes it worth it.
More of La Vega and potatoes.
La Vega and a quiltro (street mutt). One other cool aspect about La Vega was seeing many restaurant owners there (with their apprentices) looking at produce and stocking up on various items.
This is homemade ceviche. Absolutely unreal. Chile has taught me the importance of a few key items in many meals: cilantro, tomatoes, peppers, spicy peppers, onions and green onions. These are staples. (Also a little bit of curry in risotto)
My host brother Pablo's birthday cake. (bags of chips in photo for scale). Cake was unreal. Huge first of all. It consisted of heavy pancakes layered between manjar(dulce de leche) and a kind of sweet orange paste/jam. Unreal.
Last picture. Campus and Cerro Plomo. Never gets old.
Chao.

sorry that I have been lagging. Life has been busy here = school work

and now to update the blog a lil bit.

Santiago Stuff, (no se, algunas cosas que me parecen interesantes)

Breakfast is usually prepared every morning before I wake up. It's a good deal.
Here is a picture of the usual spread.
Granola + Te con leche o cafe. This day was special as our host mom made us banana bread. She used the recipe from my gringa roommates, but added tea. Final product was delicious.

I like this picture. Everyday, the workers for this chain of pharmacies has been striking for better wages/benefits. Most just blow whistles, chant or wave banners. This branch near Tobalaba had a stereo so the workers could swing/salsa/tango.

Torre Gran Costanera Center under construction.
This will be the largest building in South America upon completion. It will also be surrounded by three smaller sky scrapers to complete, the Costanera Center. The building will reach 300 meters in height or, 984 feet.
It is also funny because the new financial/services business district in Santiago is in a neighborhood called 'El Golf". This is east of the old financial district and the original downtown area. The new business area is rarely referred to though as 'El Golf', santiaguinos prefer to call it 'Sanhattan'.

Mendoza, Argentina weekend trip

Last weekend, we took a quick jaunt over the Andes into Mendoza, Argentina. The bus ride was eventful as customs took a while, and the Andes were amazing. Still a fair amount of snow.

This was a bomb shelter. Or customs going into Argentina. They were in no rush that day to move anyone into their country. No worries haha

In Argentina, in the hostel. We decided to sample their beverages.

Calle Aristides Villanueva, Mendoza, Argentina. Best part was that there were trees. Big trees and lots of them. A nice change. Santiago does not really have trees.

Cab rides are amazing. Especially when they are in Peugeot's from 1950, with a chain smoking driver.

See, we were stoked!

Preparing for our bike+winery tour, with some wine. The man who rented us the bikes seemed to be more concerned with serving us wine than his other customers, excellent.

It is pretty in Argentina too!

Aca tambien es lindo.


This is absinthe. 75% alcohol. They make it at one of the wineries. I did not sample it in the tour, instead I tried a grappa style alcohol made from pears. Strong stuff, I think hard liquor is more popular in Argentina than Chile where the wine/beer keep us all happy.


Next stop.

This was a cool winery that we did not enter, but it was pretty with the mountains in the background. Sorry if it did not really come out, all of these pictures taken with a Sony P&S.

Some of us had to wait for the rest of the group and decided to get artsy.

Going home. More Andes action!


I will be coming back to go here one day. Great trip to Mendoza. I loved Argentina in general, people were welcoming and it felt like Italy. Now back in Chile, chillin.

Chilean Bicentennial

September 18th was the 200 year anniversary of Chile. But not really, the actual junta of rich guys who wanted independence from Spain happened on another day. For that reason many Chileans think the date is rather funny. Regardless, this was a huge holiday. The government called for 4 days of no work and much of us santiaguinos went to the beach for the weekend.
Destination: El Quisco.

Bus Station, Santiago.

Sunset at Playa Principal, El Quisco, Chile.

Cabanas. Pretty nice spot.

Playa Principal in the day time.

Sorry that is all I have. I did not take many pictures that weekend. I did go to a rodeo all day though. That was one of the best experiences I have had so far. At first my two gringo friends and I got stared down by everyone there, but the people were eventually nice. They liked that we were eating their special 'anticucho' and drinking 'chicha' while enjoying a rodeo. Pictures to come.

First post in almost a month...discupla, vamopo otra vez!

This group of posts will be kinda random. I have been very busy in the last month. I have been very busy with school. Tonight is one of my first free nights in a while to really chill at home and relax. It's okay though, I have 2 projects and a big quiz next week. Keeping busy!
Picture above is from La Parva. I just wanted to post it, because that weekend of skiing was unreal.


Okay it is spring now.
Cerro San Cristobal in the background. My neighborhood in the foreground.

Flowers and Powder - Not a drug reference

This shall be a quick post as I am really, really busy with school. Life is nuts right now and I thought a soothing blog post would help calm me down/focus me. Or maybe just keep me up later.
Regardless, these are flowers on my street. Spring is in here in Santiago! I wore shorts for the first time to class today. Quite pleased.

There you go: Flowers and Powder. A look at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Campus San Joaquin.

I like this picture a lot as well.

.....and now for the real stoke. Last 2 days of skiing for the season. Going to have to wait till December. That should not be a problem as La Parva gave me blower powder. I am happy to say the least.

Sorry no pictures of me skiing it. I was with people that were skiing more groomers and working on technique, thus the off piste shredding was left to me. Here is one from outside the hostel. The sun is melting all the snow on the north slopes and the season is really coming to an end. Sad, but 2 more months and winter again!!


Okay back to work......