La Serena!

Friday was a lecture on poverty, again in Spanish. Chile apparently has one of the lowest poverty rates in all Latin American countries, as a result of sensible social policies. I enjoyed the lecture, especially the part concerning what can be done in the future to alleviate poverty further, but thoughts of the beach clouded my mind. Finally, we left at 1245 to catch our 2 PM bus. I grabbed a couple bags of chips and an empenada at the bus station, but lunch was light that day since we were in a hurry. On the bus ride, I finished all 350 pages of Neruda´s memoirs, an enormously engaging and captivating autobiography of the poet´s life and travels. He led a triumphantly varied and down-to-earth existence, living in Burma, India, Europe, and many other places all the while campaigning for people´s rights and social equality. Despite his wealth in his later years, he never stopped fighting for common people around the world, and especially in his Chilean homeland. A powerful, inspirational book if I have ever read one.

The bus ride took longer then expected, as we made several stops along the way. We finally arrived in La Serena around 10 oclock, after 8 hours on the bus. After rejoicing on our freedom, we sought out the hostel we had booked, Hostal Jofre, which was only a couple blocks from the bus station. I ended up sharing a room with the Professor´s son, Francisco, a younger dude who starts college in the fall. The first night, we explored the city a little bit, ending up at a smoky little local bar, and being denied entrance to a club on the way back. A less then eventful night, but we had no worries. We had given the travel brochures a brief glance, deciding on a trip to the stars that Saturday evening and a tour of the pisco region on Sunday during the day.

Saturday I was up early, practicing poi in anticipation of burning on the beach. I was soon shirtless, as the sun came up early and the temperature quickly became quite warm. We finally all assembled shortly after 12 oclock, and we set off, with food being the first priority. We ended up at the mall next to the bus station, as the easiest option with the most choices. I had an awesome pizza and garlic bread meal from the local "Telepizza" chain that proliferates all over Chile. Upon returning from the bathroom, the strangest thing happened; I got a punch in my arm, looked over, and it was Alessandro, one of my new buddies I had been hanging out with the last weekend and Monday! Him and Nick and Gonzalo had been eating lunch at the same food court, some 20 odd feet away! I couldnt stop laughing at what a small world it turned out to be, I mean I had known they were headed to La Serena at some point but running into them at a random mall?

After lunch, we walked 20 minutes down to the beach, the beautiful Pacific. The day was sunny and warm, although the water could have been warmer. Only me and Danny had the cojones to get into the water, or perhaps we were the only ones who brought bathing suits. Regardless, I was slightly cold afterwards, but warmed up to the idea of spinning fire on the beach (something I´ve always wanted to do)...Obviously it is not the same as spinning in darkness, but nonetheless I spun in daylight, followed by Josh, Danny, Chelsea, and Kelly who all wanted to give it a try. We eventually absconded to a nearby beer shack on the ocean, to enjoy a beer in the afternoon sun, before returning to the hostel, where I took a much needed hot shower.

That evening, we prepared for the observatory. I grabbed a quick take out dinner, and more importantly a bottle of pisco and Coca cola, respectively. We all drank a little too much on the bus ride, but hey it was Saturday night right. I ended up chatting with a couple Mexican girls who were sitting next to us, in Chile for studying, one of whom said she spun fire as well. We finally reached the observatory, a magical place with the most impressive views of the stars I believe I have ever seen. I even took a picture of the moon through a closeup telescope view, incredible! I was determined to spin fire there, since it seemed like the perfect spot and our guide said he didn´t care, but two minutes into my burn a security officer came over and told me to stop. I was sad, but had to respect their rules there. We finally entered the observatory after an hour wait, and were treated to more amazing views of the stars and Jupiter...That night when we got back, everyone was too exhausted and tired to think about going out, especially with the early departure of our valley tour scheduled for the next day.

The Elqui Valley tour was another fantastic, amazingly surreal excursion through the mountainlands of Chile, through one of the only regions in Chile to produce grapes that are used in Pisco. Our first stop was at the Elqui dam, a giant construction that revealed epic, grand vistas of the lake behind it as well as cacti and more mountains. We passed through Vicuna, where we had stopped to buy tickets for the observatory the night before, before heading onwards. Another stop was at a local wine shop that sold marmalades and wine produced in the region, both of which I purchased as gifts. We also all pitched in to buy an expensive bottle of wine for Annie, our professor, as a way of saying thank you for being so awesome.

Lunch was at a funky solar powered restaraunt, with solar heaters out in front heating the food that was served to us. After this, we hit the distillery, which we were all excited about. We were shown the vats, distillation process, and given samples before being brought to the store, where I purchased a "Fuegos" brand bottle of Pisco that had been made right there on the spot. We were even given a couple free complimentary bottles of Mango Sour Pisco as a thank you for buying so much (pretty much everyone in our group bought a bottle or two, it was too unique and special of an opportunity to pass up)...Again, not much happened that evening as we were all exhausted from the long day trip. I was not looking forward to the long bus trip we had to make back to Santiago the next day, nor the idea of going back to class. Regardless, what a fantastic weekend!

Otro partes del semana.

The rest of the week passed without much further incidents of madness. Nico and friends went off to La Serena the next day, which was actually where we had been planning on taking a weekend trip. Lost without them, we had no one to show us a good time around town...It was two of the girls in the group´s birthdays in a row, so Tuesday and Wednesday night were birthday nights, spent at an Irish pub and a Karaoke disco respectively. I never go out this much in the states, but we have been trying and succeeding at making the most of our time down here.

The lectures for the remainder of the week were a mixed bag, with some Spanish only lectures and a few English lecturers as well. We learned about the poverty of Chile, and what steps are being taken to alleviate these conditions, as well as about the issue of human rights in Chile, particularly during the military coup/Pinochet regime. Approximately more then 3000 people "dissapeared" during this regime, almost all who have surviving relatives and family to this day. A terrible period for Chile, with uncertainty and terror seemingly widespread. We even visited a former torture center, Villa Grimaldi. Scary, scary stuff.

Since I had not gotten a chance to spin fire that previous Sunday, I found some white gas by asking around, being directed to a local hardware store near our subway stop. Thursday night was my first burn with Rob´s donated poi, which more or less went quite well. I conscripted several of the girls in our group to come and keep me company slash more importantly stand safety (someone ready with a towel just in case a fire is started). It felt GREAT to burn again, especially with no worries about the police intervening. A security gaurd actually wandered over after I finished, but just asked my friends to leave the plaza since it was closed, and didnt even say anything to me with my fire poi having been freshly burned.

Took it easy the rest of Thrusday night, in preparation for our big excursion to La Serena for the weekend, a beach town some 360 km north of Santiago. I packed, read, and fell asleep on the early side, starting to read Pablo Neruda´s book "Memoirs", one of the assigned readings.

Monday night madness

Monday was not a fun day, as I was still sore and tired from Saturday night. We also got extremely lost on the way to class that day, taking the subway one stop, only to end up walking the wrong direction back to our original stop. Then we couldn't find the number bus we were supposed to take, so we took 401 instead of the 104, thinking the professor had been dsylexic, until we saw the 104 pass by. So we got off the 401, tracked the 104 down, and finally got on the right bus. We even managed to get off at the wrong stop, walking much further then we had to until we finally found the Universidad de Chile, almost an hour late.

After class, we managed to get lost again. Took the bus too far in one direction, then took another bus going to the opposite way too far. So, after realizing that we had only backtracked, we made the excellent decision to drown our sorrows in alcohol. 8 pitchers of beer later, keep in mind there were only 8 of us, we finally felt satisfied and more then a little bit drunk. It was Chelsea´s birthday, ostensibly the reason for such epic drinking but not really. The afternoon closed on a sobering note, as Josh fell in the subway giving Chelsea a piggyback ride, opening a minor cut on his nose that managed to bleed fairly profusely for a while. Staggering back to our hotel, we stopped at a local bar for another round.

Needless to say, we got a pretty good start on drinking for the night. I gave my Chilean buddy Nico a call that night, and told him to come down and pregame at our apartment. He was a big hit with all my friends, everyone really liked him, Alessandro, and his buddy Gonzalo that I had never met before. They showed up with two bottles of pisco and cola, which dissapeared faster then humanly possible it seemed. And sure enough, as promised, they showed us a good time, taking us out to the best club I have been to yet in Santiago. The night was a long one, with several of the girls ending up hooking up with my buddies no less. Good times, good times, as I dreaded the 9 AM class we had scheduled for the following day.

Saturday and Valparaiso

Saturday night was the night of too many piscolas. Excited on them from the night before, I pushed the limit, not knowing how deadly the things could be. I still managed to make a little bit of conversation with people at the club we went to, but I got the sense that most people could tell I was smashed. By the end of the night, I had downed 7 piscolas, each one with an average of 3 or 4 shots worth of pisco (South American liquor)...Worse yet, we didn't end up leaving until 3:30, only to have to wake up at 8:00 on Sunday for a trip to Valparaiso.

I made it to the lobby, barely, and still slightly drunk. Promptly fell asleep during the bus ride, so no pictures were taken of the countryside this time. We arrived at Valparaiso, the port city of Chile, at around 11 AM, as I grumbled my way off the bus. With a little bit of fresh air and a cigarette, I began to wake up and feel a little better. Valparaiso reminded me of pictures that I have seen of Rio de Janeiro, a wide, arcing panorama of coastline littered with tiny shacks up on the hills. The houses were all extraordinarily colorful, which I really enjoyed, from deep hues of red and green to bright yellow and purple, making for incredible scenery. As the guide explained, the poorer you were, the further up on the hill you lived, as we found out later the hills were pretttty steep.

We took a boat tour through the harbor first, which I hadn't been expecting but was quite enjoyable. Tagging along on the boat was a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay, who was traveling through Chile on a break. I took the opportunity to pick his brain for a while, since I was already accepted for a program in Sub-Saharan Africa come June 2010. He was really helpful, and told me that if I was having doubts about Africa and would prefer Latin America (very much so), that I need to be more forceful and put my foot down, that they would change my assignment. Basically a life-changing conversation, since Africa definitely intimidated me a bit and I hadn't been taking it too seriously. 

Following the boat tour, we drove a short distance through the city, and then embarked upon a walking tour of the various barrios. Valparaiso, like the Bellavista neighborhood, is chock full of amazing graffiti murals, so I ran around snapping pictures left and right. We took the Chilean version of an elevator, more like a cable car, to the top of a vista with pretty amazing views. Up there I bought a couple random items, including an Alpaca wool hoody for less then 30 dollars US. The rest of the day was spent exploring more of the city, including another cable car up to an open-air museum of murals that was closed, but still offered lots of great graffiti shots regardless. I also found a women selling magnets of the local street art, from whom I promptly purchased 20 dollars worth of magnets (gifts for friends back home...) Lunch was at a local restaurant, I had a pretty decent cheese empenada and fettucini alfredo. 

There were street dogs everywhere, but one in particular was amazingly endearing. We got off the second cable car ride, and a golden retriever came running over to follow us. Someone must have given him a little food, because he followed us a LONG way, for at least a couple of miles as we walked up many flights of stairs, hills, and down streets. After several hours later, he was still with us, as we had to say goodbye at that point since we were getting on the bus. What a loyal companion indeed, Valentina our tour guide rewarded him by buying a thing of dog food for him. Annie our professor randomly decided to have us all stop at a bar on the way home, which I was not too enthused about given my overindulgence the night before. Despite the intention of taking a day of from drinking, I ended up splitting a big bottle of Escudo with my roommate, which still felt like taking the day off given the past week. The bus ride home was agony however, as I had forgot to go to the bathroom before we left and half a 40 ounce of beer was desperately trying to get out of me. Finally someone else had to pee too, and the bus driver pulled over on the highway. What sweet, beautiful, relief...I slept the rest of the way home, and called it an early night. Having missed the fire spinning that evening in the Parque Forestal, I decided to buy my own fuel the next day so I could spin whenever and wherever I wanted to....

Sabado y Domingo

Well, Saturday was fun getting up after the late night we had. I raved at the kids in my group about piscolas for hours, man they must have gotten sick of hearing about it. But I mean, I had done a pretty good job of networking, with Nick promising Monday night insanity at the clubs. The afternoon we had scheduled a bike ride, in Bellavista again! The bike tour was definitely pretty awesome, despite being pretty damn hung over.

The tour guide was a dude from Tennessee, who loved Chile and said he was applying for permanent citizenship down here. He said they will welcome you with open arms, especially if you have a college degree, based on their unique history and influences. We toured through Bellavista, past the Museo where I had been spinning fire, and meandered through the Parque Forestal. Being a somewhat experienced biker, I chose to opt for a special hybrid bike which served me pretty well. We would stop periodically at historical marks, statues, etc... as he gave us a history of sites in Santiago. I eventually took my Ipod out too, biking around jammin' to my tunes. My favorite part of the tour was a GIANT wall mural spreading down the sidewalk for hundreds of feet, featuring scenes from each part of Chile running north to south. My street art collection is growing rapidly, as I added dozens more doing the tour and then dozens more as we walked through Bellavista. The tour guide had mentioned a local Thai place that got me excited as all hell, except it was closed.

However, on the walk there, I passed by all types of siiick graffiti murals so it was well worth it. We ended up at a nearby Korean place as well, which was surprisingly a lot better then what I was expecting. I ordered a spicy tofu dish that was recommended to me, which turned out to be one of the best meals of the entire trip to date. Poor Alice had to end up translating and taking orders for everyone, since the menu was only in Korean...

More coming...

El Club De Jazz!

Friday was another engaging economics lecture, presented by the person in charge of assembling financial statistics for all Latin American countries in comparison to Chile. He showed us graphs and numbers that had not even been released to the press yet, as an example of how new they were and what an insider's perspective we were getting...After the lecture, we were told that lunch was covered by NU, so we walked along a busy road looking for restaraunts...

Sushi Now! was where we ended up, a local sushi chain in Chile that seemed reasonably cheap. Me being the picky eater I am, I had never eaten sushi before in my life, but am making an effort to try new things on this trip. I enjoyed my meal to a varied degree, the initial shrimp dumplings I ordered were extremely tasty whilst I was not as keen on the miso soup and shrimp/chive rolls that followed, which is a bad sign apparently as those were more authentic. No matter, we can't all love sushi I guess...

Afterwards was another vague dissapointment, as myself and Kelly explored several options in terms of air travel after hearing of 50 dollar flights to the South of Chile. However, due to the short notice and other factors, we were unable to find any round-trip prices less then 250 USD, which was way more then we were hoping. Therefore renting a car for the spare weekend, or merely snowboarding was settled upon as an agreeable course of action.

It was a girl in my group's birthday, Naris, but I could not stay to celebrate with her and the others. Friday night was reserved for the jazz club that my amigo Gonzalo had agreed to show me, a friendly Chilean kid who lived in my building in Boston and who I had jammed with before. I was obviously pretty excited, getting driven to a local jazz club seemed a pretty awesome way to spend my time. Sure enough, "El Club de Jazz" was a fantastic local place, where I was privileged to see the Nicolas Vera Quinteto perform songs from his new CD release "Bellavista". Gonzo's friends were also very fun to hang with, a diverse group of upper-class kids, some of whom had foreign educations and all were exceedlingly friendly and well-spoken.

I ended up hanging out with Martin, a local student, Nick, who was a DJ in Miami, and Ben (i think), a Venezuelan at school in Canada, after the jazz club. We absconded for Martin's house/barrio to drop another of his friends off and hang out for a second at his house (obviously a member of the upper class upon visiting), before racing back to Bellavista to try to hit up a few nightclubs. It was great, rocketing around the city with some locals, blasting Mars Volta and the Doors, for once not feeling like such a tourist...

The electro/indie/scenester club we tried to get into was packed and not letting people in, so we eventually wandered over to the Bellavista center, stopping in an bar overlooking the Patio Bellavista, where I had eaten lunch with the group a few days ago. The crowd was dead here too, but we had been looking for a place for so long we gave up and just got a round of piscola, pisco with coke (Nick convinced me that this was the drink I should be getting all the time, and I convinced myself after my first, a sweet yet potent blend of alcohol and Coca Cola) They kept apologizing for not showing me a better time, which was ludicrous since I was just so happy to not feel like a tourist and be hanging out with people that knew the city. When we parted ways, I made sure to grab Nick's number as he promised that Santiago was at it's best during the week, with Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays apparently the best nights to party. Overall great night, as well as a late one, but I got to sleep in on Saturday at least...

La Isla Negra / Algarobbo

Our first real week in Santiago saw 3 days in a row of lectures, at different points in the city of Santiago. For our first lecture, we walked 20 minutes from the hotel to FLACSO, a local Chilean university site. The professor (Annie) gave an introduction and comprehensive/condensed history of Chile, ranging from it's roots as a primitive yet proud nation who successfully defended itself against all conquerors, to present day Chile and all the economic and social reforms that took place. This is a country that has a deep history, one of much conflict and revolution mixed with everyday life. Apparently if you ask the rich people, they still side with Pinochet for financial reasons despite the knowledge of his mass executions.

Tuesday the lecture was in Spanish, so it was a little less engaging. However, Wednesday we had a Columbia-educated native English speaker who presented an interesting summary of recent Chilean economic policy, in a manner that managed to hold my attention. He analyzed class discrimination, and suggested a number of policies to pursue in the future including capitalizing upon natural resources and potential as well as providing a garunteed 2 years of technical school for those who cannot afford regular university.

Following these days of class however, we reached a nice break in that Thursday happened to be a national holiday. Despite yet another round of serious drinking the night before, we all managed to stagger down into the hotel lobby around 8:45, to catch the bus to the beach.

The ride alone was worth it, a sensational tour of the countryside. My eyes did not leave the road for a second, as I soaked up the many and varied sites that the Chilean landscape had to offer. As we rode, the sun gradually rose until it covered us with a warm glow, transforming the climate from a cold morning to a beautiful afternoon, as we also descended in height en route to the Pacific. I was fortunate enough to glimpse tableaus of local life, from all nature of farms and poor shacks, to workers laboring in the fields, occaisional clusters of horses or cows, and beautiful rivers and mountains in the background.

However, La Isla Negra was even more beautiful then the bus ride. We got off at Pablo Neruda's seaside home, the second of third which we were to visit. The house was stunning, overlooking the water with Neruda's typical proliferation of outside bars and patios, with a connecting path running along down to the beach. I skipped the first tour to wander the beach, but as soon I began to find my higher grace whilst meditating against the ocean it seemed we had to leave.

However Neruda's house once again proved an interesting tour, as we once again viewed his obscure collections of random objects (glass piano leg holders for example...) yet admirable for his aesthetic tastes. No original Picasso pieces here, but nonetheless another eccentric assortment of individual taste and artistry. The views from his balcony were magnificent, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and conjuring both at once feelings of grandeur yet also tranquility. I could clearly imagine in my head the famous poet sitting with his friends, drinking adult beverages along the ocean with much pleasure. It reminded me of a past resolution of one day owning property along the ocean, surely a beautiful thing.

After Neruda's house and the beach, we departed for Algarroba, a nearby town, for lunch. This was the home of the world's largest pool, a touristic monstrosity constructed so large that it was possible to sail boats in it as well as scuba dive. The largest irony of this massive unnecessary behemoth was it's extreme proximity to the ocean, seperated by only a narrow strip of land. I encountered a picture of this monument to human travesty while googling Santiago, but never imagined I would eat lunch at a restaraunt literally right across the street from it. As I was explained, the local Chilean people hated this place as it was fenced off by a massive tourist resort, and unfitting with the archaic, quiet nature of the rest of the town.

Post-lunch, we wandered into town as we had several hours free. We found a market along the water, where I decided to buy a number of impulse purchases ranging from a massage toy to a Chinese puzzle piece to a buddha (yes I bought a buddha in South America, don't ask me why...) Hooray for spontaneous consumption, I definitely felt pleased afterwards, especially considered my entire shopping spree set me back less then 20 US dollars...We eventually returned to the bus, and headed back for Santiago. A long day, but certainly fulfilling and eventful, if for no other reason then being able to hang out along the Pacific Ocean. I fell asleep excited, as usual, for the coming days and in particular the Jazz Club my friend Gonzalo had offered to take me to on Friday night...Pero ahora, hasta luego, voy a dormir...