La Serena and Chilean Independence Day
Trip Start
Jul 13, 2005
1
9
32
Trip End
Mar 02, 2006
La Serena,
Chile
Sunday, September 18, 2005
I hope this finds everyone in good cheer. Its been a Crazy week to say the least, and its not over yet, but I´m writing this email before I head out to celebrate Chile´s independence day...more on that later!
I am excited that preseason hockey has started! Too bad I am so far away, but ill be rootin for the wings from afar!
Well last weekend started on an intense note. Friday night I went to a party with one of my gringo friends at some chileans house in her neighborhood. It was fun and we drank some piscolas and chatted before i left to continue the party in Valpo at club cielo. Basically it was a big percentage of gringos, and we danced and stuff for a long time into the night. Good times, and made an agreement to go to a national park in the morning.
At 9:30 we hit the micro headed to limache, a smaller city thats up in the valley from vina. It took about an hour and a half to get to the national park, and when we got there the peak of cerro la campana was covered with clouds, and it really looked far up. We started up about 11 am and it really took a long time to get up, but cool things happened along the way including the wonderful silence that was all around. This silence at one point was broken by a guy that was playing a traditional flute up on the mountain. It was soo cool and something out of a movie or the himalayas, gave me goosebumps to listen.
We made it to the summit after quite a difficult last hour (i didnt find out until later that people have died at la campana...yikes) We ate lunch at the summit (6,000ish ft) and enjoyed being surrounded by clouds. Very eerie, but after about 30 min the clouds to one side cleared a bit affording excellent views to the ground, though we were never able to see the pacific and the andes at the same time, which is what charles darwin said about la campana when he summited a few years back. It took 3 hours to come back down and an hour back to vina. In total the trip was about 8.5 hours and 14 km, all in a days work!
Sunday was for resting, and rest I did!!
The beginning of the week was normal, but knowing that it would be a short week made things rather laid back. Flute lesson went well, I think i am making some good progress. It still kind of hurts my ears sometimes though. Ill be working on that so i can give a concert when i come home!!
Art classes were fun on wednesday, for drawing we sketched people walking along the ocean as they passed us. It was cool, and good practice! Painting went fairly well, but i painted my first really bad paintings, that I want to throw away, and we are getting graded next week. Oh well!
After class i went to the jumbo to buy some snacks for the 6 hour bus ride to La Serena, and i get there at 5 with all the other gringos. The bus ride is a lot of fun, people were drinking wine and stuff and being chatty and we also watched a movie. I slept for quite a bit of the way...and it was great to get to the beach and the hotel we stayed at. After checking in i was rather tired, so i went to bed, but other people went swimming and stuff.
In the morning we headed in the tur bus to Valle de Elqui. Known for its magnetic energies and beautiful landscapes, it was cool to be there. Its pretty much desert, and we ate at a restaurant where they cook the food using solar ovens. If you know me, then you know that i would have been super excited about this. The food was good...i had goat for the first time. Yummy (sorta)
After this we headed to the Capel pisco factory. Pisco is one of the national drinks. Very cool to tour the factory and buy some pisco.
After piscoing, we head to the Gabriela Mistral museum. The nobel prize winning poet was very cool, and considered as a mother to all of chile. The museum was a little boring though, but its always fun to read the poetry. I need to buy some poetry books while im here so i can read neruda and mistral while relaxing on the beach.
At night we meet to go up to Observatorio Marmalluca. The mountains around Valle de Elqui are the worlds best location for observation of the heavens. They have clear skies 300 days of the year. Unfortunately, it was a full moon this night, but we were still able to look at cool stuff through these smaller telescopes. There was an educational planitarium thing, and a music show. We were not able to go in the actual observatory though, i guess that is just reserved for scientists, but its very impressive looking and they were using it while we were there, rotating it around and stuff. The moon was bathing the whole valley in its weird glow, and you could see the snow on the andes all lit up. Very very cool. We took the bus back to La Serena.
As we arrived at the hotel, it hit midnight, and as such my birthday. Many people knew, and so everyone ended up knowing, and they all broke into happy birthday, and then feliz cumpleanos. It was a great way to start my 21st and i felt special! We hung out around the hotel and tried the various piscos that we got at the factory. Fun fun.
In the morning i got up early to go on my educational tour of Isla Damas. We drove about 2 hours north of la serena up into the desert. Got into little fishing boats to go out to these islands in the pacific. About halfway there, a school of dolphins surrounded the boat and they were jumping around us. It was my first time with dolphins, and i thought it was great!!!
We continued on through the huge waves to Isla Chorro, where these penguins live. We got real close to the island and all these caves and stuff and saw the little crazy guys waddling around. It was my first time seeing penguins in the wild, and it was really really fun. We disembarked at the next island over, and climbed the tallest part of the island, and enjoyed the weird island. It was kind of like a desert at sea. Very odd, but cool.
On the way back we stopped for our lunch that was included in this adventure, great food and i chatted it up with some chileans that were also on the tour. Good times and a great way to spend my birthday.
When we got back to la serena we had dinner in the restaurant in the hotel. After a delicious salmon dinner and empanada de queso, everyone again sang feliz cumpleanos, and the kitchen staff brought out a birthday cake for me. It was fantastic, and i really felt great. At night we went out to a local bar to celebrate, although being 21 doesnt really matter to them, but amongst us gringos, we knew to have a good time :-)
We got up early the next morning and headed back to Vina yesterday. At night i went to a friends to celebrate el dieciocho....chile´s birthday. I ended up staying the night there, and in the morning we all got up a little late, and headed to el jardin botanico, in quilpue (near vina) to celebrate with an asado (bbq)
It was great times, chileans dancing the traditional dance, flags everywhere, people cooking meat and hanging out , playing football, kids riding bikes. We ate a bunch and drank some more pisco in celebration. In total it was a blast....very cultural experience.
Im on my way out now to go celebrate some more with chileans, and hopefully tomorrow will be a day of rest and catching up on some school work before classes resume on tues.
Viva Chile!!
Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday electronically, or via snail mail! I will write responses more specifically as soon as i can. Take care everyone and enjoy september!
Un abrazo
