Coasting

The USAC trip to Valparaiso and Viña del Mar went off without a hitch.  Our intrepid program administrators Luis and Brenda bussed most of the Andres Bello gringos out to the coast two Fridays ago to experience the country's playground on the Pacific.  We took in a South American art museum, wandered aimlessly, absorbed the seaside lifestyle, and visited an inexplicable dollop of sand dunes north of the cities.

Palacio Vergara art museum, Viña del Mar.  Its original 

inhabitant was Blanca Veragara, the son of Viña del Mar's founder 

José Francisco Veragara.

Tomfoolery on the dunes.

Yours truly, in flight.

Several of us elected not to return with the group, and stayed in a hostel in Viña for the weekend.  Most of our time was spent lazing around the city or on the beach.  At night, we'd retire to the hostel for beers (the bottle store across the street magnanimously allowed us to haul our purchases in one of their crates) and singing on the roof.

Sunday morning came around and, by the time I'd woken, Guy, Murph, Jon and their Chilean friend Sebastian had already returned from an early-morning surfing trip.  Sebastian, normally among Chile's more tranquil citizens, is prone to fits of vigorous elation, and upon arriving at the shore became so exuberant that he couldn't resist throwing his Suzuki Samurai into gear and executing a quick donut in the street.  The Samurai, a tiny-but-tall Jeep-ish vehicle, couldn't bear the excitement and flopped down on its side, exhausted, on the asphalt.  Unharmed and not so easily defeated, the boys debarked, rolled the car back up on its tires, and commenced surfing.

Checked out of the hostel, most of the USACers took morning buses back to Santiago.  Ian and I checked our bags in at the station and stalked off on reluctant legs, exhausted from the night's festivities but determined not to waste a day.  We rode an ascensior, an ancient and calamitous elevator car which hauled us from the seaside up the hill to Valparaiso's naval museum.  The exhibits, while somewhat haphazardly arranged and smacking of jingoism, were thrillingly devoid of "no tocar" signs.  The artillery pieces, which swiveled in their mounts and had operable cranks and levers, were particularly diverting.

Call to arms outside our hostel.

Tour boats in the harbor at Valparaiso.

Valparaiso's inclined coast.

An order of fresh ceviche at a restaurant next door to a fish market (a safe bet, I thought) provided cheap and delicious sustenance, but not quite enough to fuel more sightseeing, so Ian and I called it a day and returned to the bustle of Santiago.

This past weekend was spent in Mendoza, Argentina, eating slow-cooked Argentine beef and riding quick-tempered Argentine horses in the Andean foothills.  Details to come.

Photos courtesy of Eric Goldschein and Shannon Seeley.

The Trip Turns South

As is becoming an amusing habit, I decided on short notice to spend this weekend with the Reno Bunch in Pucón, ten hours south of Santiago.  According to wikipedia, Pucón is within the boundaries of the coveted Patagonia region, which comprises the bottom of South America and is synonymous with Christmas morning for adventure tourists.  Far more exciting, however, is Pucón's volcón Villarrica, a docile but active volcano which intermittently burps tufts of smoke into the sky.  Not only is Villarrica a spectacle unto itself, but a thrilling snowboard destination: not many amateurs are able to spend their third outing slicing along the sides of former lava flow ravines.

Adopting Guy, Jon and Murph's travel itineraries, I bought overnight bus tickets leaving Friday at quarter to midnight and returning Monday morning at eight.  Also coming were Rene, Melinda and Jenna, ski enthusiasts from Reno, Missouri, and Michigan, respectively.  The ride was considerably more comfortable than one would expect for only $25 U.S., and saved us an extra night's rate at the hostel.  Our coach dropped us off at a little before ten Saturday morning, we walked five minutes to a recommended hostel, and unburdened ourselves of our luggage.

At a grocer's down the road, Guy and Jenna collected a bag full of eggs, tomatoes, onions, cheese and sausage, which were combined on the hostel stove into a communal hobo-omelette, ravenously put away with the help of bread, milk, and tea.  Plates clear, we donned our snow clothes and doled out a hefty sum to our hostel proprietor for transit up the volcano.

At the lodge, Guy, Jon and I decided in favor of hiking over shelling out an additional fortune for lift tickets.  We ascended the aforementioned lava flow for about 45 minutes before the Brothers Eriksen found a "kicker," a ramp made of snow erected and abandoned by an earlier party.  I borrowed Jon's board and goofed off on the sides of the ravine while they used Guy's shovels to augment the ramp to their satisfaction, then spent a while photographing the brothers' impressive jumps, flips and twists.

At around five o'clock, we assembled to make our way back to the lodge, Guy accommodating me with a piggy-back snowboard ride down the slope.  We plopped back into the van and returned to the hostel where I humbly accepted Melinda's dry flip-flops, tossing my soaked shoes onto a sunny rooftop.  Guy and I hoofed it into town for an ATM visit and came back to find steaming bowls of soup-from-packets and pasta on the kitchen table.  Eating our fill, Guy and I washed up and poured the leftovers into rinsed-out milk cartons to save in the fridge.

Guy, Jon, Murph, Jenna and I equipped our swimsuits and paid another egregious fare for transit to volcano-fueled hot springs nearby, which turned out to be worth every peso.  The stone-walled pools of steaming, jacuzzi-temperature water, gently illuminated by sparse lampposts effectively reversed the results of a day's tramping through snow and butt-sliding down ravines.  Our driver, using one of the best job-perks I've ever witnessed, donned shorts and joined us in the steaming baths.  Exhausted, we returned once again to our digs and I resolved to dry my dripping shoes over the wood-burning stove which warmed the building.

The following day began similarly, minus the epic omelette.  From a friendly Israeli couple I received some bread and the remainders of a Nutella jar, eagerly consumed.  At the volcano, on the advice of the lift-pass buyers from the day before, we resolved to hike once again to the second lodge: after the first lift, none of them were asked to show their tickets.  Sweating and panting, having shed our coats and hats, we made it to the second lodge contemporaneously with a fog bank, prompting a well-deserved breather in the cafeteria.  I decided to lunch on ketchup packets instead of ten dollar cheeseburgers, to which Guy deftly responded by getting me a glass of boiling water.  Thirty five well-squeezed packets later we were sharing sips of steaming and surprisingly delicious tomato soup as our hats and gloves dried off on the radiator.

After an hour of waiting, we set off into the incessant fog, riding up the second lift without so much as a glance from the operator.  Unable to see more than one chair ahead, I was respectfully terrified of beginning my third snowboarding adventure, and my demanding we institute a buddy system was heeded by the group.  My fear turned out to be unfounded- all seven of us stuck within the 25 foot visibility radius of each other, and swept down the slope with ease and, interestingly enough, privacy.  Being able to see no one but my friends imbued me with a powerful confidence and, in turn, I performed amply.

We zipped up and down several more times before retiring to the kickers from the day before, slowly traversing beautiful scenery in the relenting mist.  Another hour of playing and we were all spent, and this time I got to descend the ravine on a board of my own, sliding up the sides as I went, dodging volcanic rocks jutting up from the powder.

Having checked out of the hostel, we subtly changed clothes behind a garage and left our bags and gear with the front desk.  We sauntered around town for a while, dining from the grocery store and chatting with a group of kids planning to hike to the volcano's crater the following day.  Unable to resist their offer of a free couch to sleep on that night, Guy, Murph, Jon and Renee exchanged their bus tickets for the following night.  If all went to plan, they spent this very afternoon peering into Villarrica's cavernous maw, foaming with lava.

Jenna, Melinda and I pulled back into the Santiago bus station this morning at eight.  In a possibly foreseeable twist of fate, my heretofore lucky streak was dealt a blow on the metro ride home: mashed into the subway car with no room to move any part of my body, I found upon debarking my digital camera had been delicately removed from my backpack.  In light of this disappointing turn of events, pictures of the weekend South will have to be postponed until I can post those of my companions.  I hope my irritation will subside with a good, long night's sleep.

This Friday is our class trip to the port city of Viña del Mar, where, if my luck returns, I might see some penguins.