DELE

In a couple hours I'm going to Santiago for the weekend, since tomorrow I take the DELE - a Spanish exam for extranjeros (foreigners). If all goes well, it can go on my resume and will basically assert that I'm fluent in Spanish (yeaaah right). Yikes.

However, I will make a real post on Sunday! Last night Rachel, a friend from Bowdoin who is studying in Valparaíso, came to La Serena, and we had an excellent night. So, tales to come!

Across the Andes: Argentina

What happens when two Germans, two Frenchmen, a Finn, and an American take a bus to Argentina?


(it sounds like an interesting joke. Let me know if you come up with a good punchline.)

My journey started off badly. I got lost going to the apartment of my travel companions to eat dinner together before our trip started, and ended up wandering around dark, unlit streets at 9:30pm, clearly looking like a lost gringa. I was not thrilled about that situation. However, I eventually made it to the apartment and enjoyed a delicious dinner and dessert with great company.

We walked to the bus terminal and I slept through most of the first bus. We arrived in Santiago when it was still dark, then an hour and a half later got on the second bus to take us to Mendoza. I slept for about an hour or two on this one, but when I woke up and looked out the window I couldn't shut my eyes again. We were driving through the Andes - an awesome sight, in the meaning that it inspires awe*. Not the trite "awesome" that I usually use.

We passed into Argentina!

 We were lucky to spend 3 hours in aduanas (customs)! Yippee... But we were allowed to wander around outside of the bus for about half an hour of that, which was lovely.

Once we were on our way again, more beautiful vistas greeted us:

When we got into Mendoza, we walked to the hostel to drop our bags off, then headed to the local tourist office to get some ideas for plans for the next few days.

Friday morning we got up early to catch a bus to Potrerillos, about an hour and a half outside of the city, to do some hiking. Unfortunately, we had been given a screwy bus schedule and we ended up having a couple hours free before the next bus. We bought some lunch food to take with us and went to see the lovely Plaza de España, pictured below.

Louis... how French! 

We then headed to the bus terminal and ended up arriving at Potrerillos at 11:30am. We asked around where were good places to hike without a tour guide, and didn't receive very helpful answers. However, we ended up taking one man's advice and picking a rocky hill/mountain and forging our own path. It was a bit treacherous (especially on the way down!) but the view was phenomenal.

What a great lunch spot!

On the left you can see a red river - I'm assuming that the color comes from clay in the ground. It flows into the impossibly blue lake in the center of the picture - but the two don't mix, creating an interesting visual effect. We stopped for lunch a bit below the top of the ridge line of the mountain we were on - "lunch" meant loaves of french bread paired with cheese, accompanied by bananas and apples.

Miraculously, we descended the rock-strewn slope without twisting any ankles or sustaining any injuries. We headed to the blue lake after, in hopes of cooling ourselves off, but it wasn't swimmable, unfortunately. 

The next day, we spent the morning exploring the city. I went with Jan, one of the Germans, to the large park on the western side of Mendoza, then climbed the hill that affords a marvelous view of the city and its surroundings.

I love the makeshift crown.

View of Mendoza from Cerro de la Gloria

Monument to the Ejército de los Andes

Panorama from Cerro de la Gloria

After exploring some of the plazas and parks in Mendoza, we all went on a tour of the bodegas (wineries) of Maipu. Maipu, in the Mendoza Province, is well-known for its abundant wineries and excellent wine. First, though, we went on a tour of an olive-oil factory. That was both interesting and delicious, as it culminated in a taste test of various types of olive oil paired with bread.

Tours of two of Mendoza's many bodegas ensued, both ending with wine tastings.

Wow. Huge.

 When we returned to the city after our tour, we went out to eat for the first time in Mendoza rather than cooking in the hostel. We ate outside, since even at 9:45pm the weather remained in the 70s. This meant that we were serenaded by street musicians hoping for tips throughout dinner, which was a blessing and a curse depending on the performer. We slept soundly after another full day.

Unfortunately, I had to get up early to leave on Sunday due to a test Monday morning, but the others stayed in Mendoza until Sunday night. Though getting up at 5:45 didn't really agree with me, I was glad to be traveling during the daytime to be able to enjoy the wonderful paisajes on the return trip.

I wish I could have stayed in Mendoza for longer! I would have loved to get to know the city more, since there was so much to do. But as it is, I had an amazing trip that was well worth the many travel hours it entailed.

*Awesome. Awe-some. Some-awe. I don't understand why the word is not "awefull" - full of awe. But instead, we have awful... which is on the opposite end of the emotional spectrum.

One of the many reasons I'm glad I'm a native English speaker. It must be brutally difficult to learn English.

Más feriados

Yet another long weekend, which means more traveling! Thursday is Día de Todos los Santos, and Friday is Día de las Iglesias Evangélicas y Protestantes.

I will be going to Mendoza, Argentina this weekend with a bunch of other international students: two from Germany, two from France, and one from Finland. Can't wait!

Alexander von Humboldt... and his penguins

Thursday evening I went to the second showing of the five-part series of  cine alemán (German theater/movies) this semester - "Die Besteigung des Chimborazo" (El ascenso al Chimborazo - I don't think it even has a title in English). It was about Alexander von Humboldt and his journey up the unsummited Chimborazo, in Ecuador (shoutout to Abby - you should totally do this).

I liked the film. It was in German with spanish subtitles, and I found (for the second time) that being able to read the subtitles was actually much easier than movies in Spanish without subtitles (reading has no accent, I suppose). But I still didn't understand everything. Humboldt's expedition never made it to the top, ending in a dramatic scene of everybody with frostbite and severe altitude sickness about to die (... have fun, Ab!). I don't think they did die - well, I know Humboldt didn't - but the movie ended with that small detail left ambiguous.

Learning about Alexander von Humboldt was especially interest since on Saturday I went with three students from the Middlebury in Chile program and our program director + his wife to the Reserva Nacional Pingüino de Humboldt. We first went to Punta de Choros, a small fishing village about two hours north of La Serena, where the tour started.

Guanacos, seen en route to Punta de Choros 

Punta de Choros

Punta de Choros was a relatively small town, quiet this Saturday morning. There were some fisherman up and about, but I didn't see many people in general, despite the fact that it was almost 11am.

We set off on boat and toured the coast of Isla Choros, with our guide pointing out various features of the island as well as the wildlife there. Punta de Choros is known for its biodiversity - especially for its concentration of Humboldt penguins - so it was really nice to have a guide to describe what we were seeing.

Humboldt penguins hanging out next to Isla Damas

You aren't allowed to land on Isla de Choros, but Isla Damas is open to visitors, so we alighted there. In order to preserve its biodiversity, visits are limited to one hour. That allowed just enough time to walk a loop of the island, which was beautiful and absolutely teeming with birds.

From the shores of Isla Damas 

As the one-hour limit approached, our tour guide hurried the group back onto the boat. A pod of bottlenose dolphins was approaching, and if we hurried we would be able to follow them. We managed to stay with the dolphins for about 15 minutes, I'd guess. They were playful - some coming right up to the boat and jumping alongside, or swimming under. 

Dolphins! off the coast of Isla Damas

 After the dolphin pod headed in a different direction, our boat turned back towards the mainland. We had a delicious lunch (I'm in love with all of the jugos naturales offered in Chile) and then drove back to La Serena.

Totoralillo

Last Saturday I ate a hurried lunch at home before hurrying to el centro. I was on a mission. Will, Maca, Lucas and I were going to the beach, which could only mean one thing: I needed a kite. During las Fiestras Patrias volantines are easy to find, but I had to ask  around in a couple of shops before finding one that carried kites.

I then headed to the bus terminal to meet up with the others. We waited for a bus to come that was headed the way we were going and hopped on. The bus ride was about forty-five minutes - 25 minutes to Coquimbo followed by 20 minutes watching the rugged coastline whiz past.

The bus dropped us off on the side of the highway and for over half an hour we walked down a windy road past the town of Totoralillo to the beach. The bad news: I discovered that my camera was basically out of batteries. (I took a grand total of 3 pictures on my camera during the trip.) Without further ado, I give you:

Totoralillo!

It was a perfect day for the beach. Paradoxically, there were amazing cloud banks covering the sky but it always seemed to be sunny.  I didn't swim, since the water was quite cold, but Lucas, Maca, and I convinced Will by offering him 1000, 500, and 500 CLP respectively (a total of ~four dollars!). He had to stay in the water for a full minute, fully submerged except for his head. Yikes.

There was a beautiful rocky hill abutting the beach, which tempted me no end. It wasn't very big so I scrambled up and within 10 minutes was enjoying the vista from the cima (top).  It was windy and I felt like this (minus all the pink and the leaves) :

I went back down to the beach and Will and I did some crossword puzzles (still addicted) before having a frisbee catch with Lucas. 

Soon enough I declared it to be kite time, so this time Will joined me and we clambered up the boulder-strewn hill with the volantín. The wind pattern kept blowing the kite into the side of the hill, which meant that we didn't have much success, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless.

(The next four photos are Will's, whose camera was functioning properly. He's a great photographer, as you can tell. Thanks, Will!)

I wanted to feel more like Pocahontas so I unbraided my hair.
Unsure why my expression is so pained.

After a few successes and many failures with the kite, we headed back down to the beach and packed our things up. The sun was setting, producing a beautiful array of colors in the sky and reflected in the water. Being on the Pacific is absolutely amazing - before coming to Chile I had never really experienced an ocean sunset before.  Though it's now a common sight for me, it hasn't lost any of its wonder for me.

My battery died again just when the sun dipped below the horizon.

It was about 8:15, and since it was a 45 minute walk back up to the highway we had to hurry to make sure we'd make the last bus that would pass by (at about 9pm). On the walk up, Lucas asked if we'd ever hitch-hiked (hacer el dedo). Will and I hadn't, but he and Maca had; it's a lot safer and more common in Chile.

With that in mind, we all stuck our thumbs out at the next car that passed by that might be able to fit all of us. An middle-aged man and his young son kindly picked us up, and with all four of us squished into the back seat he dropped us off at the highway. We knew we'd probably be waiting a while for the bus to come, so we decided to try hitchhiking again. We were lucky! Within five minutes Lucas was in the front of a pick-up with Maca, Will and I in the back, headed to Coquimbo. From Coquimbo, Will and I took a micro back to La Serena and were back in our homes by 10pm. An excellent day.

(The kite is furled in my room, waiting for its next beach expedition.)

Neglect

I've been horrible about my blog - I'm sorry! I have, however, been adding photos to facebook so that is one way to keep track of some of my Chilean adventures.

More posts coming this week, I promise!

viaje este finde

Just a note to my devoted blog readers:

I felt guilty about not posting when I went to Algarrobo in advance because I didn't post for a while... So I'm letting you know that I'm leaving tomorrow to go to Salamanca until Monday night!

Posts will continue after.