Chilean teenyboppers and tea with Pinochet

Thursday night I went to Santiago with Ashley and our friend Kendra to catch a concert in the Estadio Victor Jarra. We went to see Alex Ubago who, for those of you not up on your Spanish music, is like the equivalent of Clay Aiken from Spain, and a couple years older. He’s young, dorky-cute, and appeals to teenage girls and their mothers. He has an adorably nerdy way of dancing and performed in jeans and a blazer which may not have the appeal of a shoeless Ryan Miller (reference to my last concert in the States), but that can be a hard act to beat.

We spent the night in a hostel close to the center of town and headed to the ritzy outskirts the next morning for some American indulgence. In the expensive Las Condes neighborhood there is both a New York Bagels and a Starbucks, providing us with the big American chain versions of two things we had missed terribly: bagels and real coffee.

Kendra stayed on in Starbucks to work for a bit and then return to Valpo while Ashley and I took off for the Chilean countryside. So we didn’t have tea with Pinochet, but we did plan a relaxing weekend in the same place he had a vacation house, the Cajón de Maipo, or the Maipo (River) Canyon. And the title is a reference to the movie, Tea with Mussolini, but probably didn’t make that much sense as few people that I know have seen it.

Getting to the country was a bit more of a chore than we had planned. It turns out someone decided to change the bus route since the last time LP or Let’s Go checked, and so we found ourselves at the wrong place, receiving advice from a toothless older gentleman. He told us he was going that way and also had been tricked by the change of bus lines (at least it wasn’t just the silly foreigners), and had us follow him on multiple busses through most of Santiago. Before he got off a few stops before us, he gave me his number and insisted that we call him or he would get worried and come looking for us in the country. Ah, relying on the kindness of strangers.

After initial difficulties, we made it into the small town of San José in the Cajón de Maipo. Since the office of tourism had closed for what could only have been a siesta at that time of day, we decided to ask a woman selling jam in the square for hostel recommendations, and she pointed us in the way of the Hostel Tío Valentín. Keeping with our tradition of slightly decrepit but character rich dwellings, the Hostel was owned by a sweet woman who was trying to convert her deceased parents house into a countryside stop for Chilean tourists. For less than 10 USD a night, breakfast included, it was fine by us.

Friday afternoon we hopped a bus and took it to the end of the Cajón line to see what there was to see. It’s an interesting place in that all of the surrounding Chilean area seems to vacation there at some point or another, be they wicked rich or scrape-by poor. Okay, perhaps not quite the latter, but it does yield a wide variety of visitors. We decided to walk a good 9 km of the way back to enjoy the views, take some pictures, and stop for dinner at a cabin resort. Afterwards, we hopped a bus the rest of the way back (about another 11 km), and took turns listening for each other in the shower since the bathroom was the “old-fashioned” type in Chile – a calefont, a gas powered mechanism for heating water that pretty much every house in Chile has somewhere, in the bathroom instead of the safer/better ventilated kitchen or porch. Because who really wants to die of gas inhalation while on vacation?

The next day we hired a van and took the hour and a half ride to the very end of the Cajón, close to the Argentinean border. To start this story, one must be reminded of the facts that 1. I burn easily, and 2. I’m stupid. That being said, it should come as no surprise that I sit here with one of the worst sunburns I’ve ever had. It turns out people aren’t lying when they talk about the whole in the ozone layer being above Chile.

To backtrack a bit, Ashley and I, apparently not having learned much from our previous mountain climbing experiment, decided to climb an Andean hill: the National Monument (which seams to mean just a small national park) Morado. It’s a 16 km hike, 75% of which is rather gradual. We saw a lagoon and a glacier, we didn’t get lost, and I came back with a really bad burn despite my sunscreening efforts. Well, two out of three isn’t bad.

To relax a bit and perhaps soothe my burn, we headed to the “thermal springs”. When the guidebooks say “rustic”, they aren’t kidding. It turns out that these thermal springs were, as the owner described them, “tibia, not hot”. And orange. Well, for 3 USD, Ashley and I will try anything once. How many people can say they bathed in 22 degree Celsius orange waters under both the Andes and the vigilant watch of not one, not two, but three Virgins!? That’s what I thought. The owner insisted that the waters were orange, not because they were dirty, but because of the abundant minerals that were present. And that we shouldn’t shower afterward but let the minerals work their “medicinal effects”. Needless to say, we did not heed his advice.

We slept a good 11 hours that night, sleep that was much needed by this work-hard play-hard study abroader. Unfortunately, it’s not a luxury I will have tonight, so it’s back to work for me. Currently reading (due Wednesday): Mapocho, a book about an incestuous and dead brother and sister, wandering the streets of Santiago. Ah, Chilean postmodernism! Weeks left of such craziness (in other words, classes): 3. Weeks left in Chile: 5. Next up: the Atacama Desert, the driest place on earth, on Thursday!

Catching my z's on buses...

I feel it's actually a skill worth perfecting, espeically when living in Chile. This weekend, I once again hopped an overnight bus to go south for a few days. This time it was with my whole program, so we had the bus to ourselves. It was the night of the World Series, so there was a little mini-party/morning at around 1 when we received the call from home. I made a call home to congratulate Tim and talk to Sam, and then konked out as a result of very little sleep of late.

We arrived in Púcon, a touristy-outdoorsy town 10 hours south of here, at around 8 in the morning on Thursday. There are tons of tourists (which means English-speaking actually doesn't atract weird looks) a beautiful lake, a volcano complete with smoking top, and a cute log-cabin town. Plus, being south of here, it's actually quite chilly at night. Combine that with the great smell of the lake and the surrounding forests, it actually felt a little like fall in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Ah, happy memories of Thanksgiving in Moscow, PA, how I miss them.

Thursday we went on a tour of the saltos in the area - literally jumps of water, or waterfalls - which were really quite beautiful. When I'm on my computer (because right now I'm making use of computer lab priviledges at a Santiago hostal where I'm staying) I'll post great pictures. We also went to the thermal springs - bathing in hot waters by the side of a raging river under the mountains...what could be better?!

My program was staying in cabañas - cabins - for the weekend, which at first made me think of 6th grade summer camp style or Georgetown ESCAPE retreat-esque cabins with three tiered bunk beds and little else. Wow was I wrong. I'm never going back to another hostal if I can help it. Staying in a cabin here is like renting out a luxourious house for the night, only much cheaper. Granted, there were bunk beds, but there were four sets of them, plus a double bed, two bathrooms, a living room, and a fantastic kitchen. The grounds also had a pool and a jacuzzi. While it was too cold to actually swim, we decided it would be a good idea to go for a midnight jump-in-the-pool-run-to-the-jakuzzi dip. I believe I tied for the top number of pool to jacuzzi jumps: 3.

Because there were only 8 of us signed from the program signed up to be staying in this 10 person cabaña, and because Ashley and our friend Lauren were coming to visit us down there the next night, we called them up and said, don't stay in a hostal, come stay in our awesome cabin on our program's bill!

They arrived the next day and did just that. We tried to hide the fact that they were staying there, although not very well. Oops. Guess my dreams of joining the CIA and making out with Michael Vartan (ALIAS reference, for those of you who aren't as cool and in touch as I am with pop culture) won't quite pan out.

Friday was our program's trip to a Mapuche center nearbye. We learned about the Mapuche people (I love how we all introduced ourselves, all 32 of us, following traditions), ate food with them, learned some dances, and - Dad, you'll love this after reading My Invented Country by Isabel Allende - shared mate around a fire. (Mate is a type of tea which is made by filling a specific type of cup with the leaves, pouring in boiling water, and using a special straw with very small holes in the bottom so you don't drink any of the leaves. It is often shared in groups. Germaphobes beware.)

That night we were free to get our own dinner. Luckily, because Pucón is such a touristy town, the food there is the best I've had yet in Chile. That means it has flavor. We went to an "Arab" restaurant for Palestinian food that was quite good, although I'm pretty sure what I had wasn't shish kabab as I've ever seen it before. My motto for traveling though is, "when in doubt, eat!" and it hasn't failed me yet.

Another attempt at jacuzzi debauchery failed miserably as the owners were changing the water that night and it wouldn't be warm until the next day. The friendly night guard reminded us, however, that we had a jacuzzi whirlpool tub in our cabins. No need to tell us twice. Sara, Jeff, and I headed back to the "matrimonial baño" in our cabin and took a bath...leading to some weird quotes, probably dangerous pictures, and memories of certain other bathroom experiences involving Chambers, champagne, and an ironing board. I dare not say more.

Saturday was our free day to take advantage of the wonder that is Pucón`s outdoors-y toorism. I went white water rafting for the first time, which is fun because, in Chile, they don't really care if the guides have been drinking. Luckily, my guide was sober, and it was the crazy guide in the other boat that smelled a bit of alcohol, so in the end it was just amusing for us to watch him dance around in the other raft and enjoy our sane leadership.

That afternoon we did something called "canopy", which we quickly nicknamed "monkey flying". It involved ten ziplines from tree to tree over rivers and forest bed in harnesses. And fast speeds. It was crazy fun. The scariest part wasn't hurling yourself over the river but rather climbing up the tree branch assembled ladders to get to seemingly unsturdy platforms in the trees and then waiting to hurl yourself. But of course, our guides just shimmied up the trees like monkeys without a care in the world. Ah, life without lawsuits.

My program took off that night after our crazy fun activities, but Ashley, Lauren, and I decided to hang around one more night since we didn't have school on Monday because of the national holiday of (wait for it) All Saints Day. And they claim separation of church and state. (By the way, Chile is still just trying out a divorce law. Sometimes I'm amazed at where I am.) We stayed at an adorable vegitarian friendly hostal called école, which called to mind certain hair salons in DC due to it's "e. coli" like similarity. It was very hippy-esque, complete with "ANYBODY BUT BUSH IN 2004" sign on the door. Woohoo.

Sunday we had high hopes of hiking the national park Huerquehue (we nicknamed it Panqueque - pancake in Spanish - with good reason) but woke up to pouring rain. It was also election day in Chile, and, since no alcohol can be sold on election day here, we couldn't find much in the way of restaurants. So we stayed by the fire in our hostal, talked to backpackers from literally all over the world, found out quickly they all hated Bush (I don't care what you think of him, we're in deep trouble with international relations - it's the first thing people tell you here), and ate more good vegetarian food. Quite the relaxing day that I needed.

Our bus left that night around 9 and we were taking... EJECUTIVO! While this may have no significance for any of you, after several all night bus trips, I was thrilled to pay a few extra bucks for a bit more leg room and a seat that reclined back to like 45 degrees! I got into Valpo at like 9 in the morning, to find that my sheets had been changed! I get excited by the strangest things since being in Chile.

In the immortal words of Porky, that's all folks. To all my friends in ye ole United States, anyone wanna join me in, as Meaghan calls it, the "rest of the world"?

Chilean Phenomenon #3: Nescafe

As part of my Queer-Eye-For-the-Straight-Guy-esque attempt to spiffy up my room, I now have a wall of beautiful people cut from the magazines my lifesaving parents have sent me. Among my Matthew Perry’s and Jennifer Aniston’s I happen to also have an add for coffee which shows several couples drinking coffee together in someone’s house and sports the commentary: 3658 miles from the coffee fields of the Colombian Andes. But still the perfect climate for Colombian Coffee.

I’m not exactly sure how many miles I am from the Colombian Andes, but I can assure you it’s closer than 3658. And I’m still stuck drinking dark powder and water that people here keep insisting is coffee.

That’s because, in Chile, one does not drink coffee, one drinks Nescafé. My host family even has a coffee maker, but they never use it. Their logic? Why bother to take the time with the coffee maker if it’s so easy to make Nescafé and it tastes pretty much the same. But let’s not fault Chileans for their complete lack of taste buds.

Instead, let’s fault them for the way they drink their Nescafé. Because one would figure that if forced to drink powdered coffee, it would be best to add cream and sugar in the normal manner and do one’s best to pretend the stuff was real. But that’s not the way it works in Chile. If you ask for coffee in a café, you have the option of getting Nescafé made with water or with milk. As in powder, plus all water or all milk. And then you can add sugar to either one of them. Just try asking them to make the Nescafé with water, allowing room for a little bit of milk at the end, and they look at you like you’re from Mars. And by the way, I did mean actual milk. Because there doesn’t seem to be such a thing as putting cream in your coffee here. It’s usually about 2% milk, and it comes out of a box. Refrigerating is, like so many things, optional.

The truth is, for a long time I held off. I was happy drinking my cheap tea ever night with “onces”, the tea time that replaces dinner here, instead of subjecting myself to the sludge that results when mixing powdered coffee with hot water. And then I got back from a wonderful weekend in Buenos Aires and discovered I had to read a book in very colloquial Spanish. In 2 days. So, in the not quite immortal words of “Love Potion #9”, I held my nose, I closed my eyes, I took a drink.

In the end, I can’t say that I’ve quite “embraced” Nescafé, but I’ve accepted it, and I’m definitely a better person for it. There’s just not really nothing else to take me through those godlessly early classes.

A visit from the 'rents

(note: can't get the pictures up for some reason (what else is new), and too tired to figure it out tonight. soon to come.)

While in BBAA (like my cool South American know how in abbreviating Buenos Aires? and then my defeating abbreviation’s point with long explanation/commentary?), I received an e-mail (and proceeded to share said e-mail with the whole hotel from my squeals in the second floor computer room – two computers, three screens, and one working internet hookup…and until I just wrote it out, I had considered it incredibly luxurious) informing me that I had T minus four days to plan a familial visit. After relentlessly sending my mother e-mails of plane prices in an effort to convince her to visit in her short vacation between switching jobs (way to go on the U Penn hookup, Mom!), somehow my whole family decided to visit Chile. For the weekend.

Four days is actually more like it. They left Friday night from Philly, arriving in the Santiago International Airport Saturday morning. I hired a van (I felt like such a snob passing up my student fair on a packed bus to ride in a personally hired vehicle with the rest of my family, it was fantastic!) to take us directly to the…beachfront apartment I had picked out for the weekend! I felt so proud of myself, signing contracts in Spanish and the like. We were on the 21st floor of very US-esque apartment buildings which I had admired on many a run by the beach. And it came out to half the price of what a comparable quality hotel would be since Chile hasn’t yet gotten the memo on families of 6 traveling through South America and we would have needed multiple rooms spread throughout a hotel. Perhaps the McAndrews family ought to have some sort of fanfare arranged to announce their arrival to any continent. Because the fam certainly isn’t about to get accustomed to hostel dwelling any time soon.

Saturday afternoon we spent with the host family and, luckily, Ashley as an extra translator. It’s amazing how much one’s language abilities improve when 5 American-as-Uncle-Sam family members require it. Or at least one’s abilities to fake language abilities. Either way. After a long nap for the family, we went to the Cocoloco, a restaurant atop one of the highest buildings in Valparaíso that spins (like the one I took pictures from in Santiago at the very beginning of my trip). And, lucky for my parents, is supposed to be the best place to go for good Chilean food. One might consider it an oxymoron. I don’t mean to ditch on my adopted country, and I did eat rather well that night, but Americans coming into Chile tend to be a bit disappointed by the complete lack of seasoning or inventiveness in the cuisine.

Despite everyone being exhausted after our late dinner, Jackie and I still met up with some friends and headed out clubbing. My goal was to show her a semi-Chilean night – we would go to a Chilean club and dance among Chileans and she would have a Chilean drink, but under no circumstances was she 1. getting drunk, 2. dancing with random Chilean men, or 3. staying out past two (the last bit for just as much of my own sanity as I has awaken at a mere 5 a.m. to get to Santiago and meet the plane that turned out to be 2 hours late). I was mostly successful in my plans for the evening. We went to Stocolmo, a popular club with the marinos, one of whom has remained close with Sara and came with us dancing. Just my luck, it was my marino date (from way back when in August) Cristian’s birthday, and he was at the club drunk. In case it wasn’t mentioned in previous blogs, said Chilean navy man was miserable for the last half an hour I was with him at the naval ball after telling him we couldn’t go out…except for when I mentioned that I had a sister blonder than me (Jackie), at which point he brightened immediately and asked how old she was. I was, obviously, less than thrilled at the thought of him and my fifteen-year-old sister in the same Chilean night club. Luckily, all turned out well though, Jackie got away from me long enough to share a dance with a drunk marino (with me right next to her, ignoring the come-on attempts of my own drunk marino for the night, whose name I promptly forgot/never cared to remember).

(It should also be mentioned, in passing, that Jackie held her Chilean alcohol very well, and wasn’t even remotely tipsy all night. Chilean drinks tend to be especially strong and can make even the best of us find themselves running up the hill to their houses at 4 in the morning, only to awaken the next day and decide it had been a very poor idea.)

Sunday consisted of my dad fumbling through his first attempt at ordering coffee on his own at a Chilean café (see soon-to-come entry on the phenomenon that is Nescafé®), a trip to the Viña del Mar church for the second half of a mass in (duh) Spanish (somehow it all seems a bit demonic when in a foreign language, but at least Catholic mass means it’s all, in essence, the same), ate at cafés in Valparaíso, and had a birthday party for Brianna in a Valpo bar since her b-day had been the Thursday before. Because really, how many fourth-graders can say they went to Chile for the weekend and celebrated their 10-th birthday in a bar?


From our apartment balcony


The McAndrews family together again

Monday was our last day in Viña, and we ate at the Cap Ducal, a restaurant in the shape of a boat with a beautiful view of the Viña ocean. We hired the same driver to take us back to Santiago, where I had, with the permission, nay encouragement, of Mom, made a reservation in the Mariott Santiago, a five (count them!) five star hotel!


The view from our hotel room.

Needless to say, Monday night in Santiago was amazing. As I would say among fellow study abroad-ers here in Chile, it was lujo and cuico – luxurious and snob-ish. In other words, perfect. We went to a ritzy Italian restaurant, we watched baseball on TV, I showered in the cleanest shower I’ve seen in a while. I’ll spare you the pictures I took of the bathroom, but suffice it to say, I was in heaven.

Tuesday we spent doing the Santiago-tourist thing. National library, national cathedral, la Moneda (Chile’s equivalent of the White House), etc. The whole day was a bit melancholy for me because it was like I was losing my family and my old lifestyle that night. Countdown all day until when their flight took off and I returned once again to my practical life from US-style dreamland.


The McAndrews sisters do la Moneda

The light through the cloud on my (I admit it) teary bus ride home from Santiago after sending off my family to the international gate of the airport was that I realized I was going back to someplace familiar. Unlike the beginning of this semester when I had said goodbye to my family and was driving into a completely foreign place that, admittedly, freaked me out a little bit, this time as the bus drove down Agua Santa between the cities of Valpo and Viña and I saw the lights twinkling all over my hilly South American home, I had the comfort of a familiar bed and host family waiting for me. And, if that failed, I also had Love Actually, recently delivered by very nice parents. When all else fails, there’s nothing like Hollywood to get me through things.

A packed four days, but packed with wonderful times. You just can’t write home about Chile; it needs to be lived to be understood. On that note, any other visitors (or repeat customers, ahem, family members!) are welcome to visit whenever. Paying for a night in a five star is optional, I’m sure I could pick out something around 3 or 4 USD for us. And haven’t you always wanted to say, “See you in South America!”