Another long expanse of time has passed since I have spoken of my happenings and travels. Sorry, I think my trials to become a blogger are about as worthless as my goals to become a morning person. It just may never happen. To continue my horrible streak of late posts and overdue storytelling, I am just now posting about my Free Travel experience in Chile, almost a week later.
As a substitute for a Spring Break while studying abroad we are blessed to be given a week to plan our own trips and travel at our own expense. Stefanie Nicholas, Hailey Thompson and I planned a trip to Chile. We first spent a couple nights in Santiago, then three nights on the Pacific Coast in Vina del Mar, and the two nights in the Andes Mountains. All a formula for the best Spring Break, or Fall Break i guess for us.
First we flew out of Montevideo on Saturday night and to our hostel about 10:30 that night. We had burgers at the bar next door. I had not been warned about Chilean burgers, but the enormous size wonderful taste were wonderful surprises.The next morning we got up and blindly followed a map we had to find where we would be starting our bike tour of the city. With the Bicicletas Verdes we got to see important parts of the city and they also told great place to eat and visit. Later that day we hiked up to the Virgen Cumbre (Summit) for sunset with a great view of the city. That was followed by an interesting journey back down the walking path in the dark. We very nearly got lost and Hailey thought that every trashcan was man crouching by the path.
Monday morning we caught a bus to Vina del Mar and we were checked into our hostel by lunch time. We waited there for Jay Hemphill (one of my best friends from camp who is studying abroad in Vina del Mar this semester) to find us at the hostel. About 20 min later we saw him huffing and puffing up our street, Apparently he ran all the way there and wasn't even sure how he found it. We had empanadas and he showed us were his apartments were. Jay, the same as me, is not cutting his hair or shaving during his semester abroad, so we both look like a couple of lumberjacks. Because of this, I am guessing, an older man at the panaderia asked if we were brothers only to find out we were unrelated Americans. This just made him exclaim, "Gringos!" but thankfully in good nature. The next couple days there consisted of freeing a car from sand dunes, playing frisbee on the beach, learning how to do backflips, catching up with Jay and eating ice cream every night.
Thursday morning we caught a bus back to Santiago, rode the subway from the west side to the east side of Santiago, caught a bus to San Jose del Maipo and then got a taxi to take further into the mountains to Refugio Lo Valdes. This place was the best. In the middle of the Andes, with no electricity except for a few hours at night by a generator. Here, two hours away from anywhere, we spent the next two nights. For the first few hours it appeared that we would have the place to ourselves, but while were lounging in our Mina room, a couple of Norwegians came up the spiral staircase. These two, name Boord and Anja, had hitchhiked there way to the refugio and were expecting the rest of there party, Kristor and Nils, to arrive soon. Hailey noticed when she had first me them that she had seen them before. It turned out that they had been staying in the same hostel as us our first two night in Santiago. Small world. After talking to them we found out that they are all medical students from Norway and were on a study trip in Chile. they had gotten bored with the city and wanted to visit the mountains. They were a lot of fun and made our stay at the refugio so much better. That friday we went on our day hike in the mountains right by where we were staying. We hiked for about 7 total hours and made up to about 100,000 ft altitude. It was so different from other mountain hiking I had done because there weren't any trees. The upside to it was there was always a good view. The colors of the peaks were so vivid and being able to see glaciers on the high peaks was awesome. There were a few time when I just sat and took it all in. The Creation is amazing.
We went back into Santiago on Saturday, checked into another hostel and rested for the most part. We found good places to eat and enjoyed the street life. We also bought some souvenirs had great ice cream and frozen yogurt. By Sunday we were tired and ready to be back at the Casa in Montevideo. Though our trip was very tiring and busy, I was so happy that we got a real traveling experience. We slept in four different hostels and did something every day. And I am every more happy to say that we didn't have anything stolen and had possibly the smoothest traveling possible. Good thing I enjoy navigation, I guess.
Well, the next big trip is to Brazil and the Iguaçu Falls. We got our yellow fever shots and visas yesterday morning. That was fun, except that the building for the shots was pretty shady or "sketch" in the words of our director Wimon Walker. I kept feeling like someone was about to make me choose between a red or blue pill. Anyway, until next time something interesting happens.
Tusentak (a thousand thanks in Norwegian)
Curtis
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Subways, Bible Class and Penarol
Once again, I am sorry. I just can't seem to get a hold of this consistent blogger mindset. This probably has something to do with why I could never keep a journal either. This weekend was extended to give us an opportunity to travel, but I chose to stay home (it actually feels like home now) and have a nice restful, free weekend. I get to type this us beside a window that is open to the cool air from a rainy day here in Montevideo. It is a good day to be lazy. Anyway, since I have last posted a LOT of things have happened. We went to Buenos Aires for five days, finished our Bible course and went to a futbol game in Montevideo. I'll document this in chronological order.
First, we had our second short week in a row and headed out on the last Friday of February (is it already March?!) to Buenos Aires. We first had a bus ride out to the historical district of Uruguay and spent the day in Colonia, just across the Rio de la Plata from B.A. It was nice little cobblestone town and we found a place to have some food and drinks, "The Drugstore." Five hours later we finally boarded the Buquebus ferry and started over to Argentina. Buenos Aires is easily the New York of South America. From I had heard it looks like a combination of Paris and San Diego, but I am pretty sure it is plenty larger than either. The only scheduled events for us during the whole five days was a bus tour of the city on Saturday and church Sunday morning. Outside of those allotted times were we free to roam the city. I spent much of our time walking through the street markets and finding places to eat. One night, a group of us actually found a T.G.I.Fridays! It wasn't the same as at home, but it was fun to experience. Other than that we found a pizza place called "Genova" which is awesome because that's my Gran's name! The pizza was great too, it was the first circular pizza we had seen since arriving in South America. One thing that Buenos Aires taught me, or more reinforced with me, was that I am not a city person. I loved getting to be there for a few days and experience it, but my favorite times were when I found a quiet place in the park. Just makes me look forward our other trips even more.
Once we got back to Montevideo on Tuesday, it was right back to school work. At the end of January we started our Cultural Bible class. The course is designed as short summer course, so this meant an assignment is due just about every day. The trade off however is that we very thankfully finished the course this past Thursday (got an A, by the way). Don't get me wrong, I loved the content and assignments of the class. It was just so much at a time. It will be great to have more time for the classes here now. And if I were to give an excuse for why I hadn't posted in a while, that course would be it.
Now for more recent and awesome events on Wednesday night of this week we went to a Uruguayan futbol game. We went to cheer for the team of Penarol, one of the teams based out of Montevideo. We support Penarol because our church friends tell us to, haha, but apparently they are pretty good and worth supporting. All the stories you hear about how crazy futbol games are and how insane the fans are, they all under-exaggerate. It. Was. Insane. Any time the ball was anywhere near the goal every single person was on their feet. There was non stop yelling at the refs and cheering on the team. The fanaticos had taditional songs and chants that were sung from the start of the match until it was finished. The passion that all of the fans have is incredible. Hopefully I will get a chance to go another game and get my own Penarol jersey.
In exactly a week I will be leaving for Chile! We get ten days of free travel and I will be in Chile for all ten. First we (Hailey, Stefanie and I) will spend Saturday and Sunday nights in Santiago and then bus out to Vina del Mar Monday morning. Vina del Mar is a city right on the Pacific coast about an hour and a half from Santiago and Jay Hemphill is studying abroad there! It will be great to see him. We will stay there until Thursday morning when we will bus back to the other side of Santiago and up into the Andes. We have booked an attic room in a refugio way out away from any cities, up in the mountains. We will stay there until Saturday when we will go back down to Santiago and stay there until out flight back to Montevideo on Sunday night. It's going to be awesome! I can't wait!
Until I return,
Curtis
First, we had our second short week in a row and headed out on the last Friday of February (is it already March?!) to Buenos Aires. We first had a bus ride out to the historical district of Uruguay and spent the day in Colonia, just across the Rio de la Plata from B.A. It was nice little cobblestone town and we found a place to have some food and drinks, "The Drugstore." Five hours later we finally boarded the Buquebus ferry and started over to Argentina. Buenos Aires is easily the New York of South America. From I had heard it looks like a combination of Paris and San Diego, but I am pretty sure it is plenty larger than either. The only scheduled events for us during the whole five days was a bus tour of the city on Saturday and church Sunday morning. Outside of those allotted times were we free to roam the city. I spent much of our time walking through the street markets and finding places to eat. One night, a group of us actually found a T.G.I.Fridays! It wasn't the same as at home, but it was fun to experience. Other than that we found a pizza place called "Genova" which is awesome because that's my Gran's name! The pizza was great too, it was the first circular pizza we had seen since arriving in South America. One thing that Buenos Aires taught me, or more reinforced with me, was that I am not a city person. I loved getting to be there for a few days and experience it, but my favorite times were when I found a quiet place in the park. Just makes me look forward our other trips even more.
Once we got back to Montevideo on Tuesday, it was right back to school work. At the end of January we started our Cultural Bible class. The course is designed as short summer course, so this meant an assignment is due just about every day. The trade off however is that we very thankfully finished the course this past Thursday (got an A, by the way). Don't get me wrong, I loved the content and assignments of the class. It was just so much at a time. It will be great to have more time for the classes here now. And if I were to give an excuse for why I hadn't posted in a while, that course would be it.
Now for more recent and awesome events on Wednesday night of this week we went to a Uruguayan futbol game. We went to cheer for the team of Penarol, one of the teams based out of Montevideo. We support Penarol because our church friends tell us to, haha, but apparently they are pretty good and worth supporting. All the stories you hear about how crazy futbol games are and how insane the fans are, they all under-exaggerate. It. Was. Insane. Any time the ball was anywhere near the goal every single person was on their feet. There was non stop yelling at the refs and cheering on the team. The fanaticos had taditional songs and chants that were sung from the start of the match until it was finished. The passion that all of the fans have is incredible. Hopefully I will get a chance to go another game and get my own Penarol jersey.
In exactly a week I will be leaving for Chile! We get ten days of free travel and I will be in Chile for all ten. First we (Hailey, Stefanie and I) will spend Saturday and Sunday nights in Santiago and then bus out to Vina del Mar Monday morning. Vina del Mar is a city right on the Pacific coast about an hour and a half from Santiago and Jay Hemphill is studying abroad there! It will be great to see him. We will stay there until Thursday morning when we will bus back to the other side of Santiago and up into the Andes. We have booked an attic room in a refugio way out away from any cities, up in the mountains. We will stay there until Saturday when we will go back down to Santiago and stay there until out flight back to Montevideo on Sunday night. It's going to be awesome! I can't wait!
Until I return,
Curtis
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