So last time we blogged there wasn´t much to say. We had spent a few shiftless days in Cuzco doing next to nothing. Well, the past few days have been extremely busy and awesome, and this blog post will be a long one. So...
Day 1
We woke up Monday morning around 430 and managed to crawl over to the SAS travel building in San Francisco Plaza. We boarded a bus and off we go. We´re headed to attempt the Salkantay trek, a 35 (ish) mile walk that ascends about 4000 vertical feet before plunging downward almost two vertical miles. We had our hands full. After our bus breaks down about 30 seconds out of town and we wait for half an hour, we catch another bus and head to the foot of a trail. Because of the wait, we hop in a truck that takes us farther up the trail than we otherwise would have gone. This is bad news, because this is literally a small truck, with 16 people and their bags packed into the back. I managed to snag a spot on top of the bags, and was relatively comfortable the entire time. Stretta was next to me, but in a long limbed feat of awkwardness managed to shove his right leg under about 300 pounds of luggage. Dave faired worst, standing in the back of the truck dodging low lying limbs and the occasional cactus. Finally, however, we arrive at the beginning of our trek. We get out, hoist our bags to our backs, and walk. The first day is relatively light. We cover about 6 miles of mostly mild uphill and stop for lunch before arriving at our campsite for dinner. We arrive around 3, with tea planned for 5 and dinner for 630. Here´s where stupidity sets in. We´re camping high, around 13500 ft, but are nonetheless in a valley. To our left is a hill that starts with grass and what seems to be about 200 yards up there are rocks and snow. It´s at about 45 degrees, and looks like a mild climb. We´ve had a mild day, so we decide to hike up to the snow. Bad move. 45 minutes later we are wheezing like asthmatics in an airport smoking lounge. I´ve been walking uphill at about 70 degrees incline for what must have been miles, and as my vision narrows to a tunnel the size of a paper towel roll and my stomach seriously considers disgorging its contents, I look up to see the snow in the exact same damn place it was when we started. It´s like being on a treadmill from some frozen hellscape. Well, being the manly if incredibly out of shape men we are, we soldier on and eventually crawl to a stop at the snow. We sit there long enough to regain feeling in our extremities, and make a controlled fall that ends with us at the campsite only slightly worse for the wear. The night is short, and we crawl into bed around 8.
Day 2
This is the hell day, the day we had feared. Weighing in at a little below 12 miles, the hike starts with steep switchbacks that take us to the feet of the awe-inspiring Mount Salkantay, for which our trek is named. At this point we are at the highest point on the trek, and the highest above sea level any of us have been. The views are extraordinary. In every direction we can see mountains of a scale unheard of outside the himalayas, and a fog rolls over the valley just distantly visible far past our feet. The air is thin and whips by us, and there seems to be about 30 degrees difference between sunlight and shade. Our guide, an effervescent and exaspiratingly indefatigable man by the name of Carlos, tells us stories of the Inca, or Quichua as they are properly called, and their penchant for human sacrifice. Our other guide, Javier, doesn´t speak English so well, so he merely sits by and chain smokes cigarettes. At 15000 ft. With 9 miles left to walk. Anyways, after a lengthy stay at this pass, we head down, and down, and down. We walk down switchbacks, steep direct descents, and the occasional mild decline or slight incline. We walk down to the shrub layer, pass through it, walk down to the tree layer, pass through it, down into the jungle, and end our journey in a valley with a river raging through it that is at about 8000 ft elevation. For the math challenged, we just descended around 7000 vertical feet. Throughout this ordeal our thighs and calves are burning, and our knees are creeking like an arthritic´s on a trampoline. The lungs are at first a problem, but by the bottom the air is soup thick. Once again, the views stay phenomenal. At the top we are treated to different perspectives on Mt. Salkantay, but as we descend the views turn first into gorgeous vistas of other mountains, and finally into scenes of tree covered mountains ascending and ascending from lush valleys carved by whitewater rapids. It truly is a wonderful thing. We make camp, and play Euchre with a nice couple out of Chicago. Dave´s midwestern origins are discussed and verified, and I´m left wondering how anyone could enjoy Euchre for more than three minutes. That night we camp in one of these valleys, and are treated to an all night cacophony consisting of donkeys, chickens, horses, and other assorted creatures intent on keeping the gringos awake.
Day 3
We awake, and while I can´t speak for the others, the words that come to mind by this point are sore and gross. My body is aching pretty much everywhere from the waste down, and the lack of any sort of hygienic experience is beginning to evidence itself. Barn animals have started to make room for me. However, I gamely hoist my pack over my head (causing all downwind to feel a bit light headed) and get ready for the day. Today´s trek is milder than the last day´s, but more difficult than the first day´s. We head to the other side of the river we had been following through the valley, and essentially retrace our steps, only on the other side. While doing a giant U turn isn´t the most pleasant thing, psychologically speaking, the views stay great. While 24 hours ago the cold was vicious, our problem at this point is the heat and the bugs. We´re very much in a jungle, and when not directly next to the river, the heat and humidity are pretty unbearable. Furthermore, experienced sojourners that we rapidly have become, we are often at the front of the pack, and thus often have to wait for our less fleet of foot friends. This gives the mosquitos all the opportunity they need to feast. These beast-insects are massive. They are each around the size of a praying mantis, and travel in swarms that blot out the sun. I may exaggerate, but, for the parents, look at your sons´necks, backs, arms, and legs when they get home, and then tell me I´m lying. We got torn up. Despite these difficulties, watching the water all day was mesmerizing, and we crossed over somewhere between 5 and 10 beautiful waterfalls, some of which were huge. At the end of the day, around 3, we arrived at La Playa, so named because it is near the water. This was to be our campsite. However, one of our group had heard that there was a hot springs near by, and so we convinced our guide to take us there. We travelled an hour by bus, and arrived at Saint Theresa, home to this fabled hot spring. Until this point no one questioned the wisdom of going to a giant hot tub when we had spent most of the day pouring sweat and wishing for anything, literally anything but heat. Luckily, it cooled down at night, and there was a cold waterfall at the St. Theresa hot spring. We had a blast playing monkey in the middle with our frisbee, to the delight of local children, who I´m convinced thought they were witnessing alien technology every time we threw the thing. After the hot spring we head to an alternate campsite, very tired and ready to go to sleep. But... Carlos explains to us that since we will be waking up at 330 in the morning the next and final night, tonight is party night. Hooray? Yes. We manage to find some energy, drink a homemade mixed drink provided by the cooks, and have a birthday celebration for one of our number, complete with delicious cake. Later that night we go out to a bar in St. Theresa. The bar is completely empty, and is the seediest, dingiest, grossest bar I´ve ever seen. We have an absolute blast. We stay out until the heady hour of 1030, and end the night repeatedly toasting our crew, since they speak no english and that is all we can do.
Day 4
We awake the next morning at 630, shake off the cobwebs and stumble outside to a wonderful surprise. Due to anticipated hangovers (did you notice we stayed out until almost 11) our bags are to be carried by the truck today, and we just have to haul our own carcasses. We manage to refrain from kissing Javier and Carlos, and we begin our trek. Because of our last minute change of scenery for the hot springs, the path is a bit dull this morning. Mostly dirt road with little in the way of sightseeing. We lunch at a train station and hydroelectric dam. We are tired. Two of our number have aquired a stomach bug. Moral is a bit low. Not to worry, we´re only 2 hours away. Well, we set off, and eventually realize that their idea of two hours means (with all the waiting and various breaks) around 3 hours and change. Stiff upper lip and all, so we press on. We´re walking on railroad tracks and it is burning hot. Slowly some clouds roll in, providing release from the heat. Then it starts to dribble. This too, is refreshing. Then it starts to storm. Then the hail comes. All of a sudden I´m expecting an Incan Armageddon as we´re being pelted with various forms of H2O. We hole up in a shelter on the side of a railroad and man, we´re soaked and morale is really low. The storm passes over and we stagger into Aguas Caliendes, the end of the line and the site of the hostel we will be staying the night in. At this point we (particularly me) are almost radioactive with filth. I smell like Pigpen would if he was a garbage collector and moonlighted cleaning sewage lines. We wearily slump into our room and discover that reports of hot water showers are greatly exaggerated. It´s frigid. We sponge bathe as best we can and I pass out around 8. The universal hope is that the rain will not pick back up tomorrow, when we are at...
Day 5 - Maccu Picchu
We awake at 340 in the morning, a time when no human should ever have to wake up. We stumble downstairs, eat breakfast, and get in line for the buses. The whole reason we get up this early is that we intend to be first in line for tickets to climb Huayna Picchu, a mountain that overlooks Maccu Picchu. They only allow 400 people a day to climb, and the plan is for us to get tickets, have our guided tour, then climb the mountain. When we get in line for the bus, it looks good. However, some tourists have the idea that they only have to send one of their party to stand in line, and that belatedly 30 to 40 friends will role up and, after shaking the sleep out of their eyes around 5, will slip into line ahead of by now furious Salkantay trekkers who smell like fermented curry and are doing they´re best to burn holes in the backs of heads. This view is particularly popular with a near albino set of scandinavian monsters who are of the opinion that it is normal for men to wear scarves and dolce and gabbana eyewear and that the rules of queuing don´t apply to them. Seriously, were parents not reading this, much stronger language would be in order. We end up making it up to the line for Huayna Picchu about 50 people too late. No matter, after mentally entreating Obama to nuke Finland we head over to begin our tour of Maccu Picchu. It is simply remarkable. To keep it concise, ancient Quechua people figured out when the fall and spring equinoxes were, knew their latitude, made rocks whose four corners pointed in the exact compass rose, and, oh yeah, built an enormous stone city at the top of a mountain using - get this - no mortar. None. They just fit rocks together. I was utterly amazed. This is what people were capable of before modern television programming. After our tour Dave, Stretta, and I went first to the Sun Gate. The Sun Gate is a niche naturally carved out of the mountain line so named because, on the Spring Equinox, the sun rises directly through it and is visible through one of the two windows in the temple of the Sun in Maccu Picchu. (The other window comes into play - you guessed it - the day of the Fall Equinox. What an amazing people). The views are incredible, but I´m sure by this point you know that. Next we head to the Inca Bridge. This is a partial version of the Inca trail that is closed now because it has become overgrown and is suicidally dangerous. However, part of it is still open and we journey to this part now. It travels across the most sheer and massive cliff face I have ever seen. I´m no wimp about heights and I am a bit nervous. We snap pictures of us in front of neverending drops into valleys made hazy by distance and get the hell out of there. Thus ends our 5 day sojourn through the amazing Andes mountains. These have been the most beautiful sights and experiences of my life.
I know by now it must be frustrating to hear about these things but not see them. I promise pictures are forthcoming. We get home Sunday morning, and I´m sure that the vast majority of those reading this will see us shortly thereafter. We´ve loved our time here but miss so much about America (ice cubes, things actually working, english, prompt service, etc.) Thanks for reading along, and, except for pictures and possibly an addendum by Stretta or Dave, this will be our last blog post. Once again, hope to see many of you soon. For those of you who joined us in Chile, it is my sincere hope that we can figure out a way to stay in touch. Hopefully that will include trips to watch Georgia beat the tar out of various other football teams.
Matt Bailey
Friday, August 7, 2009
Saturday, August 1, 2009
We see white people
Short blog because there isn´t much happening.
We have been in Cuzco for 2 days now and it has been fun. The crazy thing is that there are tourists everywhere. It is quite different from our experience in Chile. Our days have mostly consisted of walking around the city and looking at pretty things and also trinkets. It turns our we have stumbled upon trinket heaven and today we will actually be purchasing as many trinkets as humanly possible. The food here is delicious and the portions are ginormous(thats a real word, don´t worry about it). Also we have come to realize that being young 21 year old men we are in peak physical condition. It is really insane how we can climb large hills and never get winded. But, honestly we might die on this trek, 15,000 ft turns out to be really high. Now for the biggest con of this place. The locals are relentless with trying to get you to come to their diners and bars. Also the trinket sellers are insane trying to get you to by random things. But, the worst ones are the little demon children. They will literally follow you for block trying to sell cigarettes and wool hats. It is getting annoying. Sadly that is all for now and hopefully our last blog will be more entertaining that this one. We will blog one last time before our trek but for now it is trinket time.
Adios,
Stretta
We have been in Cuzco for 2 days now and it has been fun. The crazy thing is that there are tourists everywhere. It is quite different from our experience in Chile. Our days have mostly consisted of walking around the city and looking at pretty things and also trinkets. It turns our we have stumbled upon trinket heaven and today we will actually be purchasing as many trinkets as humanly possible. The food here is delicious and the portions are ginormous(thats a real word, don´t worry about it). Also we have come to realize that being young 21 year old men we are in peak physical condition. It is really insane how we can climb large hills and never get winded. But, honestly we might die on this trek, 15,000 ft turns out to be really high. Now for the biggest con of this place. The locals are relentless with trying to get you to come to their diners and bars. Also the trinket sellers are insane trying to get you to by random things. But, the worst ones are the little demon children. They will literally follow you for block trying to sell cigarettes and wool hats. It is getting annoying. Sadly that is all for now and hopefully our last blog will be more entertaining that this one. We will blog one last time before our trek but for now it is trinket time.
Adios,
Stretta
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Cuzco
Well here we are in the heart of the Andes mountains. Cuzco!
Getting here by bus should be something reserved only for cardinal sinners and lost souls worthy of astonishing punishment. I´m pretty sure the bus ride from Arica to Cuzco is a lost circle of Dante´s Inferno. We woke up at 6am at the hostal (family´s house) to head to the bus station to catch our bus to Cuzco. Our bus was set to leave at 7am from the terminal, so we got there at around 6:40. As the minutes start winding down to 7, the light in the stall for the company we bought our tickets from stays off. Every other booth in the place is open and we´re starting to get slightly anxious and mostly angry. At about 7:15 a man with a long, black ponytail comes up to us and says, ¨Gringos, to Cuzco?¨to which we relpy, ¨Si.¨ So we get in this guys car, which is littered wth Dragonball Z paraphernalia, hoping we don´t come out as lamp shades. The guy turns on an 80s mixtape and the mood lightens. He turns out to be a really nice guy who´s taking us over the boarder to Tacna to catch our bus.
We get to the border (in the middle of the desert) at about 7:45 and the boarder opens at 8. We get through with very little incidence, except for Matt´s Chilean Pisco being confiscated. We´re still not really sure why, wine was fine but pisco was apparently out of the question. With the boarder patrol´s assurance that Peruvian pisco was better, we headed off for Tacna. We reached the bus terminal and hopped into our own private hell.
Matt gave you guys a list of pros and cons for the last bus ride so I´ll do the same for this one. I promise it will be mostly cons.
Pros
1. Chuck Norris movie shown at 10:30pm, 14 hours into the bus ride
2. A few really awesome views of the mountains
3. A cute little girl who screamed gleefully about gringos for like 15 minutes when we got on the bus
Cons
1. For the first 22 hours we were in Peru, a strong stench of urine was present and completely unshakable
2. I said 22 hours, because that´s how long the bus ride took. We were told it would take 16.
3. If you do the math, that put us into the Cuzco bus station at 4:30am
4. I mentioned urine: The reason for the stench, we quickly learned, was the simple fact that people pee everywhere here. Men, women, children, whatever, wherever, whenever. Grown women just pop squats on the side of the road. No biggie.
5. The only thing to compete with the smell of urine, was the stronger smell of vomit. Stretta got the closest whiff when the girl next to him started throwing up in a bag. This was apparently common on the bus as I spotted no less than 3 bags of vomit littering the floor. The bus company´s solution: sweep and febreeze.
6. An average speed of 35 miles per hour
7. A small town pit stop where we picked up people who apparently bought floor seats, meaning I head a small kid resting his read on my leg for about 3 hours.
8. The last 10 hours of the trip were ridden in complete darkness, preventing any reading forcing us to rely on dying Ipod batteries
9. Assholes from New Zealand
10. Some little kid playing some game boy game with the volume on blast playing the same song over and over for about an hour. Almost caused an international incident.
Hellish bus ride aside, we made it and are staying with a very friendly lady in her hostal. It costs $10 a night and has hot showers so there´s little to complain about. We´ve just started exploring the city and it seems pretty awesome. We´ll have a couple more updates hopefully before we head out early Monday morning for our trek.
Never ride South American buses,
David
Getting here by bus should be something reserved only for cardinal sinners and lost souls worthy of astonishing punishment. I´m pretty sure the bus ride from Arica to Cuzco is a lost circle of Dante´s Inferno. We woke up at 6am at the hostal (family´s house) to head to the bus station to catch our bus to Cuzco. Our bus was set to leave at 7am from the terminal, so we got there at around 6:40. As the minutes start winding down to 7, the light in the stall for the company we bought our tickets from stays off. Every other booth in the place is open and we´re starting to get slightly anxious and mostly angry. At about 7:15 a man with a long, black ponytail comes up to us and says, ¨Gringos, to Cuzco?¨to which we relpy, ¨Si.¨ So we get in this guys car, which is littered wth Dragonball Z paraphernalia, hoping we don´t come out as lamp shades. The guy turns on an 80s mixtape and the mood lightens. He turns out to be a really nice guy who´s taking us over the boarder to Tacna to catch our bus.
We get to the border (in the middle of the desert) at about 7:45 and the boarder opens at 8. We get through with very little incidence, except for Matt´s Chilean Pisco being confiscated. We´re still not really sure why, wine was fine but pisco was apparently out of the question. With the boarder patrol´s assurance that Peruvian pisco was better, we headed off for Tacna. We reached the bus terminal and hopped into our own private hell.
Matt gave you guys a list of pros and cons for the last bus ride so I´ll do the same for this one. I promise it will be mostly cons.
Pros
1. Chuck Norris movie shown at 10:30pm, 14 hours into the bus ride
2. A few really awesome views of the mountains
3. A cute little girl who screamed gleefully about gringos for like 15 minutes when we got on the bus
Cons
1. For the first 22 hours we were in Peru, a strong stench of urine was present and completely unshakable
2. I said 22 hours, because that´s how long the bus ride took. We were told it would take 16.
3. If you do the math, that put us into the Cuzco bus station at 4:30am
4. I mentioned urine: The reason for the stench, we quickly learned, was the simple fact that people pee everywhere here. Men, women, children, whatever, wherever, whenever. Grown women just pop squats on the side of the road. No biggie.
5. The only thing to compete with the smell of urine, was the stronger smell of vomit. Stretta got the closest whiff when the girl next to him started throwing up in a bag. This was apparently common on the bus as I spotted no less than 3 bags of vomit littering the floor. The bus company´s solution: sweep and febreeze.
6. An average speed of 35 miles per hour
7. A small town pit stop where we picked up people who apparently bought floor seats, meaning I head a small kid resting his read on my leg for about 3 hours.
8. The last 10 hours of the trip were ridden in complete darkness, preventing any reading forcing us to rely on dying Ipod batteries
9. Assholes from New Zealand
10. Some little kid playing some game boy game with the volume on blast playing the same song over and over for about an hour. Almost caused an international incident.
Hellish bus ride aside, we made it and are staying with a very friendly lady in her hostal. It costs $10 a night and has hot showers so there´s little to complain about. We´ve just started exploring the city and it seems pretty awesome. We´ll have a couple more updates hopefully before we head out early Monday morning for our trek.
Never ride South American buses,
David
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Arica
Hey everybody. Just so you know, we are alive and well, and are now in the town of Arica, the northernmost town in Chile. How we got here...
After the ski trip we all went back to the hotel with big plans for a last night out. Unfortunately we were all very tired and only made it out with about 8 people. Then, we realized it´s sunday night, and all the bars close around 2. Thus, we ended up going to bed pretty early. The next morning we packed up and said our tearful goodbyes to the group around noon. From there we went to the bus station and bought our tickets to Arica. At four the bus departed and... 28 hours later, here we are. Tired, fractious, but ready for our 16 hour bus ride that starts tomorrow at 7 a.m.
Pros about the bus ride:
Big seats that lean all the way back
We all got to sit together
Stretta snores less in an upright condition
Lots of Niquil (sp?) ensuring hours of catatonia
The occasional movie
Cons:
28 damn hours
a baby two rows up that felt the need for everyone on the bus to know everytime it awoke, ate, excreted, or took any action whatsoever
A dog in the luggage compartment directly behind us that took the same view as the baby
A faulty speaker above our heads that turned off and on, over and over, without settling on one or the other
Movies such as house bunny, the guardian, and angels and demons, all in spanish.
Just to give some perspective, If you set out and drove from Atlanta to San Diego, it would take you about as long as we just spent on a bus. We are all a bit tired, and, due to the seediness of our hospital and the fact that we have no alarm clock to wake us at six, we will be sleeping in shifts tonight. What an adventure!
As always we all send our love to family and friends. To all of our classmates in Chile, hope you keep up with us on the blog, and we´ll try to make future entries a bit funnier. Also, Megan, we all express our sincere hopes that your MRI comes back negative for a torn ACL. Best of luck with that.
Matt Bailey
After the ski trip we all went back to the hotel with big plans for a last night out. Unfortunately we were all very tired and only made it out with about 8 people. Then, we realized it´s sunday night, and all the bars close around 2. Thus, we ended up going to bed pretty early. The next morning we packed up and said our tearful goodbyes to the group around noon. From there we went to the bus station and bought our tickets to Arica. At four the bus departed and... 28 hours later, here we are. Tired, fractious, but ready for our 16 hour bus ride that starts tomorrow at 7 a.m.
Pros about the bus ride:
Big seats that lean all the way back
We all got to sit together
Stretta snores less in an upright condition
Lots of Niquil (sp?) ensuring hours of catatonia
The occasional movie
Cons:
28 damn hours
a baby two rows up that felt the need for everyone on the bus to know everytime it awoke, ate, excreted, or took any action whatsoever
A dog in the luggage compartment directly behind us that took the same view as the baby
A faulty speaker above our heads that turned off and on, over and over, without settling on one or the other
Movies such as house bunny, the guardian, and angels and demons, all in spanish.
Just to give some perspective, If you set out and drove from Atlanta to San Diego, it would take you about as long as we just spent on a bus. We are all a bit tired, and, due to the seediness of our hospital and the fact that we have no alarm clock to wake us at six, we will be sleeping in shifts tonight. What an adventure!
As always we all send our love to family and friends. To all of our classmates in Chile, hope you keep up with us on the blog, and we´ll try to make future entries a bit funnier. Also, Megan, we all express our sincere hopes that your MRI comes back negative for a torn ACL. Best of luck with that.
Matt Bailey
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Ski Trip
View from the mountain
View from the top
Stretta before tackling the slopes
Ski pros
We went skiing today about an hour outside of Santiago. About fifteen of us made the early morning trek up to the slopes on a bus with a tour guide who was very clearly ripping us off by charging us $15, then $20, then $30 for the trip. He did manage to navigate his way up the side of a mountain in a bus pretty well though. The trip up was slightly horrifying, slightly fun. The horrifying part being the 47 cut backs (all numbered and named), the fun part being the 80s video mix tape that was playing on the bus DVD player the whole time. We made it up on the lift around 11:45 and didn't stop until 5 o'clock. The slopes were great and the views were amazing. The slopes were quite different than slopes out west as we were well above the tree line. They were mostly very well groomed, which played nicely into my skills, which hardly amount to much. Stretta braved the snow board and some good falls, but overall was pretty good. Matt skis with reckless abandon, but he does it well so it's all good. It was a very fun day overall and we're exhausted but getting ready to head out for our last night in Santiago. Apologies for the boring post, but Hard Candy is on TV and it's hard to be witty when Ellen Page is being real creepy.
Bus ride starts tomorrow so we might be out of touch for a while. Hope all is well stateside,
Dave
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Night Life in Santiago and Valparaiso
So apparently when I don`t post on here for a while, Matt starts insulting my pop culture preferences. Unbelievable that in this day and age some people can`t appreciate the song writing genius that is Green Day`s Billie Joe Armstrong. In any case, we went out for our Mexican dinner last night, which was definitely Mexican done Chilean-style. The food was decent (and about half the price of the Peruvian place), but not really all that great. Matt ordered cheese dip to find that it was cheese in a bowl that looked much like the inside of a grilled cheese sandwhich. You needed a knife to cut chunks away from it. If Shaq or a small horse was prone to gastrointestinal problems, one order of this cheese dip could replace a week`s worth of Immodium. We had a good time messing around with our waiter who spoke English pretty well and after dinner we went out for an expensive (again, damnit) night on the town.
We managed to cab our way to a strip of bars that were more diverse than a college promotional brochure. These places ranged from extremely touristy (Bedrock: a Flinstones themed restaurant/salsa bar) to extremely seedy (the Green Bull, a definite dive bar, complete with bathroom coke heads). Not to scare the parents here but we ducked into the seedy bar to check out the live band that was playing. I wish I had my camera to take a picture of these guys. They were old and pretty normal looking, except for the singer looked like an overweight, extra tan Steven Tyler. Next to him on stage he had a table full of drinks that he would wink at girls and hand out. This band so much enjoyed the stylings of Queen that they played We Are the Champions not once, but twice before we left. It was an interesting place to say the least. We ducked our heads into a couple more places before settling into a Karioke bar. The ladies we were with gave us a most stirring rendition of the Bee Gee`s classic, `Stayin Alive` and our friend Sam did his best country dance version of recently departed MJ`s `Billie Jean`. This along with Chilean`s singing Pearl Jam made for another interesting experience. The night ended with Groundhog Day back at the hotel until the wee hours of the morning. You can`t fake love Bill Murray and God bless that little groundhog for helping you see that.
We woke up bright and early this morning to the delicious breakfast here at the hotel. We`re enjoying it much more than the breakfast that awaited us each morning in La Serena: Bread, slimy ham, and cheese. Here there`s a pretty good spread: eggs, sausage, fresh fruit, cereals, and yogurt. We hopped on the bus with hopes of napping for the two hour ride to the coast and Valparaiso. However, our dreams were spoiled by the most gregarious man I`ve ever met in my life, our tour guide. This guy talked into the bus microphone for the entire trip. My favorite thing that he did was have conversations with people in the front of the bus with the microphone still at his mouth. Two hellish hours later we pulled into Valparaiso, which is quite a sight to behold. The city is right on the sea and there`s not really any flat land at all, rather there are just houses built literally on top of houses built on top of houses for as far as you can see. It`s a pretty neat city though, with quite a bit of character. There`s a fairly young population in the city with quite a few different universities. We took a quick city tour with our tour guide, who miraculously could still talk after four hours nonstop. We stopped off at Pablo Neruda`s house, which was a pretty cool spot even though I know very little of his work. We also got to check out some cool graffiti throughout the city. Next we drove through neighboring La Vina del Mar, which looks a lot like Beverly Hills. I can only imagine these places are swimming with tourists in the summer. We stopped off for lunch right on the coast and climbed around some tidal rocks before jumping the bus back to Santiago.
Overall, this city is pretty cool. It`s absolutely enormous. Six million people live here, making up about 40% of Chile`s population. Tonight we`re going to take it easy and hit the sack early gearing up for a long day of skiing tomorrow. I`m very excited for the ski trip, but not very excited for the 36 hour bus ride to Peru that will follow it. The group leaves the day after tomorrow and the real adventure begins!
Dave
We managed to cab our way to a strip of bars that were more diverse than a college promotional brochure. These places ranged from extremely touristy (Bedrock: a Flinstones themed restaurant/salsa bar) to extremely seedy (the Green Bull, a definite dive bar, complete with bathroom coke heads). Not to scare the parents here but we ducked into the seedy bar to check out the live band that was playing. I wish I had my camera to take a picture of these guys. They were old and pretty normal looking, except for the singer looked like an overweight, extra tan Steven Tyler. Next to him on stage he had a table full of drinks that he would wink at girls and hand out. This band so much enjoyed the stylings of Queen that they played We Are the Champions not once, but twice before we left. It was an interesting place to say the least. We ducked our heads into a couple more places before settling into a Karioke bar. The ladies we were with gave us a most stirring rendition of the Bee Gee`s classic, `Stayin Alive` and our friend Sam did his best country dance version of recently departed MJ`s `Billie Jean`. This along with Chilean`s singing Pearl Jam made for another interesting experience. The night ended with Groundhog Day back at the hotel until the wee hours of the morning. You can`t fake love Bill Murray and God bless that little groundhog for helping you see that.
We woke up bright and early this morning to the delicious breakfast here at the hotel. We`re enjoying it much more than the breakfast that awaited us each morning in La Serena: Bread, slimy ham, and cheese. Here there`s a pretty good spread: eggs, sausage, fresh fruit, cereals, and yogurt. We hopped on the bus with hopes of napping for the two hour ride to the coast and Valparaiso. However, our dreams were spoiled by the most gregarious man I`ve ever met in my life, our tour guide. This guy talked into the bus microphone for the entire trip. My favorite thing that he did was have conversations with people in the front of the bus with the microphone still at his mouth. Two hellish hours later we pulled into Valparaiso, which is quite a sight to behold. The city is right on the sea and there`s not really any flat land at all, rather there are just houses built literally on top of houses built on top of houses for as far as you can see. It`s a pretty neat city though, with quite a bit of character. There`s a fairly young population in the city with quite a few different universities. We took a quick city tour with our tour guide, who miraculously could still talk after four hours nonstop. We stopped off at Pablo Neruda`s house, which was a pretty cool spot even though I know very little of his work. We also got to check out some cool graffiti throughout the city. Next we drove through neighboring La Vina del Mar, which looks a lot like Beverly Hills. I can only imagine these places are swimming with tourists in the summer. We stopped off for lunch right on the coast and climbed around some tidal rocks before jumping the bus back to Santiago.
Overall, this city is pretty cool. It`s absolutely enormous. Six million people live here, making up about 40% of Chile`s population. Tonight we`re going to take it easy and hit the sack early gearing up for a long day of skiing tomorrow. I`m very excited for the ski trip, but not very excited for the 36 hour bus ride to Peru that will follow it. The group leaves the day after tomorrow and the real adventure begins!
Dave
Friday, July 24, 2009
Goodbye to La Serena
Hey everybody. Sorry it´s been a little while since we last wrote of our exploits. Since we left La Serena downtime (and computer time) has become a bit more scarce.
Since Stretta wrote of their sickness, I have stayed healthy. Tuesday we had a day off to study for our final which took place Wednesday. Therefore we did next to nothing. My friends were still feeling sick, so we went to the mall, bought yet more McDonalds, and went to a subtitled version of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Reviews were uniformly deliriously high, perhaps because we have all become pop culture starved in our time down here. Dave dissented to a certain extent, but that´s because he is apparently a "Harry Potter purist." He is also under the impression that this is a socially acceptable thing to be.
The next day we took our test, which consisted of 37 short answers involving political systems from various countries around the world. Just like that, we were done with class. We were leaving the next day at 10 a.m., so we packed all of our stuff up and headed to our farewell dinner. At the dinner we drank some wine, various people made toasts (Stretta made a wonderful one, but will not tell me about it accept to say that it was wonderful) and the dinner was capped off with several songs played on guitar. This includes a stirring rendition of Green Day´s "I hope you had the time of your life." How Dave reached deep and came up with such an obscure homage to time spent with friends is beyond me. Really gave us a pop culture gem though. That night we all went out to our very favorite club, Club Voltre. That is where I´ll leave the story of the evening, but we all had a great time and crazy hijinks, tomfoolery, and ballyhoo were all part of a night that stretched to around 5 in the morning.
The next day at 953 we woke up, shouldered our bags and staggered to the bus, only to emerge from the bus 8 hours later with the barest impression of time having passed and feeling blue eyed, bushy tailed and ready to take on...
Santiago. Santiago is huge, smoggy, and as we soon learned, not created with any particular worry about the ability of tourists to find an inexpensive restaurant close to their gringo hideaway, the hotel Bonaparte. So, the guys split off from the group and decided the only thing to do was walk approximately 12 miles to an upscale Peruvian restaurant called La Overchargo, or something to that effect. Bottled water - 1700 pesos (3.20 ish). The use of one of their apparently in demand seats - 2000 pesos (4.00 ish). We got fleeced, but the food was excellent and they had the best Pisco sour I´ve yet had down here. However, something about spending 30 bucks on dinner makes you hesitant to hit up the club and bar scene. Therefore we came home, watched Panic Room in our panicing-about-going-bankrupt room, and called it a night.
This morning we got up at 9 and started a walking tour of Santiago at 10. This tour headed into the center of town where we saw statues of various leaders of Chile over the years. We went into a beautiful cathedral in which the hearts (yes hearts) of four Chilean soldiers were in a box in a shrine. Also, there was a fingerbone on display. Quite weird, but the cathedral was beautiful. After that we went to the edge of town and rode a huge tram up the side of a hill and took in an amazing scenic view of Santiago. Pictures forthcoming if Dave and Stretta get their acts together. After that we wandered back to the hotel, stopping on the way to get an inexpensive, amazing lunch and buy trinkets for loved ones. After a catnap we are readying ourselves for crazy Chilean nightlife, after a dinner of what is hopefully authentic Mexican first. Miss everybody, and we´ll let you know how tonight goes hopefully sometime tomorrow.
Matt Bailey
Since Stretta wrote of their sickness, I have stayed healthy. Tuesday we had a day off to study for our final which took place Wednesday. Therefore we did next to nothing. My friends were still feeling sick, so we went to the mall, bought yet more McDonalds, and went to a subtitled version of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Reviews were uniformly deliriously high, perhaps because we have all become pop culture starved in our time down here. Dave dissented to a certain extent, but that´s because he is apparently a "Harry Potter purist." He is also under the impression that this is a socially acceptable thing to be.
The next day we took our test, which consisted of 37 short answers involving political systems from various countries around the world. Just like that, we were done with class. We were leaving the next day at 10 a.m., so we packed all of our stuff up and headed to our farewell dinner. At the dinner we drank some wine, various people made toasts (Stretta made a wonderful one, but will not tell me about it accept to say that it was wonderful) and the dinner was capped off with several songs played on guitar. This includes a stirring rendition of Green Day´s "I hope you had the time of your life." How Dave reached deep and came up with such an obscure homage to time spent with friends is beyond me. Really gave us a pop culture gem though. That night we all went out to our very favorite club, Club Voltre. That is where I´ll leave the story of the evening, but we all had a great time and crazy hijinks, tomfoolery, and ballyhoo were all part of a night that stretched to around 5 in the morning.
The next day at 953 we woke up, shouldered our bags and staggered to the bus, only to emerge from the bus 8 hours later with the barest impression of time having passed and feeling blue eyed, bushy tailed and ready to take on...
Santiago. Santiago is huge, smoggy, and as we soon learned, not created with any particular worry about the ability of tourists to find an inexpensive restaurant close to their gringo hideaway, the hotel Bonaparte. So, the guys split off from the group and decided the only thing to do was walk approximately 12 miles to an upscale Peruvian restaurant called La Overchargo, or something to that effect. Bottled water - 1700 pesos (3.20 ish). The use of one of their apparently in demand seats - 2000 pesos (4.00 ish). We got fleeced, but the food was excellent and they had the best Pisco sour I´ve yet had down here. However, something about spending 30 bucks on dinner makes you hesitant to hit up the club and bar scene. Therefore we came home, watched Panic Room in our panicing-about-going-bankrupt room, and called it a night.
This morning we got up at 9 and started a walking tour of Santiago at 10. This tour headed into the center of town where we saw statues of various leaders of Chile over the years. We went into a beautiful cathedral in which the hearts (yes hearts) of four Chilean soldiers were in a box in a shrine. Also, there was a fingerbone on display. Quite weird, but the cathedral was beautiful. After that we went to the edge of town and rode a huge tram up the side of a hill and took in an amazing scenic view of Santiago. Pictures forthcoming if Dave and Stretta get their acts together. After that we wandered back to the hotel, stopping on the way to get an inexpensive, amazing lunch and buy trinkets for loved ones. After a catnap we are readying ourselves for crazy Chilean nightlife, after a dinner of what is hopefully authentic Mexican first. Miss everybody, and we´ll let you know how tonight goes hopefully sometime tomorrow.
Matt Bailey
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