futbol!

Hey everybody. So picking up from where Dave left off, yesterday night we had salsa lessons at some dance studio. That was really fun, but I think we intimidated the instructor, local chileans, and the rest of our group with Dave, Stretta, and my instinctive command of and proficiency at Salsaing. I felt bad at making everyone else look so arhythmic by comparison, but you can´t make yourself worse than you are, right?

After that we went back to our place, where we prepared some steaks and played a South American card game called Truco (Sp?). The game is basically a combination of spades, poker, and blatant cheating. Really fun, though Nick, our friend who knew how to play, was clearly much better than any of us. Anyways, after that we had a group discussion and decided we would go to this club called Kamikaze. A fact that at first seemed irrelevant but later in the night became both important and unpleasant is that Kamikaze happens to be right across from the... casino! Yay, gambling. So we go to Kamikaze, only to find out that it doesn´t open until 1230. From there some of us split off, but most of us go to the.... casino. The damned casino. The majority of us have the sense to just sit around the bar, drink, and watch the gamblers, but a few of us go back to the blackjack table. Of those who played, all but one made at least 20 dollars. One of us made 100 dollars. One of us lost 60 dollars and has decided that gambling isn´t for him and that all Chilean dealers are damn cheating assholes. (not going to tell you which person was which...) So, when 1230 roles around we go back to the club. Most of us dance, a few of us sit around the bar area and grumble over our losses. Anyways, the night passes, and we all end up trickling into the cabanas, the latest of us around 5 or so. Chile has transformed my friends into a bunch of club rats.

The next morning is free, so I crawl out of bed around 11, and chill out until 1230, when we hop on the buses and start heading to Antacollo, a small mining town about 90 minutes away. About halfway there we stop for lunch in what is surely the most bizarre restaurant I´ve ever been to. For starters, it is all about half outdoors, with only a roof over our heads. I hesitate to say over our heads though, because the roof is anywhere from 5 foot 2 to 6 feet, depending on where you stand. Ever get served lunch in a nuclear submarine or the bottom of a mine? Same basic height constraints. Thirdly, surrounding the restaurant is a bizarre menagerie composed of, in no particular order, emus, hawks, chickens, birds, and swans of every conceivable description, llamas, a half retarded mini llama thing, rabbits, an iguana, and a disquieted and thoroughly frightening puma. Those that were caged were kind of sad looking; it is clear that they are not being cared for to the standards one would expect. Another surprise, however, was that many of the enclosures were nonchalantly without a wall or two. In other words, the animals were in their cages, but in many cases there was nothing that particularly required that they stay there. That kept the heart pumping a bit.

Anyways, after our thoroughly bland lunch (who on earth thinks lemon juice is a salad dressing?) we head to Antecollo. This is a tiny, impoverished mining town which still has a church that seats 10000 people. Heavily Catholic, heavily religious. We arrive just in time for a procession into the church of a statue of the virgin Mary. Everyone is dressed up, people are beating drums and singing, and a huge platform containing a near life-sized statue of the Virgin is adorned with flowers, and other unrecognizable decorations. My Spanish is nonexistent, but as far as I can understand the Virgin was in a place besides the church, and this parade thing is taking her into the church. Not sure about the nature of the holiday besides that. Anyways, after the parade ended we looked around the church for a little bit and made our way home to La Serena. We arrived at 7, giving us just over an hour until it was time to leave for...

The futbol match! This clash of the titans pitted the heroic Universitad de Chile against the nefarious and probably inbred Universidad do Concepcion. We showed up, looked around, decided I enjoyed my body being free of bruises and contusions, and thus all bought flags showing we were heavily in favor of whatever team you angry and drunk looking gentlemen are in favor of. That ended up being (unsurprisingly) Chile. Not sure how the teams are organized (they are sort of pro but aren´t, and each team is called university), what they were playing for (one team gets to represent Chile in some cup or something and the other gets put in the stockades) or what exactly the rules of soccer are (seems like it would be easier if they used their hands). Overall though, I got swept away in the emotion of the thing. The stadium was only about 66 percent full, but from the beginning of the game until the end there was never ending cheering. That cheering literally lasted until we got off the bus in La Serena around midnight. Anyways, at the game I got to see Chile beat Concepcion 3-1 and thus win something good that may or may not have some degree of importance. I also got to see a guy get beat the hell up, until a carabiñero waded in with a nightstick and showed that if anyone was going to be beating on someone, it was him. So that was pretty neat. Like I said, got home around midnight or so, and hit the hay. Once again, woke up this morning to cold temperatures, and I have decided that the only bad things about this country are the food, the heat, and the fact that they insist on speaking a language that I know nothing about. Hope you´re all enjoying your air conditioning and your big Macs with large fries.

Matt Bailey