ok i feel a bit weird posting about our vacation when there are still apocalyptic images of chile all over the news, but it's really like we are not in chile...things are back to normal here in the hogar. however, the mercado, where we had been planning on buying presents for everyone back home, will be closed for three weeks. sorry :( also, we heard that the mall, our main source of everything, including entertainment, will be closed for a year (!). but yesterday we heard that it might open again today, so we are going to go by and check it out. today there is a huge national telethon going on for people to donate money, and everywhere people are organizing events to collect food and non-perishable donations.
a couple weeks ago we had to cross the border again to renew our visa. we decided to go south, cross the border to argentina, and later cross back over and take a boat to chiloe, an island off the coast of chile. pablo, one of the coordinators from our organisation (experiment e.v.), with whom we had our midterm seminar in vina, was driving south to the same area from santiago so he said he would give us a ride. he brought along a friend of his, marcelo, and we ended up having a fun road trip, although we never made it to chiloe due to a lack of boat transport and time.
we went to several places in argentina, and also to this tiny town in chile called futaleufu, which was totally amazing. we were really lucky to be travelling with pablo because he used to work there every summmer and knew everyone in town. which meant we got to use a bunch of equipment for free and went kayaking, and stayed in his friend's cabin and also we got a discount on white-water rafting, something i've always wanted to do and which was totally awesome. it seems futaleufu river is one of the best rivers in the world for rafting, so if we ever do rafting again somewhere else we will be disappointed. there were a bunch of grade 4 rapids and at the end a little one that we got to get out of the boat and swim down! and at the end there was a big rock that they said we could jump off...looking at it from the boat i thought "hey, no problem, piece of cake". once i got to the top of the rock...it looked different. it was only about four meters high but looking down from the top i had a sensation similar to when i went bungee jumping and needed three false starts to finally step into thin air. your mind is logically saying "ok, yeah let's do this it's perfectly safe, you will not smash against those rocks" and trying to convince your body to run those few steps but your body is like "hell, no" and doesn't move. i jumped and then steffi was standing at the top paralyzed saying "i can't, i can't" with this dazed look on her face. i kept trying to convince her, but rational argument doesn't really help in such a situation. so i told marcelo to jump together with her, and that worked.
the rafting actually gave me this vague desire to learn to kayak, something i was totally uninterested in before, for the sole reason that then i could go down those rapids anytime i want...except i would have to be really good at kayaking and i generally don't have the patience and dedication necessary to become good at things. :@
also we went to chaiten, which is a town on the coast which was partially destroyed after the volcano next door erupted in 2008 for the first time in 9,000 years. the volcanic mudflow of water and ash caused the the river that the town is situated on to change course. the river cut a new path directly through the town and about a quarter of the town was destroyed. much of the town is still covered in ash, but many people have moved back and cleaned their houses. the town is now a source of political controversy in chile as the government refuses to help and has written chaiten off, wanting the townspeople to relocate. there is no running water, electricity, or gas.
due to various complaints i have received about not knowing what i look like anymore, i took pains to appear in the photos on this trip. see how much i care about my fans? i also have spared you many of the landscape fotos that i took....
anyway, so the trip was a terrible idea because futaleufu was sooo beautiful and now i have another addition to the list of lives i could lead and places i could live. i don't know how i will decide between futaleufu, the atacama, and tierra del fuego... :(
when we got back, the new volunteer, vanessa, had arrived. along with 20 southern baptists from tennessee and north carolina who did lots of renovations and work around the home as well as a lot of fruit canning for the winter. Vanessa will be here for four months and in april another volunteer will arrive, who will stay for a year. we are leaving here on the morning of the 21st, this gives us only two more weeks! eek. then we will spend a week in santiago before flying back to germany.
Posts
