Chile:

Welcome to Part Two of the Summer Vacation Series. For this entry I decided to add a new and previously unseen before… The whole story SPELL CHECKED!!!

I guess most of my entries have been about my vacations, huh? So for a change, I'll start this entry out with a bit of normal recent life.

So I just got back from a Rotary trip to the south and began to prepare to start school. My mom had signed me up for a new school because Colegio De La Salle wasn't doing anything for me. I guess it was in part because I started in the middle of the year and spoke really bad Spanish. At first I tried to pay attention to the lectures, but they were way over my head and we wouldn't get tested on them anyway. The parents of the gringos going there, including mine decided it was time for a change and I was signed up for Colegio de Ingles de Talca. Chris is also going and so Sarah. Sarah is the new New Zealand exchange student who just arrived this January. Because New Zealand is south of the equator, they're school systems match up and they don't have to split a school year by coming in August. Julia is going to a university because she's old enough and, she says, she's already learned everything grade school can teach her. Alison's dad came just after we got back from the trip, so I guess she'll be starting in about a month. Just yesterday, Chris and I went up the new school, about a half hour walk from my house in a beautiful large campus, sharp contrast to the concrete block that served as our old school. Chris` mom came too and we all talked to a sub director and later took a tour around the school. School was going at the time and as we passed one of the class rooms, a couple kid saw me out the window and showed to me. I didn't know them, they were probably at my birthday party. It was decided that we would start on Monday and we went home. I started classes, and just like the other school people asked me billions of questions but unlike the other school, I was able to answer them with my now pretty fluent Spanish. I’m taking a whole store of classes, among them Religion, Philosophy, Psychology, Debate, and Physics. Also I actually able to participate in the classes as well as the other students. That’s making school a whole lot more interesting. So that's a chunk of my life there.... Ok, I'll get back to the exciting Adventures in Region X. Region X is called that because it's the tenth region. It's also called The Lakes District, because there are a whole lot of lakes.

After landing back on mainland Chile, we made a bee line to Puerto Varres. Puerto Varres is on the biggest lake in Chile, Lake Llanquehue (yag-KEY-way). The other way is the Volcano Osorno. We found some nice cabbins and went to check out the city. Puerto Varres is also known for a big casino there. Josè and Pablo went there and lost every penny of their 5,000 pesos. I wondered around a bit and found artisans's markets and stores. After a while we went back to the cabins had dinner and slept. The next day we decided to check out the Volcano Osorno. So we all got into the car and went up. It was a long windy road, but when we got to the top, there was a breathtaking view of the lake and the city and everything. In the winter, there is a ski resort, and we could have gone higher in the ski lift, but it cost about $10 a person. We looked around, took photos and went back down the mountain. For lunch we passed by a restaurant. It had really good food and there were a lot of weird animals hanging around. There were a pack of llamas along with some emus and even a leopard in a cage. Alter looking at all the animals we went in for lunch. We were the only ones there, so we got a table with a wonderful view of Mount Osorno. We ordered 3 lunches for the five of us, it turned out to be more then enough. We ate kugen. Kugen is a typical German pie that became a typical Region X desert because of the quantity of Germans there. What happened was a while back, Chile wanted to expand to the south, but no one wanted to live there because of the bad weather and isolation from the rest of Chile. So the Government at the time imported a bunch of Germans promising them free land and a number of other things if they would come down and build on the land. So they did, and now everywhere you look there’s German architecture and German food and stuff. Another day we went to see the Saltos de Petrohue (Petrohue Falls). They were really spectacular. My pictures will give you a better idea, but what they were was a river over a black lava flow. One of the most beautiful waterfalls I have ever seen. The only downside is that the colihuaches were out again, and this time they brought their friends. We also went to All Saints Lake which is up stream of the Saltos. It was also really beautiful, but we only spent a few moments there before we were driven away by the colihuaches. The next town we went to was Frutillar. Frutallar is on the same lake as Puerto Varras, but the other side, so now we had views of the volcano over the lake. There was also even more German stuff here than in Puerto Varras. We checked into a hotel cabin deal, kinda like apartments I guess. We had our own kitchen and dining room and everything.

Frutillar is really beautiful, it’s a lot smaller and calmer, but there’s still plenty of artisans markets to explore. One of the things it’s famous for is the music hall it has. It’s also really beautiful and built in stilts over the lake. One day we decided to go swimming in the lake. I wore my pants with my swim shorts to the beach, and when we got there I took my pants off and wrapped them in my towel. In one of my pockets was my wallet. Josè and I rented a paddle boat and zipped around near the shore. It was a leaky boat and kept submerging itself, but that was just part of the fun. Then we went swimming a bit and came back to the shore. When we got back my parents were leaving. I gathered my things and headed back to the hotel. On the way I stopped by a little snack shack where I bought an ice cream bar. When I got back to the hotel, I changed back into my pants, but something was wrong. My wallet was missing. I was sure I had put it back in my pants pocket alter buying that ice cream. In it was my Chillan ID, my debit card, my insurance information, my student ID, my little book of telephone numbers, and about $20 worth of cash. I searched my whole room and then started re-tracing my steps back to the snack shack. I wasn’t very far, so once I got there I tried to ask the vender if he had seen my wallet. I was halfway through my question when I forgot the word for wallet. I struggled with an explanation of what it was, but there was a long line and we soon ignored me. I looked around the shack anyway, just in case and then returned to the hotel. Once there I asked Josè if he would accompany me back to ask the guy again. He said he would, so back we went. This time the guy paid attention, he said he hadden’t seen it the other people working there said they hadden’t either. We both had another look around the whole outside of the shack. With out find anything, we headed back to the hotel. A few minuets later my parents got back from what ever they were doing. I told them what happened, and my dad took me to see the police. We asked them to tell us if anyone turned it in and left my dad’s cell phone number. Then we went back to the hotel to find a way to call home to cancel my debit card. Luckily there was a guy there with a computer that could call  US telephones cheaply. I called my mom and she agreed to cancel my card. Then my dad and I went back to the snack shack looking over fences and in the gutter hoping maybe someone had found it, taken the money, and chucked it. We even asked the vender guy again, but with no luck. Finally we gave up. We had done all we could, the only thing left was hope that some one would turn it over to the police. I slept that night worrying about the complicated hoops I’d have to jump through to get myself a new Chillan ID. The next day I was due to meet Rubin and his family who were also on vacation. They had invited me to with them to the South the same dates as I was going with my family. We agreed to meet in Villarrica. This worked out well for my family also because they wanted to go to a national park right over the border in Argentina. Without any ID, it might have been difficult for me. We arranged to meet in Peyuhue. The next day we found Rubin and his family without any trouble and I unpacked my stuff in the hotel room. Rubin is a German Exchange student who didn’t go on either the North Trip or Easter Island, but way back I stayed at his house during the Santiago, Viña del Mar, Valparaíso trip. He first struck me as the stereotypical German, tall, blond, outdoorsy, and dosen’t smile unless he really means it, but he also happens to be one of the few exchange students who don’t drink. His host mom is Maria Gracela. She’s a really nice lady who smiles all the time and does her best to make us as happy as she can. When she was little, she went to the US for a half year exchange, and now has a daughter in California.

When Josè, her son, gets old enough, she plan son sending him to the US too. She likes using her limited English on me which can be fun sometimes, but annoying when she translates easy Spanish words into English for me. I think she was really hoping to host a Gringo, but she’d never admit it. Josè is about ten years old, I think, and is enchanted by Rubin, he want’s to be just like him. He also want’s to go to Germany for his exchange, much to the shigrin of his mother. The city were staying at, Villarrica, is on the lake Villarrica on the other side of which is the very active Volcano Villarrica. The city was founded back in the 1500s and was one of the first Chilean ctities. It was destroyed a few times by the Mapuche natives who lived in the aria during the Spanish Mapuche War, in which the Mapuche resisted the Spanish for 300 years making it the longest European Native American war. On the other side of the lake near the volcano lies the city of Pucòn. Pucòn is pretty much the outdoorsy turist center of Chile. It has everything, from skiing on the Volcano to skiing on the lake to horse-back riding. An interesting thing I’ve noticed here is that you can tell how touristy a place is by how much English there is around. In Pucòn everything was in English. So I got there, my family left and we went to the check out the beach. It wasn’t all that great for swimming, Maria said there’s a better one in Pucòn. Instead of swimming we went on a tour of the lake. Afterword, we went to check out Pucòn. The beach was a lot better, but it was also right next to a huge hotel and absolutely full of people. Then we took a short little tour of the city and had dinner. The vegetarian food there was pretty good. After dinner we went to the market which was also pretty good. I couldn’t buy anything, however, what with the lack of wallet and everything. Alter a while, we returned to Villarrica, about half an hour away. The next morning we found a touristy flyer at the hotel breakfast table. It looked interesting one of the things it offered was a guided climb to the smoking crater of Mount Villarrica. There were pictures of a bunch of people looking down into a bubbling lava pit. “I want to do that” I said, sort of sarcastically without much hope of doing it. Maria looked over “Hmm, it looks kinda scary, but ok.” Alter breakfast we went to Pucòn and signed up for the climb and also a few other things the same agency offered, a zip line that clamed to be the longest in South America, a tour of the region, a day in a hot springs resort, and a guided hike in one of the near by national parks. After that we spent the rest of the day on the Pucòn beach.

So yeah, I’m really living it rough down here. The next day we went on the tour of the reigon. It was basically driving around in a van looking at lava flows from Moun Villarrica’s last eruption and waterfalls that fall from subterranean rivers. On the tour with us were two gringo girls from California. I got to act as translator for them, relating information about everything we saw. One of the more interesting things was a waterfall called China Falls. It’s named that because there was a cow named China that fell down the waterfall. After the tour, we went to a hot springs resort and spent the rest of the day soaking in hot tub like swimming pools. The next day we went on the zip line. It was at the same place as the hot springs  It was alright, but the scenery wasn’t all that spectacular. I had a good time. The next day we got up early, about 5:00am to go climb the volcano. We got to the meeting place and tried on all the gear. Most of the stuff we were told to just stick in the backpack including this weird peace of canvas with a bunch of weird straps. After everyone was ready we all piled into a van and headed up the mountain. In the winter, there’s a ski resort on Mount Villarrica, we got there and they got the ski lifts running with a charge of $10 a person. Rubin and I wanted to hike up, but Maria insisted we take the lift. When everyone had arrived at the top, they handed out ice axes and showed us how to use them and then we were off. There actually wasn’t any real climbing involved, it was just an uphill hike in the snow. After a while Maria and Josè got tired and let Rubin and I go ahead. On the way up I noticed some trenches in the snow that seemed to go straight down the mountain. I thought they might be where unfortunate climbers had slid down, but I kept that to myself. The views were just amazing, and, about 4 hours later we were at the smoking crater. Once there, there was no doubt at all how active that volcano was. Aside from the billowing smoke that would choke anyone who came to close, I could also hear lava boiling and splashing deep within. Rubin and I took pictures and waited for Maria and Josè, but they never showed up. After a while, we were instructed to strap the piece of canvas to our butts and follow our group back down. I wasn’t looking forward to hiking all the way back another four hours down hill. To my suprise we didn’t do any of that at all, instead we headed over to the head of one of those trenches and a guide showed us how to sit on out canvas things and use out ice axes as breaks while we slid on out butts down the mountain. That, I think, was the best part of the whole vacation. It reminded me of a water slide except that no water park I had ever been to had such great views.

Ugg, I just finished some Rotary essays and questions. I had to write an essay about Chilean Independence, Pablo Neruda, and the regions of Chile, and answer about a billion questions about the North and Easter Island. Ok, so most of them were assigned back in September, but no one really took them seriously, there was no length it had to be or grade. I figured we would we just forget about it. Most of the other kids did too, then we got a email a few weeks ago saying "Those who have not finished the homework will not participate in the trip to the south." So I just finished them which is good because the trip is the 22nd, Today. So the next cool thing that happened after the new year was Techos Para Chile (Roofs for Chile). This is a Chilean charity that builds houses for poor people. All us gringos participated in what was supposed to be a full weekend of construction of a house for a family in the poorest part of Talca. We managed to get it done in one day. We started at about 7am at the site. By about 8 we were all pounding the ground with metal rods and digging the foundation holes. That alone took half of the day. After finishing the holes we stood back to admire our work, I've never been more proud of 15 pieces of wood sticking up out of the ground. After lunch we started on the floor, walls, and roof. Fortunately for us, the walls and floor were already made, we just put them up and nailed them in. I kinda felt useless after that, there were a few Techos employees and Julia's dad there too, and they did just about everything. Us gringos, for the most part, handed them things or carried things for them. Finally, at about 7 it was done. It was a tiny one room house, most people's bedrooms were bigger, with two openable windows and a door, and a tin roof. Not much, but better then what they had been living in apperently. I got home smelling something horrible and with big ole' blisters, but feeling like I really did something worthwhile.

The next day my family and I went on a vacation. We got up early in the morning and packed the car with all our stuff and headed about 600km south to the city of Ancun, Chiloé. Chiloé is a really special place, it's a group of Islands south of the Lakes District. It was first settled by a religious group who made sure every town had a huge church. The churches of Chiloé are famous nation wide and 16 of them are World Heritage sites. It was also the last The culture of Chiloé was separated from that of main-land Chile for such a long time it developed it's own culture different from the European culture that the rest of Chile had. There are still hints of that around in the myths and legends. There's witches, warlocks, ships that can sail against the wind and go under water, deformed monster men, naked women, and forest gnomes, Chiloé has it all. The islands are normally cloudy and famous for their rain, kinda like home. The Big Island of Chiloé is the second biggest island in South America, after Tierra del Fuego, south of the Straight of Magellan. That's where we started, the north in a town called Ancud. We found cabins and went to sleep. The next day we drove around Ancud. After a while we passed a cow giving birth behind a fence by the side of the road with a whole bunch of farmers and people helping. This looked interesting so we stopped and got out and walked over to them. I was just about to get out my camera when one of the farmers looked at us and said, "What are you doing just standing there? Come help!" So we all crossed the fence and helped. The front hoofs of the calf were just peaking out and there was a rope attached to it on which a few farmers were pulling. José, Pablo, and I added our strength and pulled with all our might. After a while the rope broke and was replaced with a stronger one, the cow's head also had to be tied to one of the fence posts to keep her from being dragged. After a few minuets the head appeared and then the whole front half. It started crying out and I was sure we were going to rip it's legs off, but they were stronger then they looked. Finally when it seemed like it would never get born, with a satisfying SHLOOSHHH!! The calf came free and was pulled a few feet from the mother. The farmers thank us and we left while trying to wipe off the cow dung our feet in the grass as we went. We got back into the car and headed down to the beach. The road led us right down onto a hard wide beach we drove across and stopped by a restaurant. This was a popular penguin hangout zone and there were a few penguin guides. We signed up for one and they gave us some rubber boots to wade out to the boat with. Once on board some other people joined us and some guides with hip boots pushed us out. We saw a bunch of penguins and other birds, and also an otter, not too common a sight. After we got back we went up to the restaurant and had lunch. Cheese empanadas, yum yum! The n we went back to the town to check out the markets and stuff. The next day was overcast and nasty looking. That day we spent mostly on the road going from pueblo to pueblo and looking at the churches. One church was on an island. Well it was only an island during high tide, but there was a cool bridge going over to it. It was all blue and had a cool graveyard on the same little island. While we were there it started to rain. We ran back over the bridge and in to the car. All the other churches we visited, I was usually the only one who daired to get out of the car to take a Picture of the church. That afternoon we went to Castro, the capital of Chiloé where we found another cabin to sleep in. The next day we went on a ferry even smaller then the one we had arrived on to go over to one of the smaller islands of Chiloé. It had stopped raining by today and was actually looking nice. On this ferry one had to back on as there was only one entrance/exit. The little island were kinda cool, we visited a chruch that was made of pure wood, not a metal nail to be found, all wooden pegs. Well it used to be like that, now it had nails to keep it intact. We also went to the Castro crafts market. I love crafts markets in general, but the Castro crafts market was spectacular. We also went to the church of Castro. I’m pretty sure it was the most beautiful church I have ever seen, and I’ve been to Germany and Prague where there are some pretty sweet cathedrals, lemme tell ya. But the thing about the church in Castro was that it wasn’t cold stone and stuff, the inside was the most beautiful wood I have ever seen. It was also really big and had all the alters and staff that you can find in all cool churches. All the other churches were all kinda cool in the historical not very cool at all kinda way. They were mostly falling apart and were way too big for their towns. The next day we went to Quillón, the city at the end of the road. It ‘s kinda weird, I never really made the connection, but the highway that I keep taking between Talca and Santiago and all over this country, is the same road that goes right past Seattle. The Pan-American, or route 5 or I-5, all the same road, and in Quiillón, it ends. I was sure to take a Picture of the End Of The Road, but no one else seemed to think it was that special. Then we took the ferry back to the main land and went to Puerto Varras. 

I'm actually going on another Rotary trip here in a couple of hours, untill the 9th, so I won't be ablr to finish 'till I get back. Were going south this time, to many of the same plases I went with my family of the Summer Vacation. Unfourtunatly, my camera broke, so I'll have to copy Chris and Julia's photos when I get back. 

Chou
Alex

The next day we went to the Zofri. The Zofri is just the name of a mall. I wasn't very excited when I learned that we got to spend about 6 hours doing what ever we wanted as long as we stayed at the Zofri. However, when I got there, I was suprised at how intresting it was. Because this is Iquique, there's no rain, and so there was no roof on the main part of the mall, just a canvis top. But onve that wore off, the other five hours weren't that intresiting. We started playing "Secret Santa" the day before, so I occupied myself by finding a present for my buddy. I got her some chocolates. Not a very personal present to be sure, but one I knew she'd like. I also found a sword shop. That was exciting I got myself a cool walking stick that unscrews and has a hidden sword, and a little Japanese looking sabre about four inches long. After that, they gave us more free time. I talked around the center of the city, looking at statues, fountian, and anything else. I ran across a street vender who, among other things, was selling a Washington lepel pin. I thought it was pretty cool to see my state all the way out there in the desert. Then we all returned to the hotel. Our hotel was really close to the beach, so because we had a little time a few of us decided to head down to the beach and bounce a voleyball around. When we got there, there was a lady doing Tie Chi a little way off. One of the Germans left our game and went over behind and started imatating her. At first I thought he was doing it meanly, but then I saw he was really trying in ernest to do what she was doing. A few more people from our game went over and it was I while before she notaced that she had a group of gringos behind her, coppying every move. Eventually I went over too. It was pretty cool with the sun setting and the waves on the beach. The next day we left Iquique. We got up early and drove and drove and drove, I got a hermonaca from my secret santa, and drove and drove and drove untill we got to Hamberstone. Hamberstone is a ghost town way out in the middle of Nowhere. Ya can't see anything from the once green town except desert and the free way we came on. The whole place is just broken down houses and mining equipment. It was cool for taking pictures. They even had an olympic size swiming pool, also dry and rusting. But despite all that, I think there were people living there. There was a little market where I bought a souvinear and there was a band practicing in a big gym like building which was also old and rusting. Everything was old and rusting. Then we got back in the bus and headed to San Pedro de Atacama, whihc will be in a later blog.

Chou,
Alex