Valle del Encanto

So my mom told me a while ago that she would love to see how I write in Spanish. She suggested that I write an entry in Spanish and English (and I am glad to show off :) So here goes:

La fin de semana pasada, una de mi mejores amigos de La Serena (en realidad de los Estados Unidos) vino a Ovalle a visitarme. Pensé que fuimos a difrutarnos en Ovalle, tal vez ver películas y comer mucho, como un "sleepover." Pero el Sábado, mi mamá nos sorpendió con un viajecito por el día. Nos dijo que fuimos a ir al Valle del Encanto, pero no dijo nada más. No tenía idea que erá el Valle del Encanto, pero sonó interesante. Fuimos en auto 15 minutos afuera de Ovalle con mi mamá, mi hermana la Daniela, y mi sobrino el David. Llegamos a un portón simple, y no tenía idea donde estuvimos.

Entramos y en primer, no ví nada especial. Erá un valle, muy lindo, es cierto, dentro del desierto, pero nada muy distinto que he visto en Chile hasta ahora. Pero cuando bajamos del auto y fuimos caminando a unas rocas grandes, ví algo en las rocas. Mi mamá me dijo que erán petroglifos de los Incas!! En primer, ví una o dos rocas con petroglifos, pero de repente, ví que casi todas las rocas los tenían. Erán muy lindos y no tenía idea que había algo así tan cerca de Ovalle.

Tamién, fuimos caminando por el otro lado del valle, donde habían rocas gigantes y un baño de Incas. Entramos en cuevos grandes también, todos de los Incas. Fuimos en total como dos horas, pero nunca había visto algo así en mi vida, y me gustó mucho. Creo que erá una de las cosas mas bakan de mi intercambio hasta ahora!!

And now in English...

This past weekend, one of my good friends from La Serena, well, actually from the USA, came to visit me in Ovalle. I assumed we were going to just have a good time in Ovalle, maybe watch some movies, have a sleep over-type weekend. But on Saturday my mom surprised us with a little day trip. She told us we were going to the Valle del Encanto (or Echanted Valley.) I had no idea what the Enchanted Valley was, but it sounded interesting. We went by car about 15 minutes outside of Ovalle with my mom, sister Daniela, and nephew David. We arrived at a simple, old gate and I had no idea where we were.

We entered the Valley, and at first, I didn´t see anything. It was a really pretty green calley, surrounded by desert, but nothing much different from what I have seen so far in Chile. But when we got out of the car and walked to these big rocks that were there, I saw there was something in the rocks. My mom told me they were hyrogyfics, left there by the Incas!! At first I was amazing at the one or two that I sawy, but suddenly I realised there were more. Almost every rock in view had some kind of drawing on it. There were really pretty and I had no idea there was something so cool so close to Ovalle.

We also went walking to the other side of the Valley where there HUGE rocks and an Incan bath!! In Spanish, baño means both bathtub and bathroom so at first I though we were going to see an Incan toilet, so I was really excited :) but it turns out it was an Incan bath, which was still really cool, because it was a huge, almost perfectly round hole in a rock. We also saw I giant Incan caves. We were only there a couple of hours, but I had never seen anything like that in my life and I liked it a lot. I think it was one of the coolest things I have seen in Chile so far.

The photos are from the top:

Kate and I next to one of the hyroglyfics

Kate and I in a giant crack between rocks

David being "eaten" by a rock shaped like a fish

Kate, David and I in the Incan "bathtub"

Kate and I on top of a giant rock. Yes those two spots up there are us.

Family Vacation to the South

I have been really lucky with the family I am staying with here in Chile. They have taken me on some really great vacations to La Serena, Viña del Mar, Olmué and more. My favorite vacation so far is the one that I just got back from. I went with my mom, sister Alejandra and brother Pedro to go visit my oldest sister, Paty, where she lives in a town called Futaleufu.

We first went to Santiago to pick up my sister Alejandra who lives and works there. We were there for two nights. Friday night my mom took me and my two sisters to El Giratorio, which is the big restaurant in downtown Santiago that spins slowly, like the one in Edmonton. I got an amazing view of Santiago at night. And the food was delicious. After that, my mom took us to a Cuban dance club where we listed to Cuban music and watched people dance. Saturday morning, we went to the Virgen on Santiago, which is a giant statue of the virgen on a hill above Santiago. It is bigger than the Christ statue in Rio de Janeiro Brasil. It took us 30 minutes to drive up the hill. In the afternoon we went to Fantasylandia, the only really amusment park in Chile. It was small, but a lot of fun.

We left early on Sunday morning, at 5:30 am for the airport. We got through security and were wating to board at 6:30. The flight was supposed to leave at 7:00. But and 7:15, they told us there were climate problems at our destination, Puerto Montt, and they would update us in an hour. At 8:15, they told us the same thing. They told us this 3 more times until finally, at 11:30 we were told there was a big forrest fire outside Puerto Montt but that the smoke had cleared and we could finally board the plane. After waiting for 5 hours in the airport, the flight was only 1 hour and 20 minutes. We got to Puerto Montt and had to rush to a small private airport where we took a little mini plane with 6 other people. The flight was half and hour, over a big lake and mountains. It was a really beautiful view.

We arrived in the town of Chaitén and were greeted by my sister Paty and a friend of hers. From there, we had to drive 3 hours to the town Futaleufu through very windy roads. The drive actually took us 4 hours because we kept stopping to take pictures of the scenery. It was beautiful, and made me feel like I was back in the mountains in Canada. When we arrived, even the town reminded me of Jasper, only a lot smaller. It wad definately the prettiest town I´ve seen so far in Chile. All the other cities or towns I´ve been through are kind of dirty, but I´ve gotten used to it.

On Monday, we went to a river to go swimming. It was the clearest most clean water I´ve ever seen, except maybe the rivers in the mountains in Canada. But those are too cold to swim in. This river was cold at first but once you got used to it, it was amazing. On Tuesday, we went on a walk to a waterfall. Paty´s husband Roberto told us it was a 5 minute walk on a nice path, but it turned out it was 45 minute trek through a river. By the end, my feet were so numb because the river was so cold, and I was just walking through the water. We got to the little mini waterfall and took pictures. Then Roberto and Pedro went swimming under it, in the ice cold water. Roberto told me that I had to go swimming too, because I was from Canada and therefore was used to the cold. I finally went under, and it was freezing.

On Wednesday, we went across the border to a town in Argentine called Esquel. We went to the centre to go shopping, then to the grocery store to buy food, because it is so much cheaper there. While we were driving back, there was a huge forest fire near the road. When we drove through the smoke, the entire sky was orange and you couldn´t see the sun. We got back in the afternoon and at 5, we went rafting on the River Espolón. There are two rafting rivers in this area. The other one, River Futaleufu, is way more advance rapids. I really wanted to go on that one, but we went with the whole family, including my two host nieces, who are young. It was still a lot of fun, though.

Thursday we went to another river to go swimming. It was actually kind of cold that day, so I didn´t go. And it also rained for the first time since my first day of school here in Chile!! I was so excited to see rain, but my family didn´t really understand why. Friday we relaxed the whole day, until the afternoon. I went for a walk with my mom and two sisters to a cemtery. On they way, we found hundreds of blackberries, which we picked and made a pie with. Saturday we climbed a big hill called Cerro de la Bandera. It was a really tough climb, and the path was not very good, so we basically had to walk through the bushes to get to the top. The view at the top was amazing though. We took lots of photos and on the way back, Roberto and Pedro swam in a freezing cold river.

Sunday we had a bbq with some Australians my mom had met the day before. One of them spoke spanish and so she invited them over for lunch. That is the thing I love most about Chile. People are so friendly. In Canada, you would never invite random tourists to your house for lunch, but here, it is no problem. I talked to them alot and helped translate for them. It made me realize how much spanish I actually know, because I could translate everything instantly.

We left Monday morning for Chaitén to take the mini plane back to Puerto Montt. In Puerto Montt, we went for lunch at a fish market (the best seafood I´ve had in Chile) and walked around the local crafts market, where they sold lots of clothing made of sheep, llama, and alpaca wool. Tuesday we went for lunch at a really nice restaurant that was built over the water. I ate the most delicious shrimp-filled crepes ever. We left Tueday afternoon for the airport and made our way back to Santiago, without mishaps, by plane. We stayed for the night in Santiago and drove back to Ovalle this morning.

I had so much fun on my trip. It was really relaxing, and my entire summer vacation was a lot of fun, but I am really excited to go to school tomorrow.

Photos:

1-Pedro, Paty, Alejandra, my mom and I at the River Futaleufu on the drive from Chaitén

2-Me at the mini waterfall we walked to

3-My host neice Camila and I rafting

4-At the top of the Cerro de la Bandera with Pedro, Camila and Roberto

5-My mom and I in Puerto Montt beside the giant statue overlooking the harbour

Summer Vacation

I wrote this entry about three weeks ago, but for some reason it never uploaded. So here it is:

So, I have about three weeks left of summer vacation, so I thought I should update everyone. After my last entry for New Years, I went home to Ovalle. I was supposed to go on a school trip to Brazil but couldn´t because I was told that I didn´t need a separate visa to get into Chile, but I did. It was sad that I couldn´t go, but I did some really fun things instead.

First, I went to an all inclusive resort in a town called Olmué, near Viña del Mar. It was beautiful there, with 5 pools, indoor and outdoor, hot tubs, saunas, buffets and a lot more. Plus all the free ice cream I could want. Surprisingly though, I actually lost weight that week. I think it might have been because I was allowed to choose my own food and portion sizes at meals, whereas at home, the maid serves the meals and gives me huge portions. I went with just my mom. Most of the days we spent lying by the pool or walking around the resort. On the third day, we went to Viña. It was beautiful. I got to see the famous Reloj de Flores, which is a giant clock on the side of a hill made of flowers, and it actually works. We also went to the mall, and while we were there, we ran into two friends of mine that live in a neardy town, Quilpué. They came the next day to the resort for the day. That was definately the most fun day. We participated in a lot of activites, the aquabox, dance lessons, and I sang karaoke. I also played a poker game and won second against all men.

On our way back to the resort we went to Santiago. We picked up my grandma, aunt and cousin and went to Ovalle. We only stayed in Ovalle for a day, then went to the apartment in La Serena. It was so nice to be in a city by the beach, because Ovalle is so hot right now, and there is never any wind. We stayed in La Serena for two and a half weeks. I went on a boat tour from Coquimbo to a little rock island full of sea lions. They were cute, in an ugly way, but smelt terrible. We ate a lot of sea food, fresh from the fish market in Coquimbo, caught every morning from the ocean. It was so good. I also went out with friends sometimes, to the mall or the beach. I went two times to Guanaqueros to meet friends and hang out on the beach there.

We just got back from La Serena this week. I haven´t done alot, because my family works, and like most brother, my host brother spends most of his time on the computer. Being home for so much time with my family, I am really learning a lot about families in Chile. The dad is definately the head of the house, and doesn´t do much work at all. Well, in the case of my family he really doesn´t do anything. I usually help my mom cook on Sundays went the maid isn´t here. It really bugged me in the beginning that this was how things are, because I am not at all used to it, but I have accepted it now. I still don´t like it and will be glad to be home in a family that shares all the chores evenly. The kids here are in general very spoiled by their moms. Also, I have noticed that maturity wise, they are a few years behind most people their age in Canada. Most of my friends here are 16 or 17, but they seem a lot younger than me. I think it is because their mothers do almost everything for them here. I don´t really look on it negatively, but it´s definately a big cultural difference.

I will be spending the next few weeks here in Ovalle, or in La Serena, and I intend to take advantage of my last weeks of summer. Not that school is exactly stressfull for me here...

New Years in Chile

Chile being a mainly Catholic country, I assumed that Christmas would be the biggest celebration of the year. I was wrong, though, New Years is definately the biggest, at least for my family. My family owns an apartment in La Serena, where we were planning on celebrating New Years. I went home to Ovalle to get more clothes on the 30th, and came back late on the 31st. On the drive to La Serena, we kept driving by these stuffed dummies on the side of the road. My mom explained that they are dressed in clothes from the old year, and at midnight, they get burned. By the time we got through all the traffic (La Serena is apparently a very popular place to celebrate New Years) it was almost 10:00. In Canada, we would be well into New Years celebrating by then, but in Chile, as always, everything starts later.

We had a big family dinner, with all my host siblings, a friend of my sister, and my exchange friend from Ovalle, Nicole. It was an all-seafood meal, which I loved. We had muscles and this shrimp cocktail type thing, then this big peice of white fish called reineta, which is really popular here, with tomato and seafood sauce. It took us until almost midnight to eat it all. We did the countdown, then at midnight, exactly (the only time things are on time here) the fireworks started. Also, we had to eat a spoonful of lentils for luck in love, and 12 grapes for luck in each month of the new year. We all quickly did this, then ran outside the apartment to watch the fireworks. There were three sets, all along the beach and one in Coquimbo, the city right next to La Serena.

After the fireworks, we went back to the apartment to dance some cumbia. Not the national dance of Chile, but a very popular dance in Chile, especially at New Years. Around 1:00, my exchange student friends all came. There was Nynne from Denmark, and Christina, Kate and Hanna from the USA. It was Kate´s birthday, and my mom knew that, so she brought her a cake from Ovalle. We ate her cake before we headed to the beach, where the party was just starting. There, we partied with my friends and family until 7:30am! We wanted to stay up to watch the sun rise, but the morning was too cloudy, so we couldn´t even see it.

It was a really fun celebration, and I´m so excited to see what the New Year brings for me in Chile.

Chilean Christmas

This Christmas was my first Christmas away from my family and away from Canada. It was strange, because the one thing that I connect with Christmas is snow. Christmas and winter are synonomous to me. Being on the opposite side of the equator this year, Christmas is in summer. Not only was there no snow, but it was actually 25º on Christmas day.

Christmas here is celebrated mainly the day before, on the 24th. Here they celebrate up until midnight on the 24th. We had a big family dinner that night, and went to the plaza to watch a play on the birth of Jesus. I thought it was pretty funny that I went to watch this show outside at 10:00 at night in my capris and sandals on Christmas Eve. Maybe the only time I´ll ever do that, and definately the first time for me. Technically, we were supposed to open presents at midnight, but my host nephew was tired, so we ended up opening them around 11. None of the presents were labeled as from anybody, they were all from "Viejito Pascuero", Santa. Which means that you never find out exactly who your presents were from. Like Secret Santa. On Christmas day, we basically just slept a lot, ate a big lunch (not because it was Christmas day, but because we´re in Chile.) It was strange that we didn´t do anything special for Christmas day. I got a pair of sandals and a bag and some candy. But the most excited gift was the puppy that my sisters bought for my mom. A 2-month old cocker spaniel named Laicy.

The actual day isn´t as important here as the days leading up to Christmas. There are no Christmas charities in Ovalle, so my mom buys gifts and candy herself and takes them to small schools in the country. I went with her this year, and they were literally one-room schools. The one we went to was grades 1-8 but was only 8 people. For lunch, they all go together to one of the student´s house for a homemade meal, since there is no where for hours around to buy food. It felt good to do something charitable for Christmas, since I wasn´t home to do Santa´s Anonymous this year.

The End of the End-Punta Arenas

So, the day we were going to Punta Arenas, we got up later than most days (finally.) On our way back to Punta Arenas, we stopped at a little Chilean-style petting zoo. There, we saw penguins, ostriches, emus, llamas. Basically all the things in we saw in the wild, but we could touch some of them. We stayed there for lunch, too. We ate lamb (delicious) and really really good potato salad :) After that, we went to watch them shear a sheep. It doesn´t look fun. They have to hold it down really hard because the sheep are trembling so much. There was another sheep waiting in the pen while one was getting sheared, and it freaked out and jumped the fence, it was so scared. They don´t hurt the sheep, the sheep just hate it (Jazz getting her nails clipped...)



After that was the part I had been waiting for the whole trip. We got to go see wild penguins. The ones we saw are called Magellan Penguins, and they are only found here, in the south of Chile. They don´t live in snow, either, but in grassy field type things near the ocean. They were sooooo cute, and when the got excited they would try to run and it was so cute. We stayed and watched them for a good hour, and no one wanted to leave.



On our last full day in Punta Arenas, we went to the third most famous cemetery in the world (behind the one in Paris, which I have also been to, and another one somewhere.) We got 20 minutes to walk around and look at the graves. They weren´t like normal graves, though. They were like small homes, with front gardens and everything, and fences. Most of them had entire families in them. After the cemetery, we went to a park to take pictures and relax. After a quick stop at the hotel for a huge lunch, we went to the duty free area of Punta Arenas, called la Zona Franco. We had two hours to shop there, and wander around. That night, we had a little farewell to Punta Arenas party with the whole group and the chaperones.



On our last last day, we went to a view point that overlooked Punta Arenas and the Ocean. There, there were three tall pilars with little wooden signs that people had made pointing to different cities or countries around the world. They also said the distance to each place. It was a little disappointing, because there was not a single one from Canada. So I guess that mean I HAVE to go back so I can bring a sign to point toward Edmonton. :) After that, we went to a little market nearby. We also went to the plaza in La Serena where we had to kiss the foot of a statue for good luck. We ate one last lunch in the restaurant, and then headed off the airport. Back in Santiago, most people stayed together to go to the bus station. Some were picked up at Santiago, because they lived nearby, and two were taking the plane to farther cities. We went as a big group to the bus station. Of course, me and Nikolaj, being the first to leave Ovalle at the very beginning of the trip, had the very last bus out of Santiago that night, at half past midnight, after waiting 3 hours in the bus terminal. It was boring, but I´d say we got the best deal for our money, because we got the longest trip! ;)

My Trip to the End of the World-Puerto Natales

So, after all that waiting around and the delayed flight and the insanely early bus ride, we were finally in Punta Arenas. The thing with the Punta Arenas airport is that the run way is facing out to the ocean, away from where we came. So when we arrived, we had to go past Punta Arenas, essentially heading toward Antarctica, and do a complete 180º to land at the airport. Over the ocean, with really really strong wind. I have been flying quite a few times, so it didn´t bother me, but not all the passengers were too happy with the turbulence or the hairpin turn.

When we landed, we went straight to our bus, which was basically our home on wheels for the whole trip. We met "Tio" John, our guide. The direct translation of tio is uncle, but in Chile they use it as a respectful term. Like Mr. So we met our guide, who was our guide for the whole trip. Our first stop was lunch in Punta Arenas, at the restaurant at the hotel where we would be staying. The plates were huge even for Chile. Then, we were off to our first city, Puerto Natales, a small touristy town a few hours north of Punta Arenas, where we stayed for the first 3 nights. On our way to Puerto Natales, we stopped at La Cueva del Milodón. That´s a huge cave where the found fossils of a thing called a Milodón, like a prehistoric bear. It took us about 20 minutes to walk through the cave, that was how big it was.

After the cave, we arrived in Puerto Natales. We got a chance to walk around the town. It was really touristy, and I think I heard more English and German than Spanish. Our second day was the day long bus tour through Torres del Paine. It sounds kind of boring, but it was actually so much fun. Torres del Paine is the second largest national park in Chile, centered around this mountain that looks like two giant towers (torres.) We saw a lot of wild animals, like wild ostriches, emus, llamas, alpacas, foxes and guanacos (similar to alpacas.) We also saw a lot of lakes. There were two distinct colors to the lakes. Some were really really blue, and others were sea green. The greener ones had a lot more salt in them, as we found when we were told to taste them. There was one lake that we went to that had both colors in it, and you could see the line where the two colors were separated. We also went to a waterfall that fed glacier water into one of the lakes. The last thing we did that day was see ice burgs. I have never seen them before, and had no idea that they are blue. Like really really blue. Because of how compact the ice is. There were about 10 huge iceburgs just floating on the lake. Then, at the far end of the lake, there was a giant glacier.

The next day, we went on a boat ride to a glacier. Or, we were supposed to. The boat ride was 3 hours each way, and it was extremely windy when we got into the middle of the ocean. These tours are always done with two boats, in case something should happen to one boat. Our group had one boat, and the other boat was a group of elderly German tourists. It all seemed fine, until we were about 2 hours in and the other boat had to turn around. The people on the other boat were all sea sick. Because they turned around, we had to too. It was disappointing, but the boat ride was still fun. At one point, me and a girl named Chelsea bundled up and braved the outer deck. I never did figure out if it was raining, or just so windy that the wind was blowing up sea water, but it was really really windy. We had to hold onto the rail or we would have gone overboard. It was a lot of fun, and we were the only two brave enough (or stupid enough) to do it. When we came back in, looking like drowned rats, we got a nice round of applause. Part of the boat trip was a stop at this remote restaurant literally in the middle of nowhere for lunch. Because we didn´t get there by boat, we drove there. It took about 2 hours, but the drive was also a lot of fun. And the food was so delicious, it was well worth it.

That was our last day in Puerto Natales. That night, we had a little party with the whole group, also to celebrate a student´s birthday. We left the next morning to Punta Arenas....