home again, home again

We arrived safe and sound back in Asheville this morning, ahead of schedule at around 10:15! The flight was uneventful, but I didn't get much sleep - though I guess that was to be expected with an overnight flight. 

I look forward to sharing my stories and pictures!

Ciao!

Adrianne

last shower in chile!

I just got out of the last shower I will take this time in Chile ... we´ll see if I come back here again one day.

Our last day at the cabins in Puerto Varas were very nice and relaxing. We worked on our papers some, and relaxed some in the sun. It was nice to have that time to reflect on the trip and also to work on our papers. It was also a beautiful day - sunny and perfectly warm all day, with a beautiful sunset to top it all off! Then we packed up our stuff and left early Monday morning and drove to another little town to stay in cabins for the night. The temperature change between leaving Puerto Varas and getting out at Salto de Lagos was incredible. It went up at least 10 degrees F!!! It was so much hotter! Luckily there was a lovely little pool at our cabins! So we all spent a few hours swimming, resting, and celebrating Laurel´s birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Happy Birthday Laurel! Then got up early-ish again this morning and drove to Santiago!

We arrived in Santiago earlier this afternoon and went to the airport to drop off our precious van, Shasha, that we have been so close to for these past two months. We made sure she wasn´t trying to take any of our belongings and waited for our rides to the hostel. It was strange to be at the airport because we weren´t leaving today, but knowing that we´ll be leaving tomorrow. We are staying at the same hostel that we stayed at the day we got here two months ago, and it´s very nice. I like this little hostel, it´s very eclectic and fun. It´s a nice way to bring the trip to a close. Tomorrow we have time to see the city a little bit more, then time to re-pack and put all of our things together to fly home.

We leave tomorrow at 5:00 for the airport, then our flight leaves Santiago around 9:30 for Atlanta, GA! We arrive sometime after 6 am in Atlanta and then fly to Asheville, NC. Safe and uneventful travels are our hope!

Until then,

¡Ciao!
Adrianne

rest and relaxation to the max

We have been staying in the most beautiful little cabins ever! They´re right on the water and so cozy! We´ve been cooking our own meals, resting a lot, doing some sight seeing, working on our papers, and refecting on the trip. It´s crazy to think that it´s coming to an end ... as much as I am excited to come back it will also feel strange to leave.

Let´s see ... we went to Lago Todo los Santos yesterday and sat in the sun for a few hours. We had a fantastic view of Volcán Osorno ... don´t worry, it´s not about to explode. We went hiking/wandering at a national park a few days ago, and it was really pretty. I guess we´ve also done some serious resting, which has been nice. Oh, and our cabins are right on a lake so we went swimming today. It was a little chilly, but totally worth it. The water is so clear and beautiful. And of course, we´ve been working hard on our journal entries for our papers ... I´ve found this week to be quite productive and I think most of the rest of the group has too.

It´s hard to think about the fact that we have two more short days here at the lake cabins, then we start our drive back to Santiago, then to leave Chile. I´m not ready to make a culminating remark on this trip ... so that will just have to wait. I´m not done with this trip yet!

Can´t wait to share all my stories!

¡Ciao!
Adrianne

from one extreme to another

We spent this last week on a tiny island off the coast of Chiloé visiting communities and doing our homestays. It was a beautiful little island with only two hours of electricity a day, and wide open spaces like I´ve never seen before. The boat, la lancha, that we took to the island was a wooden boat with lots of people on it going to Quehui, the little island, and it felt much more traditional than the other places we´ve been on the trip. It was great. We visited two small communities on the island and did service at their churches. We participated in asados at both churches - an asado is llamb cooked over an open fire, potatoes, tomatoes and lettuce, and bread, typically with wine, that is, from what I´ve gathered on this trip, a pretty typical Chilean meal. It was a lot of meat, but it was fun. :) I think I´ll be pretty vegetarian again upon my return from this beautiful land.

The homestays we did were wonderful too. I stayed with three others from our group with one family at their house. It was great. Our host mother had her two granddaughters there, and her daughter and grandson live there. We spoke lots of Spanish and ate really good food. I learned a new way to cook eggs and rice that I´ll definitely be bringing back to the states with me. We rode their horse, walked around the island, and relaxed on the beach. It was a fantastic experience that I wish had been longer.

Then we took la lancha back to Chiloé and went back to the Maldonado farm for a night. It was a fantastic night back with a family that I will for certain go back and visit again in my life.

Now we´re in Puerto Varas on the mainland of Chile and we´ll be here for the next week before we leave Chile. We´re staying in spectacular cabins right on a lake - it´s amazing. Don´t worry, I´m taking lots of pictures.

Well, until next time ... I´ll keep you posted on our time in Puerto Varas.

¡Ciao!
Adrianne

trash

Today was the last day of the festival, and I´m glad it´s over. It was fun to go, and I enjoyed looking at the pretty things for sale and watching some of the cool traditional things, but it got a little old after a while. We made a good time out of it, even while it was raining, and got to see a lot of the process of making a wooden boat, which was super cool. And we continued to pick up trash, the amount of which did pick up when thousands upon thousands of people were there, but it still stayed remarkably trash free. I was impressed. We went to a Chilean rodeo today too ... which was pretty cool. My favorite part was the man and his horse who were working to help move the bulls. The horse was so pretty and so well trained, we were all impressed. I felt bad for the bulls, and it stressed me out a lot when people rode them, but it was worth it to see.

Tomorrow we get to pack up our things and clean the house a bit, and get ready to go to Quehui! We´ll be there for five nights, then on to Puerto Varas, our last stop for the trip before we head back to Santiago to head out!

I´ll update you upon our arrival to Puerto Varas. Wish us all luck with our homestays!!!

¡Ciao!
Adrianne

life at a festival

We have been working hard ... and hardly working ... at the Biodiversity Fair for the last couple of days. I think they have what has to be the cleanest fair grounds I have ever seen. Our job is to pick up trash, but there is hardly any to pick up. Let alone trash for ten of us to pick up. But it´s fun, and they laugh at us sometimes. But the lack of trash means we get to wander around and look at the merchandise. They have some interesting stuff to look at, and lots of us have bought things. They also have some animals that we have thoroughly enjoyed visiting.

We have had some very full days and they´re going by quickly. We have been getting up and cooking breakfast, then spending the day at the festival, then coming back and cooking dinner. It´s good though ... we´re having a good time, and Castro is great.

On Monday we head to Quehui for five days. We´ll be staying together as a group for the first couple of nights, then have two nights of homestays, so that should be fun. Then we´ll be back together for one more night before we head to Puerto Varas, the lake district, for ten days! The trip is flying by!

I think that´s about it for now.

¡Ciao!

Adrianne

La capital de Chiloé

We are in Castro now, and for the coming week. Castro is the capital of Chiloé, the island we are staying on. Today it has been really rainy, and we went to a little festival in a nearby town - which ended up being a fun, but only for a little bit since we were all soaking wet and cold.



We have, otherwise, been wandering around town and enjoying the cafes and markets. There are TONS of markets in this town, and several large artisan markets. Lots of cool things. Many knit socks ... I feel a little weird about the idea of buying handknit socks since I make them. But I´m planning on buying wool!



We´ve been grocery shopping and cooking for ourselves as a group, which has been really nice. We are staying in a little house right in the center of the city, which is so nice since we can go out and wander around by ourselves if we want to. There are lots of internet places too. :) The house is authentic and has character, and there´s only one bathroom between the ten of us and the other guy that lives in the house. It´s a little cramped when we´re ALL trying to take showers, but otherwise it´s been fine. We´re getting used to using the bathroom together ... to say the very least.



Tomorrow afternoon we have a meeting with the municipality to see what we´re in for for this week. We´ll be doing some kind of service work for a couple of festivals that are going on. One is the Festival Costumbrista and we don´t know what the other one is. We´re hoping/planning on doing some variation of recycling ... so it should be good work.



So that´s what we´ve been up to for the last couple of days. I´ll keep you posted!



¡Ciao!



Adrianne

Festejemos en la granja Maldonado

It´s nothing but a constant party at the Maldonado Farm! We have been doing a lot of stuff. I´ll update you briefly on some of our adventures.

We have been helping out doing some trail work on a trail that has recently been cut through the woods on their land, and we made some flag poles to put up along the trail to mark it better. It´s pretty well marked already, but we were making it a little more blatant so people don´t get lost. Some of the trail work also involved lugging bags of rocks to put in a particularly mucky part of the trail. It was hard work ... rocks are heavy.

We´ve also been doing plenty of exploring around Chiloé. We went to a mythological park and got a tour of the various myths of the island ... of which there are many. Then we each wrote about one of the mythological creatures and put together a couple of skits to perform for the family. It was funny ... they enjoyed them, and so did we.

Yesterday we went to visit the Williche community, an indigenous community of Chiloé. It was interesting. We also went to a mussel farm ... that was cool. It takes a year or more for mussels to grow to the appropriate size for eating. And they´re damn good.

We also experienced the traditional dish of Chiloé called the Curanto. It is basically a huge dish cooked on hot stones under lots of leaves and sod - including, but not limited to, mussels and clams, potatoes, chicken, pork, beef, and some potato bread. It was really delicious. And we had a big party to go with it. We were up late, dancing and enjoying Chilean wine (which we have at almost every meal as well). Hardy, the Don of the family, asked me to dance three times and then called me his bailarina the next morning. He´s a hoot and a half.

Tonight we are doing our own Curanto, which should be interesting. I´ll keep you posted.

Like I said ... it´s a constant party here at the Maldonado Farm!

I´d love to hear what´s going on back in the states! Feel free to email me if you feel like sharing! I miss you all! adriannedawn1st@gmail.com

¡Ciao!

Adrianne

Chiloé ... la finca de la familia Maldonado

We have finally made it to Chiloé and we are all glad to be here. We are staying at a wonderful farm owned by the Maldonado family. They have a great set-up and we are all very comfortable. Doña Luisa and Don Hardy are so amazing, and have some of the best laughs I have ever heard. Our schedule for the next eight days with the Maldonado family is lo mismo cada día - the same every day - breakfast (which is almost always bread or sopaipilla, peach jam or honey, coffee or tea) at 9:00, class in the woods at 10:00, a couple of hours of service, a big lunch around 3:00 with everyone, then a small siesta, sight seeing and going around the town in the afternoon and evening. It´s pretty much heaven on earth. It is so beautiful here on Chiloé and it just keeps getting better. This afternoon we went to the Mythological Park where they have recreated a lot of the mythological creatures of Chiloé, of which there are zillions. It was very cool. I took tons of pictures.

Oh, and another adventure involved witnessing the butchering of a cow from the farm ... I only saw it once it was skinless, headless, and hanging from its feet. It was pretty gross, but I know it´s good meat. I just can´t help it ... the baby cows are too cute for words and it´s hard to see their parents being butchered.

Until next time,

¡Ciao!
Adrianne

so much to say, so little time

So here´s a quick overview of our last week-ish. We left Punta Arenas and spent two days in Puerto Natales getting food ready to go camping. Then we left for Torres del Paine. We drove for a long time, much of it on unnamed gravel roads with nothing on either side, and the landscape just kept getting more and more beautiful. We camped at a little place with a fantastic view of mountains all around. The hiking part was strenuous but so worth it! We hiked 8+ hours to see the Torres and it was incredible! I am glad that I did it and made it all the way! And I took pictures, don´t worry. We did another, much shorter hike the second day that involved crossing a land bridge of sand and gravel in gale force winds and saw a beautiful glacier, and had lunch in the middle of nowhere! It was great. A beautiful little spot off the trail.

So that was great - totally worth it. I recommend it to anyone and everyone with a sense of adventure and the desire to see something amazing, like no mountains I have ever seen before.

Now we are on our way back through Argentina to Osorno, then to Chiloe. Driving through Argentina is just long ... but we manage to make it fun. We sure do talk a lot and tell lots of stories. :)

Until next time!

Ciao,
Adrianne

el fin del mundo ...

Literally, the end of the world. Tonight is our last in Punta Arenas, at the bottom of the continent, and our stay here has been wonderful. The people at our hostel are amazing ... especially the woman who makes us breakfast every morning. :) And the internet cafe right nextdoor is great too. I have seen a lot of things, eaten in a lot of restaurants, had a lot of fantastic coffee, talked to a lot of people, and seen so many amazing things. I touched the water in el Estrecho de Magallanes (Straight of Magellan) and endured the gale force winds.

Our first service project was picking up trash in a park - and we even got on national news! It was covered by three news channels, and I got interviewed about Obama. We also did a project at a little farm that involved pulling out an entire green house full of strawberry plants. It was hard work, but very rewarding.

Today we went to the cemetery, which is very grand and well managed. The cemeteries are a bit different here - instead of little tiny graves they have very elaborate little structures, almost like houses, with shrines inside and the dead are buried there. They have anywhere from that to small drawer-like things in walls where dead are buried. I think it is their ashes that are in the drawers. I do not really know. But it was very cool. We also went to a museum that basically showed a lot about the history of this region.

All in all, Punta Arenas was great. We all had a wonderful time wandering around ... and I was quite proud of myself for being able to orient myself and know where I was in the city, and how to get back to our hostel. I was impressed. :) We were all glad to be in one place for a few days and not have to get back in the car for the entire day. All in good time though ...

Tomorrow morning we leave Punta Arenas to drive to Puerto Natales for two days. We will stay there and get ready to go to Torres del Paine. We will be camping and hiking for four days in the National Park and I expect to have some incredible pictures and to be a bit sore once it is all over with. I am sure it will be wonderful. After that we will head back north to Osorno ... all the way through Argentina. Who knows what my access to internet will be like, so I will keep this posted when I can! Until then ...

Ciao,
Adrianne

¡pingüinos!

Yesterday afternoon we went to see the penguin colony down here, called los pingüinos magallanes. It was, as it was all day yesterday, super windy ... but it was so cool to see the penguins! they´re soooooooo cute!!! i took tons of pictures and we watched them hang out for a while. they´re so curious and they have such personality!

Today we spent the day wandering around Punta Arenas doing whatever we wanted. We walked around the market in the central square and shopped some, then spent the rest of the day just hanging out around town. We made friends with a stray dog, that we´ve named Pablito - a german shephard mix - and he followed us around for a while. We found a really wonderful little dessert/cafe called Chocolatta that we love going to. They have wonderful chocolate and lots of yummy drinks. Needless to say, we went there for a bit. :)

Punta Arenas is great, and I´m really starting to love Chile. I had a wonderful conversation with a man in the central square while I was looking at post cards. While we were talking he asked where in Chile I was from and was shocked when I told him I am a student from the states. He said I speak very well and have a wonderful accent, especially since Spanish is not my first language. I was very flattered. So we chatted for a while. I love speaking Spanish!!!

Until later,

Ciao!
Adrianne

the bottom of the continent

We´re in Punta Arenas, Chile now. It took four days of 10 + hours of driving to get here. It was long, but we´re here now. It´s beautiful here in Punta Arenas. REALLY windy, and the temperature is mild, probably in the 50s-ish. It´s so nice! We´re staying in a wonderful little hostel with lovely bedrooms, comfy beds, and nice bathrooms, with breakfast! And the internet cafe is right next door! How convenient. We did service work this morning, cleaning up trash in a little park, and three news stations covered our efforts. It was pretty funny. They were all so excited, and they took tons of pictures and taped us picking up shards of glass and other bits of trash. We´re famous! And then we´re going to see the penguin colony this afternoon. I´m excited about it. Tomorrow we have the day off from service so we´re going to go on at least one adventure, which will be fun. I´m excited. It´s so nice to be out of the car and not have to drive all day for a little while. Though it is pretty cool to have drive all the way across the continent and seen both oceans and gotten to the bottom of the continent. Totally worth it.

Well, I´ll have more access to internet here, so I´ll update more often in the next couple of days, or will try to. Until later,

Ciao,
Adrianne

argentina

Well, we´re traveling through Argentina right now. Camping for the next couple of nights. The weather is nice and the mountains and lakes are incredible! The van is decently comfortable, but we´ve been driving for two days now and have two more to go. We´re coming up with all kinds of games to play in the car ...

Until later,

Adrianne.

first day

So we´re here in Santiago. We arrived this morning and are at our hostel - Hostel Atacama. It´s a nice little place - lots of travelers. And internet! Santiago is much more like a big city in Europe than I expected, and I like that. It´s also very warm down here - I don´t like that as much. But it´s not as humid as NC which is nice. I´ve already been using my Spanish a lot, and it´s reassuring to know that I can, indeed, communicate! Yay! As we were flying in we couldn´t help but fly by the incredible mountains! They´re gorgeous. Very different than the Appalachians, that´s for sure. They´re enormous and mostly rock, not as much vegetation. At least not that I could see from the plane. We´re taking part in the cook out tonight at the Hostel so that should be fun. We´ll get to know some other people who are staying in the Hostel. Although we won´t be here long. We leave very early tomorrow morning for Osorno. It should take at least 10 hours to get there. That begins our long treck down to Punta Arenas, where it will be cooler than here in Santiago. I think I´m experiencing a combination of being exhausted and culture-shocked and a little homesick, but I expected all of those things. I´ll be okay in a few days once we´ve been here a few days. Otherwise it´s amazing! Until the next time I have internet ...

Chao!
Adrianne

three days and counting

It's Sunday afternoon and I'm sitting in my living room at home, thinking about where I will be and what I will be doing later this week. In three days - on Wednesday evening at 5:00 - ten of us from Warren Wilson will depart from Asheville Regional Airport headed for Chile, due to arrive the following morning just before 9:00. We will be in Chile for two months from January 14 to March 12 traveling around, doing service projects, and who knows what else. I will be trying my very best to keep up with this blog and keep people posted. Feel free to share the web address with people who are curious about my trip and check in every once in a while to see what I'm up to if you are so inclined. Oh, and no worries, I will be taking tons of pictures. So no guarantees that there will be regular posts, but I'll do my best. Please leave comments, but know that I may or may not be able to respond right away, or better yet, email me if you want to!

Cheers!
Adrianne