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