Bariloche

I just arrived in Buenos Aires from Bariloche, Argentina. I´m going to summerize my week in Bariloche because it doesn´t really deserve more than one blog entry.

Bariloche is the Aspen, Colorado of Argentina. It is a rich tourist ski town that does not represent the country. I had an interesting conversation with my cab driver on the way to the airport about how bariloche is the opposite of what represents the country. It attracts tourists from all over the world and is an even more expensive place to stay than Buenos Aires. When Argentina´s economy is doing badly, more tourists flock to Bariloche because is it cheaper and the town does well. But when the country is doing well, the number of tourists drops and the small tour companies go out of business and the town doesn´t prosper. So, this is a town that thrives off of a bad economy. The cab driver told me that this has been a great year for Bariloche because Brazilians flock to the city to vacation since Brazil has not been hit nearly as hard other countries with the economic crisis. To sum it up, Bariloche was not one of my favorite towns in the world, but it serves its purpose.

I was there to finish up my final week of Spanish school. The ECELA school in Bariloche is tiny, it only had 18 students (where Santiago had about 60 when I was there). There is a much smaller community and you´d think that it would be more tight knit right? Well, maybe since I was only there for a week or I came from Chile instead of BA, but I wasn´t welcomed into the community in nearly the same way as in Santiago. The people were kind of cold. I hate to feel like I´m complaining, but it´s hard not to compare my experience to my time in Chile which was very warm and friendly. I was in the minority there. Most everyone spoke German, and maybe that had something to do with it? Or maybe it was just a different atmosphere.

Anyway, my experience wasn´t all bad. Not even close. I made friends with the other girl in my class (there were only 2 of us in my level) and we ended up exploring the area together. It is a beautiful area in Patagonia with lakes and mountains in every direction you look. I got to explore some caverns inside an inactive volcano at Cerro Leon. People lived inside these caves over 500 years ago. I didn´t catch all of the history because it was all in Spanish, but I think I got most of it.

I also learned how to make empanadas- the local ¨fast food¨ of Argentina. They are a lot like calzones, and they are delicious!

The other really good thing about Bariloche was my class. I really liked the girl from Brazil- her name is Bruna- and my teacher. I was alone and had private lessons for half of the week because Bruna skipped out on class to explore around the city. I think that I learned a lot of grammar and got some great lessons. This us from left to right Gustavo- the activities director, Me, My teacher Graciela, and Bruna.

All in all, Bariloche is a beautiful area, but not a great town, so if you are heading to Southern Argentina anytime soon, skip the town and head straight for the mountains...

Passed The Test

I had my second test this week to graduate Intermediate Level 1-B. There is a test every two weeks. I was worried about this one because there is a lot of grammar in the subjunctive tense which is very complicated. It´s a tense that we don´t have in English and it´s hard to understand when to use it. But I received an 84%-(75% is a passing grade). I was thrilled just to pass! The rest of the class was just as confused as I was and everyone received around the same grade- I think that the highest grade was an 87. Anyway, after the test we went to the liquor store and bought a couple of bottles of Chilean wine to celebrate my last day in Santiago and passing the exam. Then we had an Almuerzo de Despedidas (a goodbye lunch) where everyone leaving had to give a speech. I don´t like talking in public, but the post-test wine definitely helped. I got a certificate and everything! Here´s a picture of me looking awkward again. Enjoy.

A girl named Sarah moved into my family´s house at the beginning of the week. It turns out that she is also from Seattle! We lived a block apart from each other in the University district, she went to the UW. We are even the same age. We have so much in common it´s crazy. It makes me realize what a small world it is. It has been nice to have her in the house for a change of pace.

Tomorrow I´m off to Bariloche, Argentina in central Patagonia to finish up school. I will be staying with another home stay family. I hope they are equally as nice as my family here. I´ll be taking a 20 hour bus ride to get down there. Ugh. I splurged for the ¨semi-cama¨bus that has more comfortable seats and more leg room. I think it will be worth it... I can´t wait to get into the mountains. I´m definitely a mountain girl.

Pucón!

This past weekend I went to a town in the South of Chile called Pucón. It is in the Andes and it´s called ¨the adventure capital of Chile.¨ It turned out that I was not the only one from my school that was interested in going down to go rafting and climb the volcano, Volcán Villarica. (Despite the 10.5 hour bus ride there and back). I ended up going with 3 Brazilian girls and a girl from New York City. It was a great mix of people. --I even learned a few words in Portuguese.

After an uneventful bus ride down on Friday night we arrived in Pucón Saturday Morning exhausted at our hostel. It turned out that the hostel did not write down our reservation and was not going to give us the room we had reserved. They wanted us to pay more for 3 separate rooms. We thought this was unfair since we were having to pay for their mistake. We tried to come to a compromise- offering to pay slightly less than they wanted and more than we had originally thought. Sounds fair right? Wrong. A big mistake in Chile... Never try to bargain with Chileans, apparently it´s offensive to them. It ended up in a big fight between Christina (the New Yorker) and the owner of the hostel. There was yelling, racial slurs being thrown around, and names being called. All very awkward. We were actually thrown out of the hostel. But, since it was the last weekend of the Chilean summer break and all the other hostels were booked we had no where else to go. So, Christina ended up apologising, paying the higher price, and feeling really uncomfortable. Lesson learned.

After that we booked a river rafting trip for that afternoon and a hike up the volcán and a trip to the ¨rustic hot springs¨ for Sunday. The rafting trip was a lot of fun, even more fun that the one I went on the weekend before. Everyone was energetic, the guide was silly, the scenery was beautiful, and I fell into the river and had to be rescued by a rescue kayaker. We even did a bit of cliff diving from about 30 feet. Not too high, but high enough for me. Here´s some before and after pictures of us from the rafting trip. I have to say that I loved this tour company for many reasons, but one of them was that they served beers after every tour. How great is that!? If you´re ever in the area, use Politur.


On Sunday we got up at 6:30am to hike up the Volcán Villarica. I didn´t get any good pictures of it but here are some that google images has to offer. http://images.google.cl/images?svnum=10&um=1&hl=es&q=volc%C3%A1n+Villaricasvnum=10&um=1&hl=es&q=volc%C3%A1n+Villarica The hike is over 1,500 meters up through volcanic rock and snow. It was pretty scary at points because it is very steep and slippery, but it´s worth it. It is the second most active volcano in Chile and it belches smoke, and lava. We didn´t get to see any lava when we got to the top, because it became very windy and cloudy in 5 min, but you get to see the mountains surrounding you while you´re sitting on top of a lake of clouds. Going down is A LOT easier since most of the way you slide down on your butt using your ice axe as a break. It took us about 5 hours to hike to the top and about 2 hours to get back down. We came across a huge deer beetle on the hike up and named him Pevere. One of the Guides hiked Pevere up to the top of the volcano in his sleeve. At first the bug was giving me the creeps but by the end of the hike, he had become a beloved mascot. In the end we set him free to go back home to his friends and brag about climbing to the top of the volcano.

Finally we made it back, had our post-tour beers and hired a Politur driver to take four of us (the Brazilians and me) to the local hot springs to relax after the hike. Christina had to work and ended up staying behind in Pucón. The hot springs were anything but rustic. They were crowded and built up with houses that had stairs into the water, showers, and bathrooms. It felt good to be in the hot water, but I mostly felt like I was taking a bath with 100 Chileans. We left around 8pm to catch our 9:40 bus back to Santiago.

On the way to the hot springs the drive was 30 min, but coming back we got suck in a ¨taco¨ or traffic jam. We were only about 2km away from the bus station and we weren´t moving. We started to think we were going to miss the bus. The bus company does not reschedule tickets or give refunds so we were nervous. It was the last bus of the day, we had to get to class in the morning, AND Christina was at the bus station waiting for us to arrive. We were getting really stressed about missing the bus and our bags were at the tour company. So we told the van driver-- he called the company and had them drive the bags over and put them on the bus. They also talked to the bus driver to see if they could delay the bus by 10 min to wait for us-- this is unheard of in South America. So, our bags are on the bus, Christina is waiting for us and we are stuck in traffic. The tour company was trying so hard to delay the bus and get us there on time. We got out of the bus and ran down the street, but by this time the traffic had loosened up and our van had caught up with us. So we hopped back in the van and drove to the bus station to watch the bus pull away without us- with our bags on the bus. Crap. By some miracle, the tour operator was able to call the bus and tell the driver we were four cars behind them. He stopped, we ran onto the bus and made it. Whew!

All in all it was an amazing and lucky trip. Things worked out for us even though at times it seemed like we were screwed. I am one lucky Gringa.

A week in Summary

So, it´s been a while since I´ve blogged. I´m bad. Anyway, it´s been a very exciting and full week. I´ve gone to a salsa class, hiked up hills, been to the beach, met new family (that´s actually related to me!), been rafting down the Mapocho River and been sick all in one intense week. While all this was happening I found time to pass my first Spanish exam and move on to the next level. Whew!



Wednesday: Salsa class. This was interesting, there was a trip organized by my school where we went to a dance club called Ilé Havana. There was about 30 people that went from the school to learn salsa. They had an instructor that was a great dancer, but had no idea how to teach. She got up in the front of the tiny dance floor and kept yelling ¨shake your ass¨and ¨if you can´t do it, just do it.¨ Thanks, really helpful. She didn´t slow down at all, or take things step by step. It turned out that we were all stepping on each other and looking like fools but it was still a lot of fun.

Thursday: Hiking up the Cerro (hill) Santa Lucía. This is a really interesting place. It was an old fort from 400 years ago where the Europeans hid out and killed indigenous people from atop this tower. It was later made into a palace. Anyway, it has an amazing view of Santiago and you can hike up many stairs to get to the top. It´s a beautiful yellow color.

Friday: Exam! I had my first Spanish exam at school. I was worried about it since I haven´t taken a real exam in years. So I brushed up on my grammar and tried to memorize as much vocab as possible. I think that vocab is the hardest thing for me. I have such a horrible memory that trying to think up words on the spot is so difficult. That is my limiting reaction in learning spanish, I understand all the grammar, but the words are so hard. Anyway, to make a long story short, I passed and now I´m on to Intermediate Level 1-B. Whoot-whoot! This is a picture of my class. My teacher is the tiny (and feisty) girl in the front row.


Saturday: Rafting down the Río Mapocho. This was a hell of a good time. I have only been rafting once before in Colorado, but this was a lot more exciting. There were no regulations and nothing to sign so if I died or got hurt that´s too bad. Luckily no one did either of these things. It was around level 3-4 rapids and in a beautiful valley only 1.5 hours outside of Santiago.


Sunday: Went to Viña del Mar and Valparaíso (the beach) and met my Cousin´s-Husband´s-Brother´s Wife and Paulina. Complicated I know, but still family. Her family was so great! They took me around to all the interesting places in their city and we did a lot of walking and talking. I´m going to see them again on Wednesday for dinner. I hope that someday I can show them the hospitality that they showed me. It´s so nice to have them here, at least I know there is someone in South America I can go to in case of an emergency. Thanks Paulina!


Monday: First day of my new class. The instructor is nice, but I don´t like her quite as much as my first one. The material is a harder and she is more likely to give definitions for words in English rather than Spanish. This way, they are less likely to stick in my head. Anyway, I did a lot of sleeping because it seems that I caught some sort of bug. I was nauseous most of the day. Today is better, but it´s still not totally gone. No worrying about me! I´m still doing everything I want to do.

Love to all. Leave me comments if you make it all the way through this posting!

Sun and Wine

Yesterday, I took a trip with the school to a couple vineyards close by. They were about a 40 min drive outside of Santiago in an area called cajon del maipo- a beautiful valley. The first vineyard was called Undurraga and we had a guide that was perfect for us. He spoke very slowly and clearly in Spanish and taught us a lot about the vineyard. It used to be owned by a big family that had a large swatch of land that they developed into a spectacular yard and gardens. The process that they use to make wine was more industrial than the second vineyard. They had temperature controlled rooms and barrels.

I loved being out in the vineyard with the grapes. They were amazing, I have never been able to walk around vines before and see the fruit hanging off. It was also a sunny day and it was possible to see nature in process. --The sun feeding the leaves and the plant producing the fruit. Ah, nature what a miracle.

I wish that I could say that I liked the second vineyard better, but I can´t. Well, that´s not exactly true, I like their message a lot better, but their guide and wine a lot less. It was an organic vineyard that focuses on sustainability and they produced their wines without pesticides or chemicals. I really respect what they were doing. Anyway, the guide had a voice that grated on you and made your ears hurt and she refused to speak slowly for us, and their wine was very acidic. But the property was beautiful none the less.

All in all, a great day. Later that night, most of the people who went on the tour went out to a bar to drink Chilean wine. What a great way to end a day of wine touring!