Part VII: Chile - Did you know word was created in Chile?

Guys, let me introduce you to Adriana, my new niece!!

My first job as a hairdresser

Me surfing. The wave was 7 meters high but they took the picture to late

Che boludos!! Que onda??

Que pasa con vos??!! Que buena onda la sudamerica, tope bacano, cachai? Onda que todos los paisajes son super piolos, y los flacos y las minitas secos para el carrete, cachai?

Sorry guys, but it is impossible to translate that into English. Hope you are all well, again I’m gathering together the bits and pieces I have written lately in different places and times, so yesterday could be one month ago...

Finally the time arrived, it took me two days to click into South America, but here I am!! I was sad to leave Asia, I leave so much behind,... I have spent last four months between Buddha, Brahma, Shiva, Ganesha, Krishna and Vishnu, you could see them all in temples, shrines, wats, palaces and sacred trees, lakes or seas, sometimes in the middle of the altar, sometimes in the darkness of a lonely corner. Women were dressed in colourful Saris, shararas, gowns, skirts and sarongs, brown skin and long dark straight hairs, almond shaped eyes,... My mouth burned with Dal Bhats, Thalis, Vindaloos, Masalas, Green Curries, Noodles and Papaya salads... All that, and so much I could remember if I think for a while,...

It’s been a very good four months in Asia, so when I came to Chile I was missing all that without opening the eyes and look where I was. This afternoon I went to the top of a hill in the middle of Santiago de Chile, there is a big sculpture of Virgin Mary on the top, you can see the whole Santiago around you. Once on the top, I played some music, all these beautiful Asian landscapes went through my eyes again, always full of colour, good memories and good people, when I came down the hill, everything was changed, all south American charm suddenly hit me, Santiago is such an amazing city, it’s streets are full of art; street performers, musicians and jugglers, story tellers, painters and sculptors, all of them trying to make a living out of their art expressions, they work in street, traffic lights, bars, museums and other cultural institutions. They not alone either, they are surrounded by hundreds of people, chatting, singing, drinking and enjoying their time with friends, the street is full of people listening, seeing, experiencing and enjoying... Couples kissing their partners in every corner, every park and every fountain. If you are not careful, you may end up in a endless conversation about what the neighbour said about the person living in the next floor, they like talking, and love gossiping, in the restaurants the vegetable option includes chicken on it, and together with fries and Chilean salad, which is tomato and onion, may be the greenest options in your meal,…

Last days in Thailand were full of diving in the early morning and partying late at night, so when I flew from Bangkok to Sydney I was quite tired already. Arrive to Sydney at 6 in the morning. Check in at the hostel, shower and then straight to the Arup Office with probably my only clean T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops... When I got into this elegant office, with a beautiful reception bureau, the receptionist, after checking me from bottom to top said.

– You look pretty relaxed, no?...
– Glup…

I explained her I wanted to see some director, who of course I hadn’t arranged to meet. Meeting went really well, very nice person, and I got the job!! Thank you for all these responses to the quiz. Some of the answers were very funny.

Although I programmed a full day of sightseeing in Sydney, after the Opera House and the beach, I lay down in the grass to relax the eyes and got glued for three hours. Next day I was flying to Melbourne, where I met Ryan, Ronda and Dani, three ex-flatmates from Holmewood Gardens. Melbourne is really nice city, the barbecue on for 24 hours a day, and the fridge always full of stubbies (BEER). I had some king of meat shock therapy, after four months of vegetarian food.

Melbourne seems pretty cool city. It has a long river path, like south bank in London, a Italian neighbourhood perfect for the afternoon coffee with friends, a bohemian district for cool Sunday hanging around, some old stones and more important than anything else a very big casino. Between Barbecue and barbecue we had some spare time to go to a few local bars to listen to some live music and drink a bit of the Australian “water”.

When I arrived to Santiago I was really tired from last weeks, so spent first days mainly catching up with sleep, eat, sleep, eat, sleep, like a sheep… Santiago de Chile is a city very similar to Madrid, so, although I enjoyed the parks and people, I escaped quite quickly. Cars, noise, people rushing, clocks everywhere… After Santiago I went to Valparaiso where I literally squatted the room of some people I had met in Santiago. Enrico rastaman, from Italy, and charmy Emanuel from Argentina, my travelling fellows for the following month.

Valparaiso is a beautiful city, laid on a hill overlooking the pacific. It’s beautiful old-fashioned cable busses and the wooden lifts to go up the hill made it to be Word Heritage by UNESCO. Houses are colourful. On our first night we decided to stay in. The hostel was a very old house, with a few small rooms called “piezas”. The owner was a mid fifties gossipy lady. She had elegant dreamy eyes. The funny thing is that in this house the kitchen was inside the only toilet, yes, the kitchen inside the toilet, and to go to the terrace you had to go through the toilet, or the kitchen, well both. We were preparing dinner on the terrace on a warm summer night, and cooking in the toilet, so every now and then we had to lock ourselves out in this small terrace while somebody was doing whatever was doing next to our pasta, Yuk!! Very handy in the morning when you can make yourself up or sit down keeping an eye on the kettle. Second day in Valparaiso we were so lucky as to assist to a concert of Queen, really, the singer was so identical Brian May, the music was really good as well.

After Valparaiso we went to Isla Negra to see Neruda´s house, but due to our improvising style of travelling, we got there the only day it was closed. From Isla Negra we hitchhiked to Pichilemu. We were lucky enough to be taken by a young surfing dude, which not only took us to Pichilemu, our destination, but also toured us around and took us to a camping. The main and possibly only activity of Pichilemu was surfing, so we follow the flow and tried some surfing. We started surfing in the beaches of the town, but moved later to Punta Lobos where we could camp in the beach with some people we met. Punta Lobos is a beautiful place and surfing was a bit easier, well surfing, let’s say rolling around in the waves. Imagine, you get into the super tight not very comfortable wetsuit, after 100 meters carrying the huge board for beginners, you are tired already but still with hope. You have seen this image in the films, you are there standing on the beach, looking at the waves, at the chicks in bikini and at the waves again, you think you look cool, then as you have seen in the films you start walking energetically into the water and in a jump lay down on the surfing board. Shit!! It wasn’t deep enough, you got stacked with keel (Quilla) into the shallow water, you look back, nobody saw you, ok. Let’s repeat when is a bit deeper. Then you start rowing energetically with the arms, as you have seen in the films, when you are half way from the beach and the waves, your arms do not respond anymore. When you are on the edge of having a fit someone walks next to you with the water at the level of the knees, damn, you didn’t realised about the funny tongue of sand in the middle. After a bit more of desperate rowing with the arms, you decide to turn around and see what comes, you are so tired. After such an effort you have to get a good wave, otherwise is not worthwhile. you skip a few small ones, when you see the wave you want to take you prepare to start rowing when you are on the top, mmmm, it getting bigger, fuck, bigger and bigger, is it going to be a tsunami?? When you are supposed to start rowing to get the wave you are doing every possible movement to avoid it. This is in the case you get close to the beginning of the wave, because a few times I have seen the wave growing and growing and then braking right on my back, Paaaa!! Glup glup glup glu glu glup glue glup, and picture myself in big washing machine. By the third wave to try to take, you have drink the equivalent to three pints of water, I don’t understand how there is people so crazy about surf…

After Pichilemu we went to Chillan, a not particularly pretty town. Some of the people I met in Santiago told me that there was a juggling convention, so although none of us were jugglers, we were happy to learn and we got our performers ID card. We arrived right on time for the cabaret, a show given by some of the participants of the convention. There were some very good jugglers, a clown and a new age mime (mimo) quite difficult to understand. We were camping inside a sports centre, quite a flat hard floor. That night we stayed until quite late, meeting people. During the daytime there was a workshop about the different kinds of juggling, stick, pois, balls, theatre, circus,… It was great because people were really approachable, so you could ask without any shame how to get this trick or that. We got on well with some neighbours, really nice people. Second night and last there was the gala, similar to the cabaret with better performances and in a pedestrian street in the centre of Chillan. When we came back to the sports centre they did a last performance. Best ever seen!! With this kind of fluorescent light, four guys juggling with loads of discs, you could only see like 20 discs flying around the space. All of these of course watered with Chilean wine. It is great because even the cheap wine is good and cheap. That night I heard something that made me laugh, and it is that it doesn’t matter how hard is the floor you are sleeping over, when you have a good bed of wine. After Chillan we departure towards Traiguen, where we were meeting some family of the Italian guy, Enrico. We decided to go cheap and hitchhike for a few hundred of kilometres. Three guys with big backpacks. Doesn’t sound very likely to be taken, but we were lucky to meet this very friendly truck driver and his wife, his always companion in the truck. They were so nice as to change their route to show us some waterfalls, el salto del Laja. How peculiar arrive to the parking on a 20 m truck.

So after a few more hours of truck, the three of us fitted like a Tetris with the wife and the backpacks in the back of the trunk, we arrived to Victoria late enough for not being able to get any accommodation. While driving, have you ever seen a tent next to the highway? If you did, I’m sure you thought, who the hell would camp next to a highway? Well it was us...

It was funny because Traiguen is a not a very touristy town, so when we arrived with the big packs, the whole town stared at us, mmm, forasteros!! Enrico´s family treated us as kings. For the time we were there every meal was a celebration!! The grandmother was 90 years old or so, but such a strong lady. She said that when she was cold she usually cuts wood up to warm up. She would never be quiet. Always telling stories about the time when she was midwife for the Mapuches, the aborigine tribe. She would get on a horse in the middle of the night to assist to a new birth.

After this we kept stretching the family contacts and we went to Pucon, a very beautiful place, to squat the house of some other familiar non of us had met before. Pucon is a non-beautiful town in an amazing setting. At one side you have the lake, with clean cold water, on the other side you have an active volcano, with snowed conical top and a continuous steaming plume. Chilean high society, packed up in a town, the place to see and be seen, a lot of pretending. This familiar we were looking for, happened to be a National Park Guard where the volcano was, so we got a few square meters of floor in the kitchen to lay down right next to the volcano. That day, as you can see in one of the pictures we went horse riding around the volcano. I’m quite aware the picture is not very good, but it is not so easy to get a picture of yourself on a horse, with the volcano and even my friend Enrico on the background. By the way the white stuff in one of the sides of my mouth is no dribble but ointment (crema) for a cold sore. The poor Enrico had a hard time, first time on a horse and us jumping up and down volcanic stones.

We stayed there only for one night so the asado (roast) was compulsory. An average of 1 Kg of meat per head. Grilled on a metal sword above a good fire. Just meat and wine. By the time we finished everything we couldn’t move. We wanted to leave early to Chilloe, but then we woke up late, and went for a walk in the forest and as usual arrived to the bus stop three hours later last bus had departure. Next bus was at 7 in morning, so we had to stay up for the whole night. In here we said good-bye to Emanuel, the Argentinean charm I had spent last three weeks with. That same day Enrico and me departure to Puerto Mott, where we wanted to get our ticket for some kind of four days cruise to the south of the Patagonia. The standard ticket were sold out, but our faces we so sad that they ended up selling us some kind of 4th class accommodation, below any other deck and next to the engine rooms, with all these funny noises. It was half price, so great!!

We had to wait 10 days to get the boat. Initially we made loads of plans, ok, let’s do this and go there but then we felt off into the slow moving rhythm of Chilloe, an island in Chile, and we had to scrap all these plans. First town in the island was Ancud, the camping lay along a cliff next to the sea. No need to say that of course we camped in most windy spot. You don’t know how stressing can be to think that at any time you can see your tent flying in the sky towards the sea.

After visiting a few other small villages we went to Cacao, big time. On the bus we met a couple from Santiago de Chile. They convinced us to go to the camping abuelo peto. The best thing about the camping is that it is last one on the road to the national park and it is quite off the way, so almost every tourist stopped in the previous camping. Everyone knew each other from previous years. The setting couldn’t be better, in the middle of nowhere, next to a big lake, no electricity. Even though it was really relaxing during the day, there was a bonfire by the lake every night with 30 or 40 people singing around the fire. It was really good to be there. The couple we met where so nice. That’s something I like about Chileans, if you get to know a bit about them they will open their heart and give it to you. Really sad to leave. Last day we were staying there, most of the camping put money to buy a sheep, a living one, to make a roast at night. Two years ago they bought a cow!! Some Mapuche guy, Mapuches are one of the aborigine tribes in South America, killed it and cleaned it, then go to the forest looking for wood to make the fire and the stick to put the sheep on and then a wine session while the sheep was being cooked.

After this camping we went back to Puerto Mott to get the boat to Puerto Natales in the south of Patagonia, next to Usuaya. The boat was the perfect place to learn German since almost 70% of the crew was German. First day was quite sunny, great to start meeting people in the decks. Beautiful sunset!! We were expecting really quite days reading and writing, but the public areas were fairly small and there was quite a friendly vive, so after one night it was impossible to look for a peaceful hidden corner to do your own stuff.

The crossing was stunning. The boat goes quite slowly, so it was like floating in slow motion over this amazing untouched paradise. Second day the weather was a bit worse, windy and rainy, and it was starting to get cold, so I had to put my second T-shirt on. In the afternoon we got out of the barrier of islands into the pacific, so the ship seemed started to be like a roller coast. Half an hour later half of the crew had disappeared to their rooms to vomit anything eaten in the last month.

I didn’t get seasick but got really sleepy instead with the movement. I couldn’t help myself to sleep 14 hours!! Next day while everyone were commenting all the stories about how horrible night they had next to a sunk boat and stopped in front of the Pio XI glazier, I think the biggest in south America. Big party last night.

We arrived to Puerto Natales around midday, just enough time to prepare a trekking for the next day. So with Enrico and some people we met in the boat we made the worst prepared European team. Our trekking equipment was based on tight jeans, to avoid easy movement, trainers, to feel every stone in the way and a few layers of t-shirts for the cold. The team was made up by Jess from Holland, Jonas from Germany, Enrico from Italy and myself. The four of us cramped in a 3+1 tent. The trekking was a 4 days trekking to see a glazier, a beautiful valley surrounded by mountains and the Torres del Paine. These are the times when you reconsider your trip. – So, I’m on holidays, waking up one or two hours earlier I would do to go to work, just to have a coffee, well coffee, a mix of powder of coffee, with powder of milk and if you are lucky some sugar. So after the “coffee” you are looking to eight to ten hours of cold-hard-tiring trekking, with a stop to eat some bread and cheese and a dinner that is some dry stuff mixed with hot water again. Set up the camp and then with every single muscle aching go to a rock-hard-cold windy tent, and who the hell goes camping when the temperatures are below zero? To give you an idea, the last night I slept with three t-shirts, two jumpers, the coat, a blanket, sleeping bag, hat, scarf, socks in the feet and in the hands, what an image. I don’t know why I keep going trekking, because every time I finish trekking I bless for god that is going to be the last one I do in my life.

From Torres del Paine to El Calafate, in Argentina, another city surrounded by long flat arid pampa. The main activity in el Calafate is to go to see the Perito Moreno glazier, and amazing blue mass of ice. It is so amazing to stay in front of it, waiting to hear a thunderous crack followed by a big piece of ice falling down.

There is something I love from Argentina, the mate tradition, fundamental channel of communication. In case you don’t know what is it, it’s some herbs that you mix with hot water and you drink from shared hollow with a metal straw. There are a few rules you have to know when you share a mate with someone; of course I have fucked up a few times already. Something else I have learned about the mate is that anytime is good for a good mate, from an early in the morning mate, to warm you up in the morning to a going to bed mate.

In el Calafate, I said good-bye to Enrico, my last moth-travelling buddy, who was going back to Buenos Aires. From El Calafate to the beach in Puerto Madryn and then to El Bolson, a perfect place to trek, horse ride and cycling. My key plan: Do nothing, and I almost really did. El Bolson is one of these places described in the guides as traveller’s heaven. You get there and suddenly in a blink a week has gone. I found a really nice guesthouse with a nice place to put the hammock, so good after a few weeks of coldness and activity. The guesthouse was great; there were big comfy common areas, a big garden and a nice view of the mountains, and roast dinner every other day. I have spent 8 days in here and met really nice people. The people working there were very young and it seemed more a shared house than a hostel. At the end I got into another of this regrettable trekking.

Based in my latest experiences, I have developed a new idea, a flat trekking company, the idea is, why you always have to go to the mountains for trekking? It is cold and tiring. I’m pretty sure there are loads of beautiful flat forests, valleys and rivers to hike. I still have to develop further the idea of hammocks every 30 minutes and a bar with local made beer every 5 kilometres, sportive and cultural, is not a great idea??

Ok, take care and enjoy your time,

Cheers,

Qr,…