To my faithful blog readers: I must apologize for posting a
day late. I took a bus from Pucón to Santiago overnight, and since I was
climbing a volcano all day (more about that to come!) I didn’t exactly have a
chance to post.
Anyway, Tuesday night I experienced the excitement of a live
fútbol game! University of Chile (which is actually a team of professional,
paid players, not university students) was playing a team from Uruguay. We went
to the National Stadium early, as there were hundreds of fans, all converging
in the same area. We had decent seats with a view of the entire field, and next
to lots of hard-core U-Chile fans. There is a series of cheers specific to the
U Chile team, and while I’m still not sure what the words are it was a lot of
fun to shout along! Soccer games are a serious matter here: we were checked for
anything that might constitute a weapon, and there were crowd control police as
well as Carabineros everywhere. No drinks of any kind are allowed in, and if
you buy coca-cola inside it is given to you in a paper cup, so that bottles are
not available to fans/fanatics. Altogether it was kinda scary to try to get in,
but totally worth it!
The game was tied until the last few minutes when U Chile
scored their second goal: the crowd went wild, all the fans jumping up and
down, cheering for their team, banging on the chairs, etc. It was a very
exciting night, to say the least!
Thursday presented my first test at the Universidad
Catolica. I don’t really have much to say, except that it was really weird
taking a test in a class that was not “Spanish”. The day got more exciting when
I met my ‘tandem’ partner for the first time! For those who are familiar with
the club IC Intercambios it is the same as a community match. For those who are
not familiar with said program, tandem partners are a Chilean student and a
foreign student, who meet once a week to converse in each language with the
hope that each will improve their second language. He was super nice, and I’m
looking forward to meeting him in the weeks to come!
I arrived Friday morning in Pucón (I took an overnight bus),
a small town about 11 hours South of Santiago. The only appropriate word to
describe this area is GORGEOUS. There are lakes and mountains and rivers and
volcanoes and forests all mixed into one area which is simply breathtaking.
That first day, breathing in the clean air that was a welcome break from smoggy
Santiago, my friend and I decided to go hidrospeeding. Unfortunately I don’t
have pictures yet (the company will be loading them onto their facebook page
within the next few days) but I will describe to you what this adventure sport
is:
Picture yourself holding onto an oversized kick-board while
going down class 2-3 rapids with flippers on your feet. That’s what
hidrospeeding is. The trip was terrifying but amazing, and tons of fun!
Saturday we went zip-lining, known here as ‘canopy’. After
the thrill and speed of Costa Rica’s zip-lines I was fairly disappointed with
Chile’s, but the slow velocities gave you a chance to really take in the
scenery, and it was especially enjoyable to zip-line over a river! That
afternoon we took a short trip to the nearby “Ojos de Caraburgua”, a series of
waterfalls with hiking. These too were beautiful, but not especially exciting.
(Especially since you couldn’t go gorge jumping!)
The most physically taxing activity I have performed since
arriving in Chile occurred on Sunday, with my ascent of Vólcan Villarica.
(Note: the volcano IS currently live, and while it’s not dangerous most days
you can still see the smoke coming out of the crater, even from Pucón.) The day
begins at 6:30am, when you put on the boots and gaters you were fitted for
previously, and get into a van to drive to the base of the volcano. From there
you are driven to the base of the volcano and given a choice: for an extra $12
you can take the chairlift and shave an hour of straight uphill ascent off your
trip, or you can walk the entire way. Much to the surprise of the 3 guides (and
the other members of my party) I opted to climb the entire way. Being the only
one who chose to do this, I got my own ‘personal guide’, who accompanied me
almost to the top. (We managed to catch up to the whole group about ½ way up,
but since I got there as they were leaving I continued separately until the
last leg, where I was sad to say good-bye to my guide, Juan-he had to accompany
one member of the party back down, as she wasn’t able to continue.) Juan is
part Malpuche (a native tribe of Chile) so he tried to teach me some words on
the way up. While this was not very successful, the pieces of culture he shared
with me are memorable and interesting!
The volcano can be broken down into 3 general geological
areas: straight uphill ascent on a sandy slope, straight uphill ascent on ice/snow,
and straight uphill ascent through larger, more precarious rocks. The higher
you go the windier it gets, making everything that much harder. I’ve never used
a pick-ax or complete crampons before, so going up the ice was a cool new
experience! Along the way we noticed what looked to me like tracks for a luge,
to be used in our descent. While this looked terrifying, we actually went
really slowly down them, and I wish they had been faster!
The crater was really neat, but unfortunately we were unable
to go around to the side from which you can see magma, due to the wind blowing
volcano smoke in that direction. However, the top also afforded a gorgeous view
of the surrounding valleys and lakes, and even into Argentina! It took a ton of
energy, but climbing the volcano was amazing, and completely worth it.I have many, many more pictures that I'd like to share, but can't fit. If you're interested in seeing more, please look on Facebook, or if we're not 'friends' let me know and I'll e-mail you some compressed files!
No comments:
Post a Comment