Chiloé

After taking a series of buses and one ferry, Devon and I finally arrived in Chiloé, it is a gorgeous island just south of Puerto Montt, and according to the Lonely Planet it is the second biggest island in South America, behind Tierra del Fuego, the island that forms the southern end of Chile’s part of Patagonia. Chiloé is very green, with the exception of the summer months, it is almost always raining in Chiloé and the island’s architecture has a very antique feel, all the buildings seem to have been built around the 1940’s, and never remodeled, or repainted.

After driving through beautiful rural Chilote scenery for 25 minutes we reached our first destination in Chiloé, a small town called Ancud, I guess it could be considered a large town in the standards of Chiloé, the population is roughly 26,000.

Our arrival presented us with yet another strange living situation. After we got off the bus, surprisingly there was a lack of taxis waiting outside the bus station; so we started to walk down the street to try to find a cab that would take us to Nuevo Mundo, a nice little hostel, with a gorgeous ocean view, in the southern part of Ancud. After walking maybe 10 steps towards downtown Ancud, an older lady approached us and asked us if we wanted to stay at a hospedaje, after she told us the price was 4,000 pesos roughly $6.50 US dollars, and half the price of Hostal Nuevo Mundo, so I couldn’t refuse… I’m still an Economical person. We were lead to a very antique and large house right near downtown Ancud, which we later found out was her home, and she was just trying to earn a few extra pesos by allowing us to occupy a vacant bedroom, in her large and creaky house. The sheets were covered in stains, the kitchen was full of flies, the bathroom had no toilet paper, the bathtub was rusting and it’s safe to say we overpaid. I’m glad we made it out alive.

The next morning, after trying to leave the horror movie house as quickly as possible Devon and I went on a Penguin tour, to see… Penguins... Penguins... Penguins! We saw a lot of Penguins and it was awesome. I love penguins... and I bet you love them too.

Castro

Castro turned out to be better than Ancud in at least 25 ways. Here is a list the reasons Castro es mejor que Ancud. Or if you’re a mathematical thinker why Castro > Ancud.

1. The Palafitos: These houses are a Chilote specialty, they are homes that are built above water, and are held up by numerous wooden stilts that rest on the ocean floor. A great spectacle. In Ancud all the Palafitos collapsed after an earthquake, terremoto, in the 1980’s.

2. Hostal Cordillera: I decided to not be quite as economical when choosing a hostel in Castro, and it turned out to be a great decision. For 7,000 pesos roughly $11. Devon and I stayed in a gorgeous hostel with an amazing ocean view, wireless internet and spacious private rooms furnished with comfortable beds and televisions.

View from our Hostel

3. Breakfast: The horror house in Ancud didn’t serve breakfast. The hostel in Castro, served a delicious breakfast cuisine, composed of fresh hallulla, a type of Chilean bread, hot Nescafé, orange juice, apricot jam, butter, cheese, ham, and fresh fruit.

4. Scary Circus Streets: There were no scary circus streets in Castro. There were scary circus streets in Ancud. Devon and I are not big proponents of scary circus streets.

5. Short Lines: Devon and I waited for 30 minutes, in the ten item or less line, each time we went to the grocery store in Ancud. Side note—we never had more than 5 items each time we went to the grocery store. In Castro, there wasn’t even a line… and really cheap Pasta.

The other 20 reasons Castro is better than Ancud are minimal thus they will not make it into this blog.

El Parque Nacional de Chiloé

Devon and I are big fans of hiking so we thought we would check out the national park in Chiloe, we entered the park with really high expectations, these expectations were shattered about 25 minutes into the trek. All the beautiful views and more advanced treks were conveniently located 25 kilometers from the park entrance, so we aimlessly through small paths, senderos, close to the park entrance.

Luckily Devon and I are great at entertaining ourselves… in a very childish manner. We found a sendero that lead to a large foggy beach overlooking the pacific ocean, and we killed about an 1 ½ hours, taking pictures of ourselves running on the beach, Baywatch style, doing yoga poses in the water, chasing after dogs, and telling bad jokes.

We finally ended our disappointing trek, at 3:45 because our return bus was scheduled to pick us up then. Despite our best efforts to flag down our return bus, the driver failed to stop for us. He must have known we weren’t ready to leave the amazing park. Devon and I waited another 1 ½ hours to catch a different bus home.

During this long wait we entertained ourselves by playing different games involving rocks. Here is a list of our Rock Games.

1. Rock Throw: We threw rocks… submarine style at different park signs.
2. Rock Stack: We, by we I mean mostly Devon, stacked rocks on top of each other, trying to build a large formidable tower. Rock stack was quickly followed by Rock Smash; this game will be further developed in numeral 5.
3. Rock Toss: We, by we I mean mostly myself, tossed a rock from one hand to another, attempting to not let it hit the ground.
4. Rock Drop: We picked up rocks then dropped them on the ground.
5. Rock Smash: We threw large rocks, at large rocks on the ground, hoping to smash them to pieces.

We are on the verge of taking a 16 hour bus ride back to Santiago… Chiloé it has definitely been an interesting experience.

Pucón Adventure

La Aventura del Dickey y el Mevon offically has started. I met Devon right after the sunrise on the 16^th of December in Santiago’s Airport. We spent the next two days in Santiago, although we partied at Salamurano, a hype club in Santiago until 5 in the am, Devon used the majority of this time in Santiago to catch up on sleep.

Two days after his arrival we packed up our backpacks and took a 10 hour night bus to Pucón Chile, the adventure capital of the lakes District of Chile.

Enough of the Back ground let’s get to the top 5 moments of our Pucón Adventure.

1. Hostal Limay: I would like to consider myself and economical person, not a cheap person… an economical person. My economical spirit resulted in me looking up every single price of every Hostel in Pucón Chile, and after looking at 10 different hostels, I found one that charged 4,500 pesos a night. Roughly 7 US dollars.
   

Devon and I arrived at Hostel Limay around 10:00 am December 18^th, put our stuff in a holding room while an employee prepared our room, sat down in the kitchen and started to talk to a girl using the computer. Approximately two minutes into our conversation the girl, Sheera?, informed us we were staying in an Israeli Hostel. Here is the numbers breakdown 25 Israelis 2 Americans. (I guess this could be considered a mini Birthright for two non Jewish Americans).

Although everyone seemed slightly stunned we were staying there, we were greeted with many smiles, some awkward looks, and lot of “Hello’s and “Hi’s” and open arms.

We really got to know our Israeli counterparts pre-gaming for a dance party in the heart of Pucón. During the “pre-game” Devon and I walked around and talked to virtually everyone staying in the hostel, we danced, laughed, and even tried to learn a few “important” Hebrew words. I can only remember one of the words which is meant to be used when approaching someone of the opposite sex that you have a slight attraction to, in English the word means I like you… or something along those lines. We spent the rest of the night partying with our Hostel buddies.

The 21^st of December marked the start of Hanukah, and we celebrated that with our new Israeli Possy, fun experience, dancing, singing, doughnut eating… good times.

2. Hiking Volcano Villarrica: So much fun! Pucón is famous for being right near an active volcano and if tourists cough up enough “plata” they can go on a 6 hour trek up to the top of the Volcano Villarrica.

5:30: Devon and I woke up, changed clothes, desperately tried to find my sunglasses, which are M.I.A. in Pucón, woke up our Israeli friends whom were coming along with us, grabbed our lunch, 8 pieces of bread, 2 pieces of cheese, half of an onion, quarter bottle of hot sauce and some soda crackers.

6:00: Changed into trekking clothes, filled backpack with lunch, camera, and sunscreen, packed into a Van.

6:35: Our group arrived at the base of Volcano Villarica, and began our ascent.

7:45: Our group of 8, two guides, 6 adventurers, finished the first, non snowy leg of the ascent.

9:00: After walking though snow for more than an hour, we sat down and had lunch…. 3 pieces of bread filled with cheese, some onions, and a lot of hot sauce.

11:00: Arrived at the sub-cumbre, the resting point right before the last leg of the climb, to determine if it is safe to climb to the top. The volcano was spewing tons of toxic gas. We waited for 30 minutes to see if the gas would clear up enough for us to safely climb to the top. Unfortunately the amount of gas coming from the caldera only got worse.

11:30: I watched an Israeli try to fight his guide because the guide would not let their group go on.

11:45: We began our descent. This was awesome, we put on an apron time thing, and slide down a series of man made slides carved into the snow covering the volcano.

1:45: After slip sliding, down the mountain and resting for a while, we finally made it to the bottom.

I was sad we didn’t make it to the peak of the volcano, but it was a fantastic day.

3. Trek Through Parque Nacional Huerquehue: After deciding not to climb Volcano Villarrica we decided to go on a long trek with our Israelí crew. We took an hour long bus ride to a huge national park and spent the entire day. 9:30-5:10 hiking through a very green and gorgeous forest. After trekking for 14km we saw five different lakes, two waterfalls, tons of trees I never knew existed, and a bunch of lizards. The hike was pretty difficult, but it was a great time to catch up with Devon and to get to know our Israeli friends. One fun fact: Flavor of Love is popular in Israel; I’m glad America only exports our finest television shows.

4. HidroSpeed: This activity is very hard to explain, but you hold onto a little plastic boat type thing, and swim/ ride down a river. We ended up going through a few class 2 and 3 rapids, and experiencing the power of rapids in a little handheld boat is something else. If you have a chance to go Hidrospeeding somewhere I definitely recommend it.

5. The Friends We Made: I know that sounds super middle school summer camp, or maybe High School Musical 4, but I loved getting to know everyone at our Hostel. I am truly going to miss some of the people we met here. Hopefully I can find some of our Israeli friends on Facebook… because that would just be awesome. How many of you have Israeli friends on Facebook… I’m not a Vegas betting man, but I’m going to go out on a limb and I bet an empanada de queso that most of you don’t.

Pucón it has been fun! Chiloé here we come!

Adventure Uno

Sunday December 7th I bid farewell to a couple members of the group, fell asleep early and started my adventure.

Algarrobo

Monday December 8th I took a bus to Algarrobo, a beach town 1 ½ hours outside Santiago, to rent out one of my host parents condos. Then I sat on the beach and tanned, safely of course I used SPF 12, then met up with Eryn, Katelyn, and Lauren. We spent the next day and a half relaxing in Algarrobo.


Highlights

1. Entered the World’s largest pool, 1 km long. It really can be nice traveling with girls, they simply asked the security guard working at the entrance of the world’s largest pool if we could enter the large gate preventing potential intruders to, tomar un foto. He gladly let the girls in and I followed there lead, after taking a couple pictures in front of the pool the girls and I decided to would be a good idea to push me in the pool. After they pushed me in he suggested the girls get in too.

2. Experiencing how strong the sun is in Chile: Lauren one of my travel buddies learned how strong the UV rays are in Chile, after laying out at the beach for a couple hours her face resembled a ripe cherry. Lucky for me I don’t burn too easily. JAJA

After spending two days in Algarrobo we took a bus to Vina del Mar, spent the day there, packed up our stuff, and made our way to Mendoza, Argentina.

Mendoza

Highlights/ Shout Outs

1. Canopying, taking a series of zip lines, through the mountains of Argentina. The views were incredible, and on the last segment of our zip line adventure I was offered the opportunity to zip line upside down. I took advantage of this opportunity and it was absolutely incredible. I wish I had a picture to show you how zip lining upside down works, because the process is pretty confusing. I had to more or less sit on the lap of one of the guides, then we pushed off the “launching pad,” after cruising down the cable for 5 seconds he tapped my leg twice and I released my entire body and was completely upside down. The adrenaline rush, and view was incredible.



2.Bike and Wine tour. We rented uncomfortable bikes, my butt is still a little sore from the rock hard seat, and road through the streets of Maipu trying to decipher a very confusing map to tour vineyards and taste their products, I didn’t take part in the tasting because alcohol isn’t my jam. By the end of the day we visited 3 vineyards, bodegas, and a chocolate/ liquor factory, chocolateria.



3. I just want to give it up to Argentinean Fashion, Mendoza’s streets were lined with high fashion boutiques, mostly for women, however it was a nice change from the lack of fashion sense in Chile.

4. Shout out to Las Tinajas, a gigantic all you can eat buffet with quality food. $10 all you can eat.. I had five different plates full of food.

5. Great Conversations with my traveling buddies.


Lessons Learned

1. Don’t run through a 100 hectare park without a clue where you are going and no map or money: Here comes story time… after walking around Mendoza for 5 hours admiring the fashion and artesian craft I decided a little 25-30 minute run would be nice. I changed clothes, threw on my reggaetone playlist and headed towards Mendoza’s huge park. After running for roughly 25 minutes I realized, I had made about 10 different turns down random streets without really paying attention. I must have been focusing on the beautiful reggaetone beats pumping through my economical headphones. So I decided I would try to back track… that didn’t work out and I ended up running for 1 hour and 20 minutes, then walking for another 1 ½ hours, and somehow I finally made it make to my hostel. I decided to examine a map to see how I got so lost, and I really couldn’t figure it out. Note to self… don’t do that again.

2. Just because a Hostel has a really cool website and looks awesome from the outside does not mean it is a nice hostel. No explanation needed here… our hostel was gross.

Devon my hetero-lifemate and adventure partner, is coming in two days. So until then...

Top Ten Moments of My Chilean Adventure

My Sudamérica adventure has officially started and the last two days I have spent the majority of my time trying to make my skin darker and reminiscing over my best memories from the past 3 and ½ months of my life. Rather than writing twenty pages worth of information, I thought I would organize my best moments into the, “Top Ten Moments of My Chilean Adventure.” Side note-- I love organizing things into top tens and top fives.

Top Ten Moments of My Chilean Adventure

1. Miercolespo

A lot of you probably don’t know what this is… so I’ll explain. Every Miercoles, Wednesday, there is a huge dance party for extranjeros, foreigners, a few members of my group, including myself, developed a deep and intimate love for the monotony of Miercolespo. Every week we listened to the exact same playlists, saw the same people from the previous miercolespo, and danced near the same people, Side Note— The guys usually danced by ourselves in a well constructed circle. Despite the monotony of Miercolespo, every week seemed to be more exciting and somehow “different” than the week before. The last few Miercolespo’s were especially memorable. As you will see in my 10^th favorite moment of my Chilean Adventure.

Some Group Members on their way to Miercolespo.

2. Time Spent with Host Family

My host family was incredible, they could not have been more welcoming and friendly. Living with them taught me so much about Chilean Culture and really improved my Spanish speaking skills.

3. Bike Ride through San Pedro de Atacama

Five of the boyzzzz from our group rented bikes in a San Pedro de Atacama, a gorgeous town in Northern Chile. We had an epic adventure… Nuff Said.

4. Watching the Sunset and talking with my boy Geoff at Algarrobo

Geoff and I spent Fiestas Patrias together at one of my host parents cabins in Algarrobo, during one of our epic walk on the beach/ Heart to Heart sessions, we decided to walk towards a bunch of huge rocks on the northern side of the beach in Algarrobo. Our decision to walk towards these rocks was a good one and we watched an amazing sunset from an epic location.

5. Group Dinners

Total Craziness, Dancing, Singing, Broken Toilets, Broken Chairs, Five Fingers, Dessert Empanadas, Cart-Wheels,Car Alarms, Good Times.

6. Valpo/ Vina trip with the Grupo

Oh goodness… Eating a massive amount of Papas Fritas, Singing Spice Girls in a Karaoke Bar, Chasing Stray Dogs, More Good Times.

7. Night at Salamurano

This was a Mickey and Cory Adventure… but I had to make thi

s event its own category because this was most definitely the most epic Mickey and Cory Adventure. We started our night of fun Mexican Restaurant. We sat there for 3 hours, mostly listening to Mariachi Music, and Laughing. Side Note—Everytime Cory would look at the woman playing guitar in the Mariachi Band she would start laughing… then we would start laughing. This continued for about 2 hours. Afterwards, despite being extremely tired, we took an 8 Mil Cab ride with Danny, a nice hombre from Mexico, to some hype hype club called Salamurano. We somehow got in at a discounted price. The club was super Quico, and the whole night Cory and I tried to decipher if an Argentinan girl we met was interested in me, our question was answered when she started making out with her boyfriend.

8. MapucheLand

A group member Matt can describe this far better than myself.

http://web.cornell.edu/studentblogs/matt/

9. Mickey and Cory Adventures

They happened often and they always turned out well.

10. Excursion with an Ecuadorian

MiercolesPo was the catalyst to this adventure. I met an nice Ecuadorian girl through a very bizarre chain of events, her good friend took a picture of me in my Halloween Costume, she saw the picture and wanted to meet me, we met at Miercolespo we talked, separated, danced, separated, saw each other on the Micro exchanged numbers. I met up with her 10 days later, went to a club with

a bunch of Chileans and Ecuadorians, danced, left, hung out some random guys house, spent the next day together. She cooked me Ecuadorian food, after eating a full plate, I found out the main component of the dish was cow’s stomach. All Ways Surprising.

10b. Going to Equilibrium, jajaja

This was the gym I worked out in practically everyday.

Those are the Top Ten moments; it was hard to sort out everything, so I wanted to make a list of Honorable Mentions as well.

Honorable Mentions

Chit Chats with Dan.

Hanging out at Amore Nunca Muere

Night with the Kathy’s

Playing with Daniel, my host nephew

Sitting on the Metro

La Piccola Italia

Bravisismo

PENGUINS!!