So this might be a shocker for some of you folk stuck in the icier part of the Northern Hemisphere, but I've been officially freed from academia by summer vacation! I emailed my last report for my last class (guess which one it was - oh yeah, the geography class taught by the ridiculous French prof. Yes, he decided to assign two more reports on the second to last day of the semester. We never met once as a class.) on Sunday morning at 1am. Woke up feeling just a little bit lighter - I turned in 12 reports and 3 final research papers between 7 and 15 pages between Tuesday and Sunday last week... it was a rather dramatic final academic push. I'll be glad to be back in the states next semester where 100% of ones grade does not always depend on their final paper.

Since I had such a crazy workload for the end of the semester I haven't maintained such a densely packed schedule of fun and exciting adventures these past weeks. I decided to wait and collect a few before I updated my blog.

A couple weeks ago my host mom randomly purchased a bazillion lemons. We don't really eat that many lemons in the house and I'm pretty sure that they were on sale cause they were old. They started to mold about 2 days after she bought them... and over half of the lemons got thrown out. However, by the time Friday nigh rolled around Caro and I were on top of the situation. She taught me how to make Pisco Sours - the national drink of Peru that Chile would dearly like to claim for it's own. Took care of quite a few lemons and got me a new recipe for my Chilean recipe book.

Even though Fran and I weren't able to find any pumpkins to carve last weekend, I still ended up having a pretty fun Halloween. With an abundance of gringa enthusiasm for a what's considered an imperialistic and clearly consumerist holiday in South America, I convinced my older sister to come to a Halloween party with me. Since Halloween has very little cultural base in Chile, their costumes tend to be a bit lackluster. All of the Chileans at the party were dressed as witches or vampires. The gringos, on the other hand, went all out. It seemed like lots of the Chileans at the party were pretty intrigued by the off-beat, obscure, and ridiculously creative costumes we came up with. I went as a huasa zombie... huasas being the traditional cueca-dancing, empanada-baking, country-living chilean ladies. Basically the stereotype of central Chile. The irony of my costume was definitely appreciated - the cumbia dancing gringa huasa zombie. Haha!

Last week seemed to revolve around graffiti for me... I chose to do my final huge paper for my CIEE class on graffiti culture in Valparaíso. So naturally the first step in researching my topic was to contact Charquipunk, one  of main contributors to the contemporary graffiti movement in Valparaíso. On Tuesday he emailed me back. On Wednesday I got to see him and his friend, "Robot de Madera" (wooden robot) as they worked on a massive mural not far from Charqui's house. On Thursday I went to a talk that he gave about the history of graffiti in Valparaíso and then yesterday (Saturday) Theora and I met up with him in the morning and tagged along for the first part of a 6-hour walking tour he was giving of graffiti in the port city. When I wasn't running around looking at pretty pictures on walls this week I was doing internet research about them, watching documentaries about all the coolest Valparaíso artists, and stalking Charqui's flickr. I guess you could say I'm going through a small obsession... It's compounded by the fact that Charqui (Sebastian) is such a quiet, humble, soft-spoken guy. But he knows SO MUCH. I guess I should probably do less hero worshipping on the internet, but he definitely strikes me as the kind of wise artist old soul type. as we say here "muy buena onda"

Yesterday Theora, Sophie, Emilie, Emma and I went with Alejandro Banda to a community dinner in Cerro Nueva Aurora. Alejandro grew up in Cerro Nueva Aurora and has a weekly radio show en el Radio Popular Nueva Aurora. The dinner was to raise money for the radio station, one of many community radio stations that get periodically raided by the Chilean authorities. The radio de Nueva Aurora is hidden in some building, but apparently some nearby neighborhood radios were completely ransacked just a couple months ago. The dinner was curanto, a traditional dish from the island of Chiloé in southern Chile. Pretty strange and a little difficult to eat, but we sure had fun ripping into the mussels and clams, plopping them the brothy soup, and eating big chunks of meat, sausage, and potato with our hands. It really difficult at first cause we were paralyzed by laughter. After the food, we gringas were the life of the party - strangely enough we were almost the only ones to get up and dance after the meal.


It's been extra hectic in the house since Caro and Martín moved in early last week. Their lease went up on their apartment in Viña, so they're staying with us for a month before Caro and Italo (her boyfriend) find an apartment together. My host mom asked all us kids independently if it was ok that Caro and Martín move in, and I guess I gave the most enthusiastic response. Jorge and Fran were rather reluctant, but I absolutely LOVE the new layer of chaos. It's fun for an only kid who lives alone with her mom to experience a real "Full House" - certianly keeps things interesting around here. My host mom has been pretty stressed out lately because her husband (some authority in the Valparaíso police force who she hasn't lived with for over 7 years and who hasn't seen Fran in over 5 years. All of the kids express open malice for this guy.) just asked for a divorce. She's been spending long nights in kind of nasty discussions with lawyers and I get the impression that it's a trying process for her.

Yesterday I woke everybody up with a banana pancake breakfast :D It was extra special and we used up all the rest of the maple syrup that my grandparents sent me. That afternoon we took a family trip to la Ligua. La Ligua is a little town about a 2 hour drive north and little east from Valparaíso that is famous for it's woven/knitted stuff. I was mostly along for the ride - I helped Italo entertain the kids while Caro and Mamá tried on shawls and ponchos and sweaters and stuff. The best part was loading up on fresh pastries - La Ligua's other claim to fame - for the car ride home. OHhhh.... and I ate charqui de caballo. NOT to be confused with Charquipunk, charqui is the quechua word for jerky. Jerky made out of horse. It wasn't very flavorful at all and had an extra stringy kind of powdery awful texture. I think I'll stick with venasin and beef jerky. An interesting and potentially false linguistic tidbit from wikipedia - the word "jerky" comes from the quechua word "charqui" which means "to burn meat." I still maintain that Matt's jerky is 100x better than Chile's charqui.

This week is going to be academic. I have at least 3 papers over 8 pages long that need to be written for the last week in November... Pretty overwhelming. I think Tía Mariela and Maty get back to Chile today and it's been an embarrassingly long time since I last visited the Olmué family. I feel kind of guilty, but there are just so many things to do! I think I might try to do an overnight trip to Olmué this weekend.

Lots of love to everyone back home - abrazos y besitos!!

Oh P.S. I got tickets to see Manu Chao in Santiago on Thanksgiving. It'll mean missing the excellent Thanksgiving feast that CIEE hosts... but I'll just hope for some mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce (and JERKY?) when I get home...

I'm going to a costume party tonight, but it still doesn't feel much like Halloween down here... Fran and I searched and searched for a pumpkin to carve but ended up empty handed. Not surprising really  - it's probably hard to grow a pumpkin in the springtime. Ahh well.

I DID end up going to San Pedro last weekend. It was fantastic! Not at all like our trip to Valle del Elqui, but fun in it's own way. Sophie and Theora flew up north a day before Margot and I, so by the time we got there they had checked out the [very expensive touristy] town of San Pedro de Atacama. They found the cheapest hostel, about $8/night/person and reserved a 3-day set of tours for us. Unfortunately going on tours is really the only way to see the cool things that San Pedro has to offer. 10ish years ago there was hardly any tourist infrastructure in San Pedro, but now I'm pretty sure that it's the base of the region's economy.

San Pedro is a tiny little oasis town in the middle of the driest desert in the world. They say it only rains for an average of 10 minutes per year in the wettest parts of the Atacama and in most of the desert rain has never been recorded by humans. After just a couple of days in San Pedro our hands looked about 20 years older from the dryness. Fresh bread turns into a hockey puck if you leave it outside of a bag for more than 10 minutes and our hair dried so fast after we got out of the shower than it was crunchy! This pictures is from the first day of touring in the Valley of the Moon. It reminded me a lot of Bryce Canyon, but with less green stuff.


According to the museum in San Pedro, fair-skinned people shouldn't expose their skin to Atacama sunshine for more than 10 minutes a day. We spent the whole trip constantly reapplying spf 70 sunscreen and somehow I made it through the weekend unscathed! It was HOT however. Not sweaty hot, cause I think our sweat dried on contact with the air, but the kind of hot that really takes it out of you.

On top of the sun, the Atacama is at a much higher altitude that we were used too. The locals recommended that we avoid altitude sickness caused by our dramatic jump from life at sea level to San Pedro (7,000 feet above sea level) by chewing coca leaves and drinking coca tea. Not sure if it helped any, but we definitely felt the altitude when we visited the Lagos Altiplanicos at over 13,000 feet above sea level! 

I know I've said this before, but I must reiterate: Chileans have a ridiculous schedule when it comes to nocturnal activities. On Friday, for example, I went to my professor's poetry reading. It was supposed to start at 9, but didn't really start until 10:30 and then didn't end until around midnight. Midnight is early in terms of chilean carrete (basically the term for all things that one does for fun at night - concerts, dancing, parties, clubbing, etc. going out.) We stuck around after the poetry reading and chatted with our prof for an hour or so. THEN people started to trickle into the place to dance. At 3am things get rolling, and at 5am (when the bars close) the streets of Valparaíso are more packed with people than they are during the day.

That's how a person ends up going to bed at 5:30 in the morning. ug. My Saturday night intentions were to go to hang out with the fam and go to bed early, but then I got invited to my friend's ska band's show in Valparaíso. He plays soprano trumpet and just joined the band about two weeks ago, so I went. They were supposed to start at midnight... ended up starting around 2am. Typical. It was an awesome show - incredibly fun music and they're quite talented.

I had an excellent weekend, but was minimally functional during the daylight hours. I did manage to drag myself out of bed on Sunday for an afternoon family picnic in the Jardín Botanico de Viña del Mar (botanical garden). It was cute. My host family made fun of themselves the whole time because they hardly ever go picnic-ing or camping. They're a pretty goofy bunch. We had lots of fun and I took a long afternoon siesta in a patch of sunny grass :D

Wednesday was my host mom's birthday. I had a 6-page essay to write, so unfortunately I couldn't get too involved with the sushi dinner that Jorge prepared. He works in his friend's sushi bar sometimes - he really knows what he's doing! My favorite roll was rolled in spicy stuff and fried in a sauce pan. mmm! 
This week I may or may not be skipping class on Thursday to fly to San Pedro de Atacama.... Still figuring things out. If not, I'll be going on the overnight CIEE trip to Santiago with the group. 

Hope alls well in the northern hemisphere :)
Besos y abrazos!

WOW. I am overwhelmed just thinking about all of the really cool, amazing stuff that has happened down here just since the last time I updated. First of all, I kind of gave a Mil Tambores preview last time, but never got around to the actual festivities! It was incredible. I got to the Mil Tambores carnaval cultural drummin parade thing was supposed to start early. I was just in time to watch the cuerpos pintados – painted bodies – part of the carnaval preparations. Basically artists and amateurs alike painting on people. Really beautiful results and it was fun to watch the process. A little bit later we ran into prof. Alejandro Banda, in costume, with his adorable little kid riding on his back. We helped him paint his face and he introduced us to CHARQUIPUNK! (the Valpo graffiti artist that I’m in love with.) And…. I got a charquigato (the cats that he paints around the city & South America) painted on me :D

We danced with the parade and got covered in confetti. The parade sort of fizzled out on a big street in downtown Valparaíso that turned into a huge street party. Groups of people clustered around the groups of drummers and musicians as the neared the end of the parade route and everybody just kept dancing and singing and hoola hooping and fire breathing and trapeezing and I don’t even know what all. A really cool experience – completely unlike anything I’ve ever seen in the States.

Then I had a short week of normal school.

THEN, Sophie, Theora, Emilie and I went on a little long weekend mini vacation one region north. Our destination was the Valle del Elqui – a 7.5 hour bus ride north + 2.5 hour bumpy bus ride east. Tía Mariela and Marita (think Olmué fam) recommended the Valle and it was just as beautiful, magical and relaxing as she described it. We arrived dead tired after the rather arduous bus ride, convinced that we’d be heading straight to bed. As soon as we walked to the gates of Hostal Triskel in little town of Pisco Elqui, we were convinced otherwise. The air in that valley is actually perfumed with fruit tree blossoms – the wind smells incredible. The night sky was stunning – the best stars I’ve seen since home. Immediately energized by our surroundings, we cooked up a delicious pasta-y veggie dinner accompanied by a bottle of wine bottled in the valley, MUSIC playing in the kitchen, and the beautiful hostel gardens at night.

The next morning it only got better. We woke up early and lazily ate our include hostel breakfast with yummy whole wheat bread, plus fruit and scrambled eggs. The microclimate in the valley is incredible – big deserty foothills surrounding a lush valley full of a river and lots of vineyards. Eager to check out our surroundings, the three of us checked out bikes from Yayo (the friendly hostel owner – basically the coolest person ever) and biked up the valley. We stopped at a tiny pisco destileria called “los Nichos.” The guy at the front desk told us that they didn’t give tours on off-seasons and then proceeded to give us a detailed tour for free ☺ It’s one of the oldest distilleries in Chile and has a lot of neat history. After the tour we decided to continue our bike ride. 14 km later I was walking my bike up an enormous hill and started talking to a neat old man named Louis. He was an artisan in the nearby town of Horcón, so we hung out with him there for a while but we were really hungry. We asked him if there was any place to eat and he invited us all to lunch! Unfortunately we lost him at this point and we were suffering from very low blood sugar. So, feeling guilty, we asked around and were told that there was “una señora que hace almuerzos” (a woman who makes lunches) up the road and around the corner. With one last effort to find Louis and his lentils we left the artisan place. It took a lot of asking for directions, running into loose goats, and throwing rocks at dogs who were trying to play with us (bite our legs) while we biked, but we eventually made it to the woman’s house. She made us a delicious lunch complete with fresh apple-pear juice and níspero fruits!
There was a ton of construction work & lots of Peruvian construction workers who stopped working to catcall and whistle at us as we biked by. Several trucks full of construction workers even stopped and turned around to take pictures of us – I guess we were kind of a novelty. We were curious so we asked them what was so incredible that they needed to stop and take our picture and they told us that they just wanted to have evidence that beautiful girls like us exist. So as a joke we asked a truck full of construction workers to take a picture with us. They were really nice guys – gave us Peruvian travel tips.

We came back ‘home’ (as we referred to the hostel), showered off the mud and sweat, and prepared our yummy quinoa-veggie concoction for dinner. We invited Yayo to eat with us and Emilie’s bus showed up right as we were dishing up the food. She was similarly exhausted by the trip and energized by the space. Yayo convinced us to go out to his friend Pepé’s open-air restaurant/bar down the street after dinner. We sat around a fire and tasted exotic pisco drinks for a few hours (fruitilla sour, gengibre sour, papaya sour and naranja sour among others).  We met and chatted with a bunch of locals, but were too tired to stay out for long.


On Saturday we walked to Montegrande, the neighboring village where Gabriel Mistral (another Chilean poet laureate) taught. It was a fun walk and a beautiful day. That evening we went to a different classy little restaurant/bar to watch the Chile-Colombia soccer match. Chile won! Which means they’re in the world cup! It was a VERY high-energy match. We were planning to leave Pisco Elqui and move to a different town in the Valle on Sunday, but fate (or a busy tourist weekend) kept us at Hostal Triskel one last night. We hitch hiked and hour to the neighboring town of Vicuña and met a neat couple on the way who offered to drive us home too. We hung out with them a bunch and ended up hosting an asado (BBQ) for them and the other friends we made in Pisco Elqui at the Hostel that night. The best part was that since we were in charge, the asado contained just as much vegetable content as meat. We even had the novel idea of marinating the vegetables so they didn’t turn into charred vegetable pucks on the grill.

Then we cleaned up quickly and finished up just in time to catch our ride to Observatorio Cancana. The Valle del Elqui is know for having clear night skies over 300 nights of the year and incredible views of the stars. The tour didn’t start until 11, so we were sleepy and cold but learned so much. We saw Jupiter and a bazillion stars and galaxies and things in the telescope and learned that the reason the stars are denser from the southern hemisphere is that it looks directly into the neighboring arm of our galaxy. Pretty sweet. I tried to take pictures of the starts, but I couldn’t make my camera take a long enough exposure to let sufficient light in. You’ll just have to imagine.

Now I’m home. All in one piece. Definitely needed a little mini adventure to remind me that I’m in Chile – It’s easy to get sucked into the daily grind of university life and family obligations and forget how exhilarating it is to be here. I’m thinking about traveling to the far north with Sophie and Theora in a couple weekends. We’ll have to fly, which is sorta expensive, but on the other hand, how many chances does one get to see the Atacama Desert?

There are more stories and pictures from this weekend than I have time to share, but I can’t wait to tell them all in person when I get home!
Lots of love!