One last hooray.

Dearest friends and family,

As I write, I am unwinding from one adventure, and am preparing myself for the next.  These last 72 hours in Chile are going to be wonderful.

Today, I went white-water rafting for the first time, on a level 4 river.  It was crazy! The river was beautiful, and it was surrounded by gorgeous, snow-capped mountains.  And I learned that the water was incredibly cold when I went for my little ¨swim¨ part-way through. One of the level 4 rapids included a ¨hydraulic¨(? Some things just get lost in translation with Spanish...) that our group didn´t manuever quite as well as we should have, and a few of us took a dunk.  But it was totally worth it.

And now, I am packing my bag in preparation to climb the volcano tomorrow with some people from my hostel.  Let me tell you, the adventures never end in Chile.  The past few days have been raining a lot, which meant a lot of activities were unavailable for the past few days, but tomorrow is supposed to be perfect weather to climb the volcano.  We start at 6:45 in the morning, and climb up 2800m for 5 hours through the snow, before sledding back down.  I´ll be sure to keep you posted on the details of this next adventure :)

Love to all,
Elise

Bucket List

I have officially been in Chile for two months, and it has come to my attention that there were two experiences I had not yet had.  But not to worry, I have now experienced these last two things:

One.  Pulgas.  More commonly known as fleas.  That´s right folks, I got fleas.  I had hoped that if I didn´t pet the stray dogs and ran away instead (not hard for me to do), and hoped for the best, I would remain flea-free for my entire trip.  But alas, those pesky little pulgas got the best of me.  I have no idea when or where I got them (I have been in countless trains, buses, cars, and cities this past week), but the 16+ bites on my leg leave no room for doubt.  Mom and Dad, I hope you´re ready for all the laundry I´ll be doing when I get home :)

Two.  The south. During my time here, I lived in central Chile (and I love it dearly), and traveled to the Atacama desert (see the earlier post about that adventure).  But I was still lacking time in the south of Chile.  The land starts to break up the further south you go, as it turns into the region of Patagonia.  And my study abroad program ended last week, so I decided to travel to southern Chile for my final week here.  I made it to one of the northern-most towns of Patagonia, and I am enjoying the lake and the beautiful scenery, when it´s not raining.  Which it kind does all the time during the winter in the south.  So when it rains the hardest, I curl up by the fire, drinking tea and reading a book.  Rough life, huh?

I will continue to travel for this week (one more city to go before Santiago!), enjoying the paisaje and relaxing by fire-places.  And this weekend, I fly home!  I land in the wonderful land of the United States of America, bright and early on Sunday morning.  USA, I hope you´re ready for me :)

Love to you all, and I look forward to talking to you soon when I am state-side once again!

¡Chao!

Nearing the End

For the past few weeks, I have been volunteering full time at a local organization, and it has been different than I expected to say the least.  Unfortunately, the organization is in the midst of some transitions, which means there is little work for us gringo volunteers.  So, I can say I am incredibly up-to-date on my email inbox, and have found a few fun projects to do to decorate my new apartment next year.  I guess I am redefining “productivity” while I am here.

This past weekend, our group had another project in which we painted a different set of stairs in Valparaíso.  Our artwork was definitely better the second time around, and it was fun to hang out in the sun, painting away.  The set of stairs we painted was 450 steps long, so it was a little daunting to look at.  Someone had previously written a poem up the stairs, so we left that untouched and added color to other parts of the stairs.  Once again, I’ll try to add pictures soon!

Later in the day, I returned to the stairs with some friends to take pictures of our dry artwork.  And then I encountered the other side to Latin American culture.  A man had found our trash (empty paint cans, etc.) and put some paint on his hands and pants, and was pretending to have painted the stairs. And he was collecting tips for his “work”.  We spoke with him for a minute or two, asking about his “painting”, and he proceeded to tell us that the area was feo (ugly) so he was painting to bring color y alegría (color and happiness) to the area.  We didn’t correct him (telling him that we were the ones who had painted), because that would not have been a smart or productive decision, but I definitely learned about the “other” side of the culture here.  Ay de mí.

Lastly, I’ll admit being a little frustrated here.  Studying and living abroad is extremely fun and different and exciting, but no one really talks about the other side of it.  It is difficult to abruptly adjust to another culture, and then to have to leave so quickly.  These are my last days in Valparaíso, and I find myself upset about leaving Chile, but also upset about being back in the United States.  So basically I don’t know where I want to be.  Please be praying for peace for me in these last two weeks.  I have some exciting adventures awaiting me for these last weeks, so I’m looking forward to enjoying as much as possible from my remaining time in Chile.

I will try to update this blog again before I am standing on American soil, but I honestly don’t know if I will have the time.  So, please forgive me if this is the last post from Chile, and know that I am looking forward to catching up with everyone when I get home :)

You know you're not in America when...

You know you're not in America when... you hear the sound of an ice cream truck, look over your shoulder, and instead of seeing said ice cream truck, see the gas truck driving around the neighborhood with tanks of propane gas for household estufas.

That is all for today.

If a picture is worth a thousand words...

As promised, here are some pictures of the painting activities of last weekend.  For more details on what we did, read the previous blog post.  Enjoy!

The stairs that we painted- we painted the  side of each step,  so that as you walk up the stairs, the color is facing you.  Unfortunately, we were unable to paint over the graffiti.

This is the view from the top of the stairs.  Across the road is the local fish market and port, which is why we chose these stairs to paint.  Recently, things have been extremely difficult for local fisherman as large businesses are taking over, and legislation is not protecting these local workers.  So, we hope that the view of our painted stairs will bring hope and joy to the fisherman.

This is the plaza at the top of the stairs that we painted- in the top right corner you can see the fish market.  The plaza has a series of low brick walls, and we painted the tops of these walls.

The organization that we worked with "Semilla de Color" (Seed of Color).

I also went down behind the fish market to take pictures...
I hope you enjoy these next few pictures, because it smelled SO BAD here!

El Saco (The Sack).

Fisherman cleaning out their nets.

PS- if  you want to view pictures larger, just click on them, and it'll enlarge it.  Enjoy!