Descent into Decadence

The NSF gave us a budget of 2600 to fly in and settle down. Our sponsor universities gave us an additional 1100 discretionary spending. The idea was that this would be just enough to live in the city, check out a few scenes, and maybe travel once or twice. Due to frugal living decisions mixed with decent trip planning, I ended up with a bigger surplus than expected. We dropped maybe 260 on Atacama and still have plenty left over. I put 240 into Patagonia tickets and set aside even more for guides/hostels/souvenirs. I still have plenty left. With only two weeks to go, it's exceedingly unlikely that I'll go over budget. Strange as it may seem, this is a problem for me. We got this money to enjoy Santiago, and if I have money left over it means I didn't experience as much as a could have. It's gonna be a looooong time before I come back here, if ever. I needed to find a way to burn through the remaining money in as productive a way as possible.

It occurred to me yesterday that I have almost no sense for local food. I've been making my own lunch and dinners. Up till now we've eaten out maybe once every other week, rarely in a place that really showcases the food. I do know a bit about the street food, the fast food, and the pub food. Specifically, I know that it's trying to kill me.


Don't get what I mean? Here are some of the more common foods you can find around here.

Empanadas: Make dough. Stuff with cheese. Deep fry.
Sopapillas: Make dough. Mix with pumpkin. Deep fry.
Churros: Make dough. Top with sugar. Deep fry.
Chorriana: Fry beef. Fry eggs. Fry onions. Put on french fries.

You might have heard about Chilean sea bass. Known here as merluza, its got a great flavor and a wonderful texture. I've had it many times and love it. What's the standard way to cook it? Deep fry. Don't forget the side of french fries.

Hot dogs and hamburgers are also popular. But because these don't have nearly enough oil in them they're almost always topped with guacamole and mayonnaise. Lots and lots of mayonnaise. If you're trying to watch your weight (or are a cheapskate) you can buy them without the guacamole. Not to say mayo is limited to here. If you don't top your sopapillas with copious amounts of hot sauce and mayo you're doing it wrong. Mayo is optional on empanadas in the same way tipping is optional in the States. I opted out once and got horrified looks from bystanders.

This would balance a little if vegetables were at all popular. And while salsa is delicious and omnipresent the only whole vegetables I've had in entrees were the fixings in sandwiches. Whatever you do, do not order a salad. I have seen salads consisting of shredded lettuce, a sliced up tomato, and a small pile of boiled potatoes. And before you say that sounds okay, keep in mind those are three separate salads. If I didn't cook for myself I'd be dead within two weeks. It's a tossup on whether it'd be from heart failure or beriberi. At least scurvy isn't a problem. You can get four pounds of oranges for like a dollar.

Sometime during Atacama I snapped. Chile has high quality beef and amazing seafood, and from what I've heard they do amazing things with them. Further, I could imagine myself going home, being asked "so what amazing foods did you try?" and replying "guac burgers". So to hell with deep fried mayonnaise. My new goal before I leave is to try as many different regional specialties as possible. Will fix the problem and give me a way to spend the rest of my money.

Sunday Tito and I decided to track down the not-very-elusive Seviche. It's cold raw whitefish 'cooked' by submerging it in lemon. Reasonably cheap and (I later found) is easy to make.

I made the mistake of eating the broth along with it, which Not A Good Idea. Once I figured this out the dish became a lot better. Definitely something I'd want to make myself in the future. Afterwards we tried conger eel, which supports my increasingly-strong hypothesis that eel is freaking awesome.

That's two down, many to go. I'm probably going to come back home a perfect sphere if my heart survives that long. Maybe I should go easy on the guacamole. Or I could start eating more raw-onion salads. The world's my oyster here. 60-cents-a-pound oyster.

Weekend in

I've had enough of hiking for a while and wanted to spend a quiet day exploring the city. Getting 6+ of us together would make 'quiet' physically impossible, so we decided to play it low key. Brian and Peter and I spend our Saturday exploring the local fort and artisan fair. I was an idiot and forgot my camera, so in true cause-and-effect fashion this post won't have any pictures.

When Pedro de Valdiva first founded Santiago in 1541 he started with Santa Lucia. The hill made an excellent lookout point and was easier to climb than San Cristobal. In 1820 they stuck a fort on it as a means of defense, as opposed to sticking a fort on it as a means to attract tourists. Over the past 190 years its purpose as shifted much more towards the latter. For example, they shoved a giant fountain in the entrance and put a statue of Poisedon Posidon Neptune on top of it. It definitely gives the Drexel fountain a run for its money. We tossed ten peso coins into the pool and entered the fort itself.

The place is gutted as a tourist attraction. Everything that made it a defensive position has been taken out and replaced with walkways, ramps and camera sights. From various levels point fake cannons, some of which aren't even made of metal. The most intricate one points straight at the national library. Some people used it as an impromptu trashcan.

I'd have to say the climb was a lot more pleasant than our last two. For one, steps! More importantly it was a lot better tiered; every couple of minutes we could stop and see a completely new and exciting view. The sites were far more intimate than San Cristobal ever was, and even at the peak we could see people laughing and playing in the streets below. Throughout the fort we kept finding small plaques and statues. To my delight I could translate most of them, using the gist and rough estimates to work out the words I didn't know. My Spanish is improving!

After Santa Lucia we checked out a local artisan fair. I bought a few souvenirs for people (you know who you are). A lot of them revolve around a semiprecious stone called lapis lazuli, a bright blue semiprecious stone. Chile has some of the biggest lapis lazuli quarries in the world. Many Chileans are proud of the stone, noting that its only found in Chile and Afghanistan. A surefire way to make them hate you is to point out it's also found in Burma, California, Colorado, Canada, India, and Russia. I now own a few pieces, but still have many more souvenirs to go. It was a pretty fun place and I've gotta go back before September.

We're going to the Atacama next week. So excited! We're gonna be out for three days, so I'll probably upload everything Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm already at 38% storage maximum on Google. Let's see if I can bump it past 50.

The Climb

It seems that every week I do something a little more dangerous. Two weeks ago I sauntered into a riot. Last week I jogged down a mountain. This week I climbed a hill.

Maybe I should back up a bit. Last Friday we had a small rainstorm, clearing up the air for the next couple of days. So Brian, Peter, Tito and I decided to go to San Cristobal Hill, the highest point in the city. People told us that you can see everything from up there. Seemed a good a way as any to spend the day.

Cristobal is notable by the statue of Virgin Mary on its peak. You can juuust make it out here. It's under
the central spire. We walked in, started taking the path up. Then Tito pointed at a small but steep slope and said "hey, we should climb that."

It didn't seem like a bad idea. I mean, hey, we could see the top. Twenty feet at the highest. You guys can't because at the time I wasn't thinking it was important enough to photograph. It was going to be a two minute diversion followed by more walking. So we set out to scramble it.

Two minutes later we were at the top. That was fun. Hey wait, there isn't a path here. Oh, there's another climb. Looks a bit steeper, but I can manage. Hey, there's another one!

Repeat ad nauseam.

After about the third time this happened I realized I was in for the long haul. The slopes got harder and more painful. Nice little ledges and tractioned dirt gave way to precarious carpets of rocks, brambled trees, and slippery mud. Bad where the ones where your footing gave way from underneath. One wrong move and I'd tumble back down. It almost happened a couple of times. One time the stones tumbled away from me, leaving my body supported by a slick patch of mud and the tree branch I clung to. I hoisted myself up, slipped my feet behind the trunk, and continued on. Tito and Brian quickly ranged ahead. I stayed behind to help Peter, the only one among us who realized at the start this may have been a bad idea. We continued together for a while, then drifted apart. I was on my own.

I adamantly believe that of the four of us I had the hardest route. At least Tito and I worked that out in retrospect. At the time it was all about getting a little higher, trying to find the next handhold, calling out names to make sure nobody got hurt. It was a long way down and a longer way up. The route steadily got worse. Fields of loose rocks, one in a dozen offering a small foothold. Make sure to find a second fast before the rock, loosened by your entire weight, pops out. Gaps between me and the isolated trees. Throw my body forwards and grab it fast. Dead ends, far too far to the next target. Only thing to do is to move sideways and hope the sickly bushes there can be worked into handholds. Up and up. Dimly I realized how high I was and that falling was my most primal fear. I should be paralyzed with terror. I looked down, saw the long tumble behind me. But foot balanced on an sunken boulder, hands resting on a fallen log, I felt safe. I knew the fall wouldn't happen. I would get to the top.

Spined bushes gave way to more seas of stones and iron deadwood. Another patch of forestry, this time a little thicker. Then sight of the other three behind a stone wall. I climbed my way up to the threshhold and pulled myself on. Victory at last!

I turned around and pull out my camera.

The tallest building in Santiago is 200 meters tall. I think we climbed past that. Probably the most foolhardy climb yet (man I need to read about climbing safety), but we did it. And we still had higher to go. We ended up a little off the proper path, and there weren't any of the ubiquitous railings. The short walk to the proper path was the scariest part of the trip. Weird that a guy who just went through that would be so terrified of an unprotected walk. But the fear of falling was so bad I almost had to crawl. After five minutes we got a railing again and everything was okay. I'm scared of heights. Sue me.

We quickly got to a place way from all of the bush and bramble, where the slope was steep enough to take pictures of the city itself.

We were now near the peak of the hill and the Virgin Mary, which is much larger up close.

 

When we finally got there we found the place packed with tourists doing that "hold out the camera with one arm facing your" touristy camera picture. Totally in contrast with the stark Mary my camera caught. We got bored quickly and left.

On the way down we took another (but smaller) rocky path. Peter finally decided he had had enough of our suicidal tendencies and abandoned us. I got mud all over my pants and shoes, but it was worth it for the view. We landed on the ledge just as the sun was setting. It threw crimson bands along the mountain peaks, a lazy crown over the Chilean city. We stared solemnly at the scene for a minute and then ruined it with the clicks of cameras.

Vertigo wasn't much of a problem on the way back. Even if somebody shoved me off the ledge the mud on my sneakers would have kept me anchored. I know it sounds facetious but that's what kept me from curling into a ball. Eventually we made it back sans Peter and went shopping. What we bought is a story for another time (like never).

One of the really great things about this trip is how it's been pushing me outside of my comfort zones. It's not just because of my surroundings; many of these things (sans riot) could happen in Chicago and Michigan. I think it's also the company. We are eight college students, all roughly the same age, all near the peak of physical aptitude and adventurousness. We are physically isolated from our friends who could tell us "um..." and given a huge travel budget. We build on and amplify each other. I would not have climbed the hill until Brian and Tito went first. They showed it was possible. I merely tried to keep up. This doesn't explain everything (again riot), but I think it's part of the explanation.

And I'm pretty glad for it. The hill was a dangerous and scary experience, yes, but it was also wonderful.  I was happy while it happened and I'm happy it had happened. But it's gonna be hard to find something even more dangerous to do next week. We're planning on exploring the desert. Maybe we shouldn't take supplies? That or start water fights while there. Give it time. I'm sure we'll figure out something.

And We Are Eight

Jeff got in Wednesday. To celebrate we were going to push him into a riot, but the next one wasn't scheduled for two weeks. We instead decided to push him up a mountain. Thin air makes it hard to breath, which is kinda like being tear gassed. But all of the serious mountains were too far away and we wanted to be back by the evening. None of us had packed lunches, either. We found a sufficiently small and close mountain in one of the nearby parks. More like a hill, really. I'm calling it a mountain so I can say we climbed a mountain. I'll stop once we scale a real mountain.

The gang of eight. Back row, left to right: Arthur, Alex, Brian, Jeff. Front row: Malus, Tito, Peter. Behind the camera: me. It's two anna half miles to the national park. We start walking, and I take a picture of our target along the way.

Eventually we find a hole in the fence and get off the path. We find a river that follows along the trail. We all ooh and aah at it, with the exception of Arthur and Peter who stay back. Alex suggests we go down there, at which point we point out it's a twenty foot drop. The only way to get there would be to hit one patch of dirt and slide all the way down, something way too insane to-

Damn you, Alex.

Malus and Tito take the same route, while Brian follows a slightly safer one. Not wanting to risk death (and being kinda a coward), I leave and get pictures of cacti.

Hmm, there's something behind this one. I look behind and find another path. This one is trades a single steep fall for a lot of complicated ones. There's a ton of trees and brambles in the way that could cut my arms and face up if I'm not careful. But I can control my fall and use my hands as breaks, so I don't mind. In two minutes I'm down by the river. Success!

We hop across the river stones and climb the other cliff. Another halfmile and we swing back down across and up along the proper road. We rejoin the other three guys at the gate to the national park, and head in.

At the start it's more of the same. We pass a statue of the Virgin Mary and cross a bridge. Everybody tries to go under the bridge and hop across the rocks, but only a few make it. The rest of us just take the path for once.

Then we begin the climb. First it's steps, doing a good half hour on a heavy stairmaster. The path always isn't in good condition, and with eight of us it's not the fastest going. At a couple of points we stop for pictures.

Finally we reach the top of the path. Past there it's rocks and brush and more rocks. No stairs, only sand. We press ahead. At some point Peter stays behind, sitting on a jut in the cliff. We all get separated, until even my shouts go unanswered. Finally, pulling myself up one last rock, I reach a plateau. Here I get the bulk of my pictures. I tried to find the absolute best ones to upload here. It's still going to be a long, long image dump.

There's still more to climb. Too much brush and cover, not enough extra height. There's no photographic reason to go on, only for the sake of getting higher. So I continue. Camera tucked back in pocket, I spend another half hour pushing myself ahead. At some point, according to Brian, the air got detectably thinner. I never notice. More climbing. I hit a long patch of brambles and have to slide on my belly to get past them. At some point I meet up with Arthur again, who had to do the same. I'd love to say that we reached the peak, but eventually we heard Peter call that we should come down and the other guys, up above, shout back the same. So we all head back and meet up (down?) with Peter.

Well, going down is gonna be a lot easier than coming up. But we are manly men who don't want things 'easy'. How can we make the descent manlier?

Running.

I wish I had gotten a pic of this, but 1) it would have come out all blurry, and 2) when you're jogging down a bendy unkempt mountain trail the last thing you want to do is distract yourself with a camera. People start falling behind or switched to walking or whatever and by the time we get back to the park gates only three of us are left. Looks like all that exercise paid off after all. We walk the four kilos back to the bus station just in time to catch it leaving. And so our time atop the world is at an end. Hopefully soon it will be dwarfed when we really punch through the sky. I'm looking forward to it.

In the meantime, I'm realizing that all of these posts about riots and trips and excitement don't actually give a good representation of what life here is like. I'm going to start working on a couple of more mundane posts soon to show where I work and how I get there and stuff. Until then!

Valparaíso

We're all here for ten weeks total. Peter and I used our first two weeks settling in, meaning we only have eight weekends left to explore the entire country. Therefore it's imperative that we pack as many things into every weekend as possible. We had our fill of action-packed action last Thursday, so decided to take it slow this weekend. Instead of hiking across the desert or running up a volcano, we went to Valparaíso. For those of you who want a sixty-second summary, Valparaíso used to be a major shipping port. Then the Panama Canal opened and ruined the city. Now it's awesome again. We could get some amazing views and history, but more importantly could get there and back for about 10 bucks. We could also tour it and its sister city Viña del Mar in about nine hours. These proved to be the deciding factors.

Chile has a rather excellent country transportation system called Tur Bus. If you're willing to pay the nominal fee and spent several hours sitting still then it can get you to pretty much all of the tourism spots. Our trip took two hours, most of which I spent fiddling with my camera. I took a couple of countryside shots, but they didn't turn out that great.

One of the few good ones.

At Valparaíso we were given a map of the city by a pushy tour guide. Being a stingy crowd, we opted out in favor of walking everywhere. This made the first leg of our trip slightly tricky.

Valparaíso is a city built from hills. Everything from the houses and trees to fruit markets on the sidewalks tilts on the edge of collapse. Walking one way feels like climbing a million sets of stairs and walking the other way feels like running down a slide. We started up the first hill and half an hour later were still walking. We go up, and go up, and go up. Along the way we see houses balanced on pins and walls giving way to rock faces. The sidewalk thins out and eventually disappears altogether, and we are left walking on a single car road. When one comes by we balance ourselves on the low cliff guards. We will not reach the very top until afternoon. Even so, we still reach a point where the houses aren't blocking the steep fall and trees aren't concealing our view. There is still miles of hills ahead of us. But there is also miles of city below us.

Pictures of the city take up a quarter of my memory card. I spent a long time and dozens of shots experimenting with settings, angles, locations. Never thought I'd become a photography buff. Everybody else shoots scores of pictures too, and the ones who didn't bring their cameras are cursing their mistake. The city is staggering, and we still aren't in the best places to capture it.

Valparaiso is also an artist's city. Even the graffiti is beautiful.

Eventually we reach Pablo Neruda's house. One of them, anyway. If we managed to walk to any of the Nobel Laureate's other two places we'd have broken several marathon records. I'd love to talk enthusiastically about all of the things we saw and revelations we had, but that's not not happened. We saw the price of touring and left. Tito managed to change my position on being photographed while we were there, though. Guy's that good.

Alex, Arthur, and Tito.

On the way down we stop for pastries. Tito and Alex are kind of obsessed with them. They're becoming the focal point of their stay. In their defense, they are good pastries. The path provides us with some more great landscaping chances, chances we gleeful take.

I wasn't kidding about the graffiti.

Headquarters of the Chilean Navy

Statue to Aturo Prat, navy war hero and face on the 10k bill

There's an everburning flame and inscription at the base of the statue. It translates roughly as "this symbolizes the spirit of Prat and of the heroes who offered their lives for the glory of Chile."

We ate lunch, probably one of the more frustrating lunches I've had here. People in Santiago are pretty welcoming of foreigners. If you have say a word wrong, they'll correct your pronunciation. If you have trouble understanding them, they'll try slow down or try different synonyms or whatever. One restaurant owner even found an English speaker to translate some slang and explain restaurant etiquette. The waitress here, on the other hand, found my incompetence almost enraging. It generally made the overall eating experience very unpleasant. At the same time, it emphasized how friendly I've found Santiago.

After lunch we take a bus to Viña del Mar. Why we do care about Viña del Mar? This is why:

Yes, that is a working clock.

Oh, and we would get to see a Moai. The only other way would be to spend one grand on a boat to Easter Island, so... In order to get there, we pick a path that takes us past the beach. I think people wanted to go swimming. Unfortunately none of us packed swimsuits or towels... in any case, I've started looking for a more proper beach. Even so, the view is incredible.

I feel like this is almost a crossroads moment. A little bit of threshold, a bit of triumph, and most of all a realization just how far I've gone. This is the first time I've ever stood on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Twenty years of East Coast and Midwest and finally, finally, I'm in a new place. A place on the other side of the world. I'm not free, because being free implies that in Chicago I was trapped. But in this moment I feel I'm on the verge of another phase of my life. Not now, not soon, but it's in sight. And just as quickly the feeling passes, and I'm staring at a vast and empty ocean.

Half an hour of walking and we finally reach the Maoi!

Huh. Smaller than I expected. We look at it for all of ten seconds then get bored and find gelato. It's way more popular here than ice cream. On the way we pass a massive three story McDonalds. It was pretty upscale.

With that, we head home. Get back by 11:30, after the Metra had shut down. We end up taking a bus back. I'd love to end this with a pithy saying or deep reflection, but I blew that on the "seeing the Pacific" thing. So day over day up and all that jazz.

Second Batch

Short post tonight because there's not too much to talk about. Finally got in contact with Tito and Alex and Malus and Arthur. Arthur and I went to get him at Tito some prepaid phones, while Alex already has an international one. Forget what Malus has planned. Then we all had lunch and swung by our place to chat and catch up. Both AlexMalus and TitoArthur have expressed interest in the apartment, so I think we won't have trouble filling it up.

On the way back to Don Santiago we ran across some more protesters. When they saw I had a camera they stopped and posed for me.

"Education of your child is a right, not a debt of millions of pesos."

Later we romped around and made snarky jokes about each other. Tomorrow's a vacation day, so the entire city is going to shut down. We were looking for something to do outside of it but found that those, too, are gonna be shut down. Looks like it's either going to be a "go out and explore" day or "sit inside and trawl Youtube" day. I'm hoping for the former.

Jonathan Katz provided the translation. He requests that people contact him if it's inaccurate. 

Work: Day 0.5

I haven't been posting much until now; Saturday and Sunday were pretty boring. Rain kept us mostly indoors except to shop for food and stuff. Mostly I spent the time making halting conversation with the other Hostel folk. So far that has been my best way to practice Spanish.

I've been feeling more confident with my speaking skills. I'm still at a three-year old level, but at least now I can reasonably navigate the city. My sentences are sharp, terse, the phrases of a caveman who just got out of the glacier. But it works! I've gotten directions and bought food. Some people, especially the restauranteurs and shop owners, love it when I come in. I think they're impressed that I'm making an earnest effort to learn the language. Yo quiero ser culto etcetera.

Today was supposed to be the first day of work, but apartment hunting took over. On the minus side, I came in very, very late. One of the apartment contractors tried to help me get back, and we ended up 3 km from the nearest metro stop. Fortunately my professors were very understanding and set me up. I have three papers to read as 'homework' for Wednesday, which should occupy me for most of tomorrow morning. I also get my own office. I'm really moving up in the world! I didn't get a chance to talk with many of the people in the lab, but they seem very friendly. Señora Anderson also put me in touch with some of the other students. I'm much more optimistic about befriending people now.

More good news: we have an apartment! It's a four person place for about 220 per person. Compared to what other interns have paid, it's a steal. I'm going to have to add another commissioner to the list of housing contacts. Pictures when we've moved in!

Now the important part: pictures. I finally figured out how to change the camera from "screw up the pictures" to "let me screw up the pictures myself". Combined with me walking about 12 km while hunting for apartments, I had a lot of opportunities to take pictures.

All three of the HQs we checked out were in the Providencia district of Santiago. Like the rest of the city, it's overtly not much different from Detroit or Chicago. Fewer burning buildings, maybe. A lot of the differences, aside from the different language, were a lot more subtle. Different colored buses, superior walk signs, etc. The street signs list the highest and lowest addresses of the buildings on that street, an urban policy so brilliantly simple I'm shocked the US doesn't do the same.

In the distance is the San Cristobar Hill. It's the largest park in the city. They say that on a clear day (ie after it rains) you can see all of Santiago from the peak. It's surprisingly easy to access via metro and I'm planning on spending a Saturday exploring it. Not all of our travelling has to be done outside of the city.

This fountain is a tribute to the famous Chilean sculptor Tótila Albert. Before his death in 1967 he taught at the Universidad de Chile and created multiple famous and influential pieces around the city. I want to track them down. This shot does not contain his tribute statue, mostly because I'm a terrible photographer. Closeup of the water, as well as a building I'm calling "Souther Campus":

That's all I have for now. The next couple of days are gonna be taken up with actual work and moving to the new place. After that I'll finally be able to explore the city for pleasure and not necessity. I'm looking forward to it!