Honeymooner's Guide to Pucón
Hello loyal followers! We have gotten past the 4 month mark! I apologize once again for my now quite predictable skip of last week's post as I was frazzled with a final paper. But goodness me oh my, the past 14 days have been some of my absolute favorites of this entire adventure. I went to the absolute north of colonial Chile (La Serena) and I went down down to the southern most point I have ever been (Pucón). I sat on a nature reserve island where the water was only for the animals and birds would come stand on you if you had any source of fresh water. And I stood below an active, steamy volcano that erupted the year I graduated high school. Oh and 2/3 of my classes finished. My host mom got her car stollen because NOTHING in her life seems to be working out right now, and I fell asleep in another movie we went to as a class. But summaries are no fun! Let's jump right in shall we?!
I last left you following our trip to Buenos Aires. Four days after we flew back across the Andes, the Tufts in Chile kids hopped on a bus on Thursday the 9th and started zooming up the chilean coastline for about six hours until we reached La Serena. This destination beach city is home to newly constructed water front condos and all the empanadas de mariscos that Ed could ask for. We arrived around 8:30 and went straight to dinner where we were all gifted personal pizzas and made quite the ruckus as Trini (Lore's firecracker of a kiddo) taught us (questionably) English tongue twisters that none of us had eeeevvvver heard of. She got plenty of eye rolls from her mother sitting at the other end of the table but was an absolute riot. Before we knew it we were settled into our beachy cabañas and hit the hay.
We woke up early to prepare our lovely nutritious breakfasts of un-toasted bread (so just bread I guess...) and jam as our stove (and therefore stove top toaster) refused to turn on without the matches we did not have. Chileans love a good stove top toaster in which the corner of your bread gets burnt and the other remains raw because they are horrific at distributing heat efficiently. We actually covered the topic of chilean toasters in my Folkclore Chileno class, and some of my classmates gave little anecdotes about them. The vast majority say that they have electronic toasters in their houses but they never use them. Makes me chuckle. Polo the pololo is the same. Ahhh tradition.
We zoomed (lol jk more like sluggishly crawled) out of our cabañas at 7:45am to begin our journey further up the coast to the Humboldt Penguin Reserve. We started off with a 45ish minute boat ride in which my dear "Colorado Kid" Matthew was stressed. In addition to vocally fearing for his life, we got some "The LockNess Monster is a fresh water phenomenon, correct?" an "I am NOT Moana." But it all became SO worth it when we saw pengüinos! And pelicans! And birds that make their nests out of their own crap! And four different types of cormorants! And an otter! And lots of a sea lions bathing out in the sun (tag. yourself.) We couldn't disembark because the penguins are super duper scared of humans and even are famous for launching themselves off the cliffs in suicidal fashion if people get too close. So we let those cuties be. But afterward, we zoomed over to Isla Dama which was just so gosh darn beautiful and has many endemic plant and animal species and the whitest sand beaches I've seen since getting to South America. Good day to remember sunscreen and gafas del sol.
On our way back to shore for lunch we did our bestest to find some dolphins, but we couldn't go out to the more popular dolphin siting places because of rough water. Matthew and I wanted to start a mini protest saying that we wouldn't get off the boat until we saw two dolphins jumping up out of the water and crossing paths (as portrayed on our life jackets provided by the company), but ugh they made us. It's fine. Instead we went back to the cabañas, changed, and hit the beach for some Pacific frolicking, burying Carina in the sand, and having a fight with moon jellies that had washed ashore. Matthew liiiiiterally turned into baby Moana realizing she loves the ocean for the first time and would just run off and kick around in the water. Oh such a nugget.
The next day, we packed up and headed out away from the beach toward the cordillera. Our destination was Pisco Elqui, a town hidden in Valle de Elqui, the primo location for pisco (Chile's preferred homemade hard alcohol) distillation. We took a tour of Mistral's distillery and had a tasting at about 11:30am which was certainly one way to wake up. And then we had a delightful lunch where Lore gave a teary (me, I was teary) speech thanking us for a fabulous semester as this was our last program field trip. This also just so happens to be around the birth and burial location of the famous Gabriela Mistral, so we stopped in at her grave to pay our respects to Chile's first Nobel winner.
Gabby RIPing
Pisco distillery vineyard
We then headed to spend the night in Vicuña, and we took advantage (aprovechamos if you will) of the lovely backyard and pool to have a peaceful afternoon. That night we went out and did an astronomy tour. Knowing full well that I'm about to sound so annoying (lo siento), it was pretty disappointing after our star gazing in Atacama. Could only baaarely see the Milky Way and there were too many mountains to see the Southern Cross. And our guide barely used his fun super laser which I would 100% overuse if given the chance. But they provided complimentary blankets and warm tomato soup (which I hundo p thought was hot chocolate until I took a sip) which was a plus I suppose.
We headed back to Santiago the next day which turned into 6 hours of writing my Arte y Espacios Públicos paper. It was a great weekend because we explored a new part of Chile, but it was made better by the fact that it was our last real trip all together (minus Sam and Claire who were with their parents -- missed you lovies). We were all just Lore's little crazy chiquillos together one last time on the wild roads. Maria bought a papaya plant (duh), Shayna and I tried the Dirty Dancing lift in the pool I thiiiiiink 15 times, Lupita killed it with her beach fashion and playlists, Ed got to have a darrrrn good pisco sour in the town where the pisco was made, and Bryce got to combine two of his favorite things: the west coast and frisbee as the disk was tossed around on the beach. I remember thinking back in August: "La Serena trip is SOO far. When we are there, THAT's when everything is really going to start feeling like it is coming to an end." And it really was, but it was also so special to be so happy all together one last time away from Santiago. We are having Thanksgiving at Lore's house on Thursday and then a final barbecue the night before everyone leaves in December, but we are quickly checking off all of the lasts that in July felt as though they would never come.
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To celebrate our completion of 2/3 of the course that we share together, Matthew and I hit the road this past Thursday night on another ~overnight bus~ down to Pucón for a little Friendymoon. This turned out to be my favorite trip and is honestly not far behind Machu Picchu as the most beautiful place I've ever seen. Pucón sits right on a lake and looks up to Volcán Villarica, an active snowcapped volcano that erupted last in March of 2015. We stayed at Chili Kiwi, a hostel owned, as you might have guessed by the name, by a guy from New Zealand. It won best hostel in all of Latin America last year, and they SOO deserve it. They have rooms in treehouses and ones that are Harry Potter and Hobbit themed. But what James, le owner, has done best is absolutely get to know everything there is to do in Pucón and the neighboring areas (and honestly the vast majority of Central and South America). Everyone staying at the hostel has to sit down for a little orientation in which he goes through all of the activities there are to do, pointing out what to do, what to avoid, which tours are amazing, and which tours are a complete waste of money. Don't go rafting because the rapids really aren't that big, so instead go hydrospeeding which is pretty much boogie boarding down the rapids instead. Don't go to the super famous waterfalls because they are honestly overrated and overpriced now that they are privately owned. Go to Salto Claro instead which is a ~200ft waterfall in the middle of the forest that not that many people know about and is difficult enough to find that tourists won't be there. But don't worry! We have made a special treasure map on how to find it. Oh and they have craft beers on tap that are delightful and perfect after a day of adventuring. And fun things like trivia night. Did YOU know that octopi have 3 hearts/can you name the 10 countries in the world that only have four letters?? Matthew's team won and I came in second ITS FINE IM SLOWLY GETTING OVER IT.
So what did we even dooooo!??
Termas geometricas...
... a collection of 25 thermal pools in the jungle
Salto Claro
HYDROSPEEDING
Preeeeety lake
Volcán Villarica view from right outside the hostel
Dreamy Matthew in a dreamy treehouse watching a dreamy sunset
And now a well deserved special shout of if he hasn't already had enough in this blog hehe. I am so incredibly grateful for the best travel partner who made this weekend what it was. No one in the hostel could believe we didn't know each other before we got here, and guyyyyys he took the top bunk for both nights! And we honestly had the most honeymooney weekend ever which was so hilarious and enjoyable, so if you ever want recommendations, hit us up for the best things to do in Pucón as a duo. Couldn't recommend traveling with your bff more. And be sure to be together as you eat your famous Latitude 39 hamburgers with peanut butter (and caramelized onions and bacon and pickles) because you are craving peanut butter THAT much; it's an experience. But remember to bring your own fried potato product because for some messed up reason they serve it with potato salad.
So here I am typing during my final lunch break CONIN on my last day of work, writing my 4th to last Chileen in Chile post. I just said goodbye to the lovely 60 something ladies that I volunteer with on Tuesday mornings. In a week and one day, I finish my last class in Chile, head down to Patagonia to hike in Torres del Paine for 5 days, and explore Puerto Natales and Punto Arenas, Chile's southern most city. We get back on December 12th, and our program formally ends on the 15th. No tears yet, but they will be arriving quite soon.
But that just means I'm back with all of you so so soon! And that makes me just as happy as I am here right now.
Sending all the love,
Olivia/Liv/Boo
Realized I haven't shared a whole lot of pictures of school... so here is one of the courtyard at Campus Oriente
Spanish Word of the Blog: salto = catarata = cascada = waterfall
because why would you need just one word?!
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