El Morado

On Saturday I did my first solo guide with Santiago Adventures to the base of El Morado, a peak in the Andes that is just over 16,600 ft. To put it into context, the highest peak in the lower 48 is Mt. Whitney at 14,490. It’s a great hike though a big beautiful glacial valley of waterfalls and cliff bands and when the snow level goes down you can see the hanging glacier San Francisco and a lake appears. Its early summer here though, after an especially big winter, so we did a lot of snowfield traversing. One of my favorite things about living in Sanitago is how easy it is to leave the city behind. In an hour and 15 minutes you can reach the ocean or the mountains depending on which direction you head. We left the city center full of screeching cars and speeding micros (deathbuses) at about 8am and by 9am we were careening around one lane mountain roads in our little truck, passing goats and men on horseback and wooden shacks selling homemade honey, cheese, bread, and empanadas.

My clients were pretty hilarious, a brother, sister, and dad from the US who were up for anything. The brother just graduated from Williams, the sister is in Chile as an exchange student, and the dad competes in century bike races and recently returned from a stint in the Peruvian jungle. After we finished lunch I packed up and was ready to head back down the trail right on schedule. They three of them looked at me the dad said ‘Can we keep going? What about trying to climb that?’ as he pointed to a ridge about 1000 feet above us. Uh…. Yeah!! So we set off at a fast pace, fording the river that was pounding from the spring melt and started the bushwhack scramble straight up the steep slope, yelling “rock!!” as small boulders tumbled down. We had been climbing for about 40 minutes when dark clouds began to roll in so I figured it was time to reign in their adventurous spirit. We jumped onto the snowfield we had been following and took the fast way down, them on their butts with their rain shells and me glissading on foot. Fantastic. As you can see from the photo, they were pretty psyched :)

Oh! A little update - I didn’t go to Siete Tazas this weekend with the other company I was planning to work for because I went to meet with the lead guide and the trip organizer on Wednesday and got a super bad feeling. So I followed my instincts and bailed. Turned out to be a great decision - so chalk another one up for following the gut.

Tomorrow starts my second week at NESsT, its been really intense and really good. My first week was training with Matt, a cool guy who has been in the NESsTER position for a year on a Rotary Scholarship. Funnily enough he went to Stanford, lived in Jackson for a winter, and actually met a couple of my girlfriends (and ended up dating one) at a bar in DC when Anne and I were there for a long weekend two Octobers ago. I decided not to go out that night so I didnt meet him until I arrived in Santiago and the coincidences came together. Small world isnt it sometimes????!!
I have to do a proper entry for NESsT next time because there's a lot to tell. I figured I'd entertain you with the mountain pictures for tonight.

happy thanksgiving!

so obviously this photo isnt from santiago but i figured its a holiday so im allowed to post anything i want and this one always makes me happy. My family has a tradition on thanksgiving that I'm sure many other families do too but I always thought it was pretty special. So I'm going to do it from here. by myself. kind of.

Thanksgiving was my favorite day, it was usually just the 4 of us hanging out, playing games, watching movies, and being silly. We would sit down to dinner at 3 with sparkling cider and stuffing and before we ate all hold hands and go around the table and say what we were thankful for. standard, right. but my family is a little sappy so as long as i can remember i always ended up crying hearing what everyone was thankful for and thinking about the most important things in my life. Not bad tears of course but i would feel so safe and loved and happy to have a place I knew i fit.

So it always comes down to being thankful for the most important things of all...Thank you to my mom, my dad and davey for being so much of a family that I dont feel lonely even when I'm more than far away. Thank you to the most beautiful, brave women i know who remind me how to walk in the world and into a room, to the special people (and some of their dogs - hi osa + winnie) from jackson where i learned how to make my heart happy, and to everyone else reading this for being a part of the wild ride. Im hoping to share many more adventures with you and hopefully not just over the internet. sheesh.

I hope today finds you healthy, happy, and warm.

lots of love.

¿Tu tienes mucha suerte, eh?

says my friend Eduardo after I finished telling him about my week. Translation for the non spanish speakers out there: "Your'e really lucky, huh?" No kidding!

Kicked the sickness finally and when I felt like myself again on Tuesday I decided it was time to start looking for a job here. I start my internship at NESsT tomorrow (whoo!) and will be in the office 3 days/20 hours a week, which thankfully leaves me time to "work" in the traditional sense - bringin' home the "tocino" ie. bacon . I had been asking around since I arrived more than a month ago and everyone insisted the only thing I could really do easily would be either teaching english or translating documents from spanish to english. Blah.

I thought: If those jobs are blah I should find the opposite of blah and do it. So I did.

I spent hours on the internet, translated my resume, wrote a couple blurbs about my interests and experience in spanish and english and sent it off to 5 of the best adventure companies that guide throughout Chile but are based in Santiago. Within 10 minutes I received my first phone call asking for an interview from Santiago Adventures and the next afternoon an email response from Southworld Adventours. I had two interviews and by Friday was offered positions as a trekking and adventure guide with both companies. Whoa huh. They were each are hiring a couple guides for the season and I guess with the combination of my experience, that I can speak English and Spanish, fateful timing and a little bit of *luck* I slipped right in.
Each company caters to a bit of a different client - the first is owned by a Vermonter who sold everything and moved to Chile 3 years ago to do this and puts together higher end trips for foreigners. The second is run by a group of young(ish) Chileans who have traveled all over the world, cater to a crowd of "independent" travelers, and emphasize sustainable tourism.

The best part is the pay is pretty good, the work is relatively flexible and I'm going to be able to really get to know some incredible areas of Chile doing all the things I've been dying to do since I got here, (backpacking, hiking, visiting hidden hot springs, kayaking, white water rafting, climbing, exploring) while being plugged right in to a network of people that are as content as I am to spend days running around in the mountains. AND getting paid to do it. This is not Blah.

I started yesteday with an all day scouting trip up to El Morado National Park with another new guide and the owner of SA. I was offered a spot for next weekend on a three day trip to Reserva Nacional Siete Tazas which is about 4 hours south of the city with SWA. Siete Tazas is named for a section of seven waterfalls and their corresponding cups (tazas) that the River Claro has carved out of the basalt rock. Its sits at the start of the Southern (Patagonian) region of Chile and is famous for serious whitewater and is supposed to have a substantial population of pumas and mountain monkeys. How cool is that? Pumas! The ironic thing is I've been trying to figure out how I could get to Siete Tazas but was discouraged because it is hard to reach without your own transportation and it would have been an expensive trip. So when Franklin in the Southworld office asked if I would be interested in going as an assitant guide - all of my expenses covered - I calmy said sure I could go, and tried not to let my smile betray me because inside I was jumping up and down.

Off to bed to rest for my first official day of NESsTERdom with dreams of mountains and mountain monkeys.

South American Politics and Vitamin C

are really all I’ve been thinking about lately. I’m pretty sick right now, miserably so, and I can’t figure out if it’s because of the thick haze of smog and pollution that permanently hovers over Santiago or if I actually have the flu. It got so bad that I almost passed out in the Metro on my way home, I was so dizzy. So I took today off. My flat mates keep trying to make me take antibiotics and wrap scarves around my neck and head (even though its like 90 degrees here). I decided instead to just check out for a while and chug the Emergen-C I brought from home and be quiet, giving me more time to sort out some of the things that have been on my mind.

I realize that up until now this blog has been a bit self-centered (I hope not painfully so!). Its been such a sensory overload to be here in so many ways, the easiest things to get a hold of were in my own head but I’ve been taking in a lot, listening, observing and experiencing, just not really knowing exactly how to express or explain it clearly. Culturally and politically, Chile is a fascinating place and I find myself repeatedly asking, “how can that be?” in BOTH positive and negative ways about current events and even daily life. A Chilean’s favorite answer for my question is, more often than not, “It just is.” Hmmm. OK

Last Thursday the Peruvian Congress met and unanimously voted on a law (98-0) to move the ocean border between Chile and Peru further south, thereby “legally” claiming 15,000 square miles of fishing and property rites that have belonged to Chile since the War of the Pacific at the turn of the 20th century. The tensions among the Latin American countries are quite strong and the way the newspapers talk, of course, Chile is always on the verge of being attacked by either Peru or Bolivia with assistance from their arch-rival Argentina. The news last week sent people into a rage… uberpatriotic Chileans were threatening to storm Peru themselves and President Lagos sent armed forces to the land borders to discourage a land attack.

Santiago was buzzing with anti-Peruvian sentiments when, on Sunday, a private jet arrived undetected at the airport and who deplanes but Alberto Fujimori, the ex-Peruvian president who has been living in self-imposed exile in Japan while evading more than 20 charges of human rights violations, torture, “enforced disappearance”, and corruption. Though born in Peru, his parents are Japanese, and facing serious accusations he fled to Japan in 2000 and sent a fax back to the Peruvian government saying he was resigning as President. Japan granted him citizenship because of his ancestry and has been almost protecting him. Japanese law prohibits extradition of citizens and Peru does not allow trials in absentia so he could not be persecuted for his crimes. In August of 2005 the Supreme Court in Peru finally issued an International warrant for the arrest of Fujimori. In October, Fujimori made a public statement from Japan stating he would be returning to Peru in time to run in the April ’06 Presidential elections. And on November 6th he landed in Chile, preparing to launch a campaign from here, apparently.

He got to Santiago on Sunday in what looked like a very organized drama and everyone’s been up in arms – Chileans AND Peruvian refugees living in Chile, both wanting him to get the hell out of here and back to Peru to face his crimes. He was arrested at the Marriot as he was unpacking and apparently was very surprised, as he expected Chile to welcome his arrival. Recent polls say he holds more than 20% percent of support in Peru and some say he might even have a chance to win the election if he makes the right moves. Peru is asking for Chile to hand over Fujimori because the Supreme Court has been preparing a case against him, waiting for him to come out of hiding and face the charges of massacre and corruption. Its unbelievable for me to think that his horrible human rights and political crimes are so well known and he still might have a chance to rise to the country’s most powerful seat again after hiding out for 5 years.

Friends here have been asking me if a situation like this would happen in the US and I usually say and think no. But it probably does, we just don’t use the same vocabulary… Fujimori is responsible for the crimes because he ordered them to be done, not because he actually went into the slums of Lima and shot up a room of “dissidents” and “terrorists” himself.

Chile’s presidential election is coming up in a few weeks and that’s been a very interesting thing to watch, especially because one of the lead runners is a Socialist Pediatrician who was the first Female to hold the post of Secretary of Defense and was exiled from Chile during the Pinochet regime! More next time…

un carrete de disfrazes

A friend had a costume party for his birthday this weekend (yay costume party!). I found a toy store here that had a little kid cowboy set so it was cowgirl hits santiago. My roomate Veronica is Argentine and a professional make-up artist in commercials and movies and she was excited to do my make-up, you can see the results here, though my hairdo didnt last long... a little too high maitenence for a cowgirl that likes to dance.

maybe you'll like this too

i found this piece recently by one of my favorite writers. it reminds me of time in the mountians and also some of the feelings i have about moving forward,travel,new challenges,chance,luck... all other good and exciting things swirling around right now.

After Arguing Against The Contention That Art Must Come From Discontent


Whispering to each handhold, "I'll be back,"
I go up the cliff in the dark. One place
I loosen a rock and listen a long time
till it hits, faint in the gulf, but the rush
of the torrent almost drowns it out, and the wind --
I almost forgot the wind: it tears at your side
or it waits and then buffets; you sag outward...

I remember they said it would be hard. I scramble
by luck into a little pocket out of
the wind and begin to beat on the stones
with my scratched numb hands, rocking back and forth
in silent laughter there in the dark--
"Made it again!" Oh how I love this climb!
-- the whispering to the stones, the drag, the weight
as your muscles crack and ease on, working
right. They are back there, discontent,
waiting to be driven forth. I pound
on the earth, riding the earth past the stars:
"Made it again! Made it again!"

-mary oliver

the great escape

I made a break for the ocean this last weekend to a little surf town called Pichilemu south of Santiago. Sat in the sand, went surfing, ate fresh seafood right out of a boat, and got some much needed time out of the smog. Heres a couple photos of a cute old man in his fish shop and a surf hut on the beach.

euro mullets, rod stewart, goths and skaterboys

Good or bad, all of these things are very "en moda" and "muy cool" here in Santiago. Yes, breaking news - the euro mullet is gaining incredible momentum in South America. Buenos Aires seems to have the stronghold on the best ones but Santiago is keeping up - I've actually come really close to taking a photo of some of the best ones to share with you but I haven't figured out how to be slick about it. If you're lucky I'll pull it off soon. You must understand this is no run of the mill NASCAR northamerican mullet, but impeccably cared for and styled to kind of stand out spiky and look tousled and sexy (?), like really fast hair, if you can imagine. Almost as if the guys are in motion or at a fashion shoot and their hair is blowing in the wind. Or the long back part of the hair at least. Oh lordy.

While I'm gawking at the mullets Rod Stewart seems to be always playing in the background and in the Metro stations there are even huge flat screen TVs that show music videos of "Forever Young" straight from the 80's. Its pretty hilarious because even though Chileans aren't that crazy about Americans (and least of all our politics of course) they love English music and most of all romantic songs. I was in a bus with these hardcore teenage boys this weekend and they had a stereo they had brought on board and were blasting for the whole 4-hour trip. I was totally smiling to myself when the leader of the hoodlums was humming along to "We Are The World (We Are The Children)" and drumming along on the boom box. If they only knew ...

To complete the circle Goths and skater boys zip around the city politely skirting around little old ladies (points for Latino manners) and hanging out in groups at the park and in the Metro - enjoying Rod no doubt. I don’t know why they strike me as so funny... I guess I just always think of Goths and skater boys in English. I mean, that’s funny right? Goths speaking Spanish? Very dark Spanish though, of course.