kellyrose in chile

the rest of the story. or.... the end. or.... the beginning.

2009-12-15T03:14:00.000-03:00

I'm not sure if anyone still looks at this blog, its been several years since its been active but I get messages every once in a while so I thought an update was in order:

On July 18th, 2009 I married the love of my life - a wonderful man that I met by chance in a deserted campground in Torres del Paine National Park. We said our vows to each other beneath the mountains just outside of Bozeman, Montana surrounded and supported by our closest friends and family. I am so incredibly lucky not only to have met Marcus when and where I did, but to get to spend an entire lifetime by his side. I can only imagine the adventures that lie ahead for us...

Crossing the Straits of Magellan May 2006 - Day 3 of the rest of our lives

One joyful day July 2009

Chau Chile

2006-06-03T01:00:00.000-03:00

I'm writing the last entry of this blog from the kitchen table in my dad's house... Having safely landed back in california a couple days ago, I'm still reeling from my trip down south, and the last 8 months. I'll spare you from the headtrip and just say the 2 weeks i spent in Patagonia were the most incredible 14 consecutive days of my life. Punto. It was the most fitting and marvelous way to close out my time there.

I arrived south with a vague idea of plans and ended up going from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales, Chile and then did the famous W in Torres del Paine solo in 4 days which was perhaps the most physically and mentally challenging thing i've ever done. I didnt see a single person for three days which was, in itself, a pretty wild sensation, especially in such a magical place. The park was just gorgeous, making its transition into winter with snow in the higher elevations, the moon out almost all day, and the sun starting its descent at 3 in the afternoon. My water was freezing in my tent every night and the one time i set my camera down on a rock away from my body heat the battery immediately died. hmmm. A bit chilly there. But heartbreakingly beautiful.

colors on rio grey, torres del paine

tree. patagonia elements style.

the cuernos, the torres, and paine grande tower over lago pehoe.

water spout on lago sarmiento. the wind was blowing so hard it would create perfect little tornados on the water surface. wild.

After my hardest day (9.5 hours of hiking in a day with only 8 hours of light) i arrived into Campamento Chileno at the base of Las Torres, the namesake of the park, surprised to see there was another tent set up. As i'm patching my wind ravaged rain fly, a young guy comes bounding up to me. Surprise of all surprises the one person i see in the winter at the end of the world happens to not only be from california but grew up in my hometown!!, went to college in maine while i was in new hampshire, and guided climbing trips in jackson the last couple of summers. We became instant adventure buddies and the next morning scrambled in the dark up to the Torres to watch first light set them on fire.

just over the ridge!

brrr! amanecer las torres del paine

After a day of rest back in Puerto Natales, I convinced Marcus (my new best friend) to continue the journey and we jumped on a bus to Ushuaia Argentina (check that puppy on the map!). We ferried across the Straights of Magellen, explored islands on the Beagle Channel, tramped through the snow in Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego, made friends with some incredible Argentines, and just shook our heads at the magical places we found ourselves in.

Seno Ultima Esperanza, Last Hope Sound. You can see the mountains rise right up out of the sea!

Ushuaia, Marcus, and the Beagle Channel

Happy in a snowy Tierra del Fuego

I was back in Santiago in time to run back to my house and try to pack up my vida chilena, say some tearful goodbyes over a couple glasses of farewell chilean wine, get 3 hours of sleep, and make it to the airport again to head to the states.

What a whirlwind it's been... all of it.
Too much even for words.
Thanks for sharing it with me.

un abrazo fuerte
and much love,
kelita.

sunrise on the move. tierra del fuego, argentina

magnetic south

2006-05-17T13:14:00.000-03:00

when i decided that i was in fact going to return to the motherland and put the unfolding of my southamerican life on pause, i knew i couldnt leave without spending some time in patagonia. I´ve been completely fascinated by the extremity of it for years... the intense beauty, the neccesity of adventure and the almost unbelievable landscapes that i, to this point, experienced only second-hand through photographs and legendary stories.

i bought my ticket to the furthest south in chile i could get... Punta Arenas "the edge of the earth" and am making my way north right now. I´m hoping to spend the next two weeks exploring around. First to the cuernos and guanacos of Torres del Paine for 4 or 5 days then hopping over to El Chalten Argentina to visit Fitz Roy (from the groundlevel) and see the Perito Moreno glacier. I´m spending tomorrow in town collecting all of the gear, maps, fuel and food ill need for the next week or so. Im solo at this point, thinking maybe ill meet some interesting travel companions along the way, which usually happens, but if not thats okay too.

So far? Its COOOLD!! But beautiful. On the bus ride from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales today the highway ran along the water for a while and it really did look like the end of the world, the ocean came right up to meet the golden windswept land. No waves or anything, it just looked convex as if the water was about to spill over if not for some unseen force holding it all together.

So ill be gone from the blog for a while but in the meantime thought I´d leave you with some photos of what I might be seeing along the way...

the cuernos, torres del paine

guanacos!

puma! (she doesnt look hungry does she?)

fitz roy peaks at first light

imgoentobohhhhhzeman!

2006-05-12T16:00:00.000-03:00

imgoentoboohhhhzeman!imgoentobohhhhzman!
(picture me doing my happy dance over here)
yay! thanks guys for all your good vibes, thoughts, forces, wills... they worked!

I called TPL this morning to accept the job offer they made me earlier this week and I am very very excited. very very.

Things are happening quickly here. My last day at NESsT was yesterday and my coworkers took me out for sushi and beer and a little goodbye party where they gifted me really nice polypro long underwear from Lippi (a chilean mountaineering company) for my trip down south and mixes of chilean music to remind me of my time here. very sweet.

i leave this afternoon to valparaiso with some friends to say goodbye to the pacific and tell her ill see her soon up north. were having a despedida at my house on sunday and then will be shipping myself to the land of wind and ice for the next couple weeks. Back into the life of a hurricane.

It feels really good though. We were sitting in this smokey bar last night, eyes burning, in a city of 7 million bodies where the air pollution rating is so dangerously high that people are warned to stay indoors...

My nesst friends (very much international women and men of mystery) kept asking me if people spoke in a southern accent where i was going or if i would ride a horse to work, did i know anybody that actually lived there? where was it again? in the midwest? montana?

i just smiled and nodded thinking how nice it will be to breathe deeply again. in so many ways.

¡corre a las montañas!

2006-05-08T19:03:00.000-03:00

Well as you can tell from my last posting, things were getting a bit nutty here in the city last week. I realized all of a sudden that my mind was spinning years beyond the here and now and over things I couldn’t control, making me restless, uncertain and unhappy. Not good. Something needed to be done. I needed some perspective.

And I knew exactly where to find it.

Sunday morning I bundled in my winter gear and set out from the house at 6:30 in total darkness, starting my day as most partiers in my neighborhood were ending theirs. I met my always-dependable adventure buddy Joe downtown and we made our way to Santiago’s bus terminal. Joe himself was just pulling out of party mode so we got him some empanadas and us some bus tickets for the first leg of a good journey. 10 minutes later we were on a bus headed for the Andes and I was breathing easier. Staring out the window, watching city turn to space, fields turn to vineyards, altiplano turn to rugged jagged peaks. God, I love moving. I love motion.

Our destination was Laguna del Inca, a lake sitting at the base of three beautiful peaks called Tres Hermanos and the famous ski haven, Portillo. We hiked around, got dirty, climbed rocks, laughed, he took pictures of backcountry ski lines for the winter, I took a nap in the sun over the shining green lake. Perfect.

The winding road about halfway up the pass. Every curva has a number... Curva 28, Curva 31. I think its so they can easily find trucks that fall over the edge. Really.

Portillo. Nunca cerrado.

And look who I found in the ski lodge! A photo of the US Ski Team circa 98-99. Check out the second row, 4 in from the left side. My very own Megan Ganong! What a badass you are! Nice headband too, hotstuff.

Laguna del Inca y Los Tres Hermanos

Some perspective. Look for Joe in the red jacket on the rock outcropping on the left. We people are verrrry little in this world.

A little sun nap

Awake

Because we were on the Argentine border, the customs police were really strict about which buses could carry whom from where so we had to hitchhike down. We weren’t having too much luck, the sun was starting to make long shadows over the gigantic peaks and we were getting cold. Finally, a rickety old converted bus stopped, we jumped in and asked where they were headed. “Down” they said. “Great” we said. I look up and realize we hitched a ride with a vanload full of construction workers, still wearing their orange jerseys and blue hard hats. Too funny. They were pretty entertaining with their dirty jokes and funny nicknames for each other (granny, little biscuit, fat birdy). I was glad Joe was male and we made it down in one piece.

A couple hours later we were back in Santiago and I was home in time to collapse in bed. Exhausted and happy from a day in the mountains.

madness and monkeybars

2006-05-05T02:34:00.000-03:00

so i really suck at this waiting game.
like really bad.

and i hate the feeling of knowing that what stands between me and something i want so much is a decision to that is out of my hands. I guess ive been a bit spoiled to this point by feeling like im actually able to control my own destiny.

a lot of luck and some fierce determination (which i'm pretty sure is genetic) has gotten me in and out of pretty incredible situations. i've always felt like if i wanted something i could make it happen. because when i really wanted it, i would see it and everything else would fall away, everything else would get quiet. eyes on the prize style.

and im really good at holding on. you know those contests in elementary school when your friends would hang from the monkey bars and the last to drop to the sand, the one who could stand the burning of their shoulders pulling out of their body, would win? i was good at that game.

but now, sitting on my hands here i feel helpless. ugh. i hate being helpless. I check my email, pace around the house, feel like puking, all very pretty... and i feel like im losing my sanity. or the small amount i had to begin with. but it will be over soon. somehow i run my mind into total exhaustion spinning through 'what if' scenarios and fall asleep and then its morning and im one day closer to finding out. im most scared that it will be bad news, that this great 'what if' that i now want more than anything else wont be mine at the end of it all.

of course something else will come along if it isnt going to be mine... something else always does. but darn it if i could only bring this other girl out to the playground and challenge her to the monkey bar contest. i could kick some real butt then.

remind me why we dont do that in grown-up world again?

brr-ozeman

2006-04-29T18:09:00.000-03:00

well this is kind of weird to be writing about the states when im supposed to be in chile but also kind of cool. Like im playing hookie or something... I just got back on wednesday from my TPL interview weekend in Bozeman, MT. Home of Montana State University, the infamous rockin' R bar and the wild and beautiful jordan schmidt.

It was such a shock when i passed through customs in Atlanta at 630 in the morning on saturday. People yelling and pushing and walking around with 94 ounce starbucks coffees and US weekly magazines... i almost scrambled back to the plane. But as I moved further west, it started to make more sense to me and when i had to dodge a policewoman on a mountain bike in the SLC airport I knew i'd be ok. When i flew over the tetons and saw little victor, idaho from the plane i knew i'd be more than ok.

My friend scott came up from salt lake and we had a lot of fun running around town, up snowy mountains, and down springtime canyons. It was also really nice to have a good friend there to get a hug from when i was freaking out or really excited... it was a very - uh - intense weekend. I ended up having 2 days of interviews where i just got grilled, and i grilled back as best i could. There were times when i thought i totally shot myself in the foot and when i knew i absolutely just killed it. I want this job so bad its almost maddening but it's out of my hands and i should find out on tuesday or wednesday. It looks like there are 2 candidates still standing... me and my "phantom contender" so i have to ask for all of you to send some good vibes towards seattle and bozeman for the next couple of days. Preferably they include "hirekellyhirekelly" or something similiar.

I figure with forces coming from thailand, new zealand, korea, south africa, boston, dc, tahoe, san diego, london, sacramento, richmond, burlington, denver, jackson, LA, salt lake,new york, alta, japan, and everywhere else my favorite people are scattered they'd have to fight pretty hard to get a "no" out in my direction. But you never know, right?. Things always happen for a reason i just hope this time they're the reasons I'm thinking of.

Ahhh! the suspense is killing me.

cross those fingers please....

un abrazo. k.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes...

2006-04-17T11:37:00.000-03:00

Ahhh.. thank you David Bowie for such a great theme song (and Dave Wells for your accompanying interpretive dance moves that are permanantly burned on my retinas).

It looks like we're back in change mode friends.

Here in Santiago, summer has given up her fight and fall is most definately here, marked by the descent of a thick blanket of fog/smog/clouds that released a deluge of rain and chill in the city this week. It's chilly in Chile! I scurried back and forth to work in the dark and just-past-dark, my hands in my pockets and cursing the huevones who took all of my jackets off of my hands recently.

I love seeing the seasons change though, and I especially love being burried in down blankets in my cozy pink room while the storm pounds our house. Yay weather! Tapka the dog is also becoming cuddlier, which is nice. I'm breaking her walls down... Ha.

I also have some exciting news to share that has the potential to be another good change. I applied for a position with the Trust for Public Land in their Northern Rockies/Greater Yellowstone office about a month ago... I've been going through a succesion of stages in the application process - reference checks, phone interviews, all that fun stuff. I was feeling a bit shaky about my standing but 2 weeks ago they invited me to move to the next stage and are flying me back for an in-person interview! So in 4 days I'll be on a plane headed for Bozeman, Montana for the weekend. Is that wild or what? I was so excited when I got the e-mail I nearly hurt myself jumping up and down! My mom was here at the time so she helped in the jumping up and down too.

I wasn't going to post this for fear of jinxing my luck so far but I think I'm going to need a lot of good vibes coming at me to make this one happen. So please, think lots of good thoughts on the 24th. More details if all goes well!

Which leads to my next big change... I have decided to move back to the US in June. It's been a wonderful experience here in Chile and I've learned a lot. A lot in my internship, a lot about people, a lot about what I was looking for, what I want in my life right now and most importantly where my heart is. Many more thoughts to share but blogs suck for this kind of thing... so I'll save it to be talked about over a good bottle of wine or some cheap beers. Or Jenna, if you're reading, that's a nice big glass of fortifying milk, OK?

I do have some more time to enjoy here though; I finish my work with NESsT on the 15th of May and then have a plane ticket to the end of the world... I'll be spending two weeks in southern Patagonia and Torres del Paine, running around with guanacos and closing out my time here in one of earth's most incredible places.

And after that... a new chapter that I'm very excited to start! Cheers!

2006-04-07T20:05:00.000-03:00

“In the beginning of time, God created the wonders of the world. When he was finished, however, he saw that he had many leftover pieces. He had parts of rivers and valleys, of oceans and lakes, of glaciers and deserts, of mountains and forests, and of meadows and hills. Rather than to let such beauty go to waste, God gathered them all together and cast them to the most remote corner of the earth. This is how Chile was born.”

So the legend goes...
And I am now a true believer. Chile’s coastline stretches over 2,700 miles and runs from the world’s most arid desert in the north to the Antarctic Circle in the south. In between, the land passes through forests, mountains, valleys, volcanoes, lakes, glacierfields and a wide range of climate zones. Still, for all its diversity in geography and climate, Chile is never more than 110 miles wide. I feel like we experienced almost all of it last week. True to our nature, my mom and I made a whirlwind tour of Chile in our not-so-speedy set of wheels that we affectionately named “The Silver Bullet”.

After a short pit stop at the Bellavista farmers market on Sunday to fill our cooler with nectarines, plums, homemade goat cheese, black olives, tomatoes, avocados, a couple bottles of Escudo (the Chilean king of beers) and Camenére we hopped into the silver bullet and were bouncing down Ruta 5 SUR. Tina Turner in and out on the radio, maps and guidebooks piled on the passenger’s side, a requisite happy hour at 4pm, waves from the stand up drivers of 3-horse carts, split-second decisions for off-ramps and delicious roadside Parillada lunches… this is how I remember the drive. Between our time in the car we hiked (almost vertical, right mom?) to triplet mountain lakes with a view of Volcan Villarica, spent a few days in the Colchagua Wine Valley in an unbelievable hacienda we had to ourselves, said hello to the Pacific Ocean and weaved through mazes of stacked hilltop neighborhoods in Valparaiso.

It was a lot of fun to be able to share with her so many things that have made me fall in love with Chile and also be able to laugh about the wacky shit about living in a foreign country that is even more hilarious when you have someone who gets the joke. There were so many high points, and we kept a mental list of all of the wonderful things we ran across (or over). Best wine, best hand-built and wood-heated hot tub, best view, best wine, best sunset… did I say best wine yet?

I have just one negative thing to share… unfortunately the Silver Bullet had to be retired halfway through the trip after some jerks broke her back window, pillaged the radio and a lot of my gear (including my treasured Cloudveil softshell, my favorite pair of jeans, the best rainshell I've ever owned AND my cowboy hat) at the ranger station of a national park. Halfway through my angry tears, I realized that I don’t own very many things. And now I own even less. I hope that at least someone is running around in a grove of Araucaria trees looking quite dashing in my fire-red rain jacket and my cowboy hat. Argh!!

I tried to convince myself it was a sacrifice to the gods of southern Chile, and a promise I’ll be back. And maybe more training in not being so attached to Things (see Britt? I'm getting better at it!) To be honest, we had such a great time I would do it all over again even if it meant re-losing all of our stuff. Only next time we’d plan to hide in the forest of Monkey-Puzzle trees to give them a good punch and yell my newly minted Chilean curse words at them as they ran with the loot. Ha. That’s right. Thanks for such a great time Mom and I hope you all enjoy some of the photos.

on the road again...

2006-03-24T22:59:00.000-03:00

Mama tigre gets here mañana! We've rented a car and are planning a fantastic roadtrip through the backroads of chile. Heading south in search of hot springs, the wine valley, a volcano or two and some quality time together. I promise to make up for my recently picture-less postings. until next week...

You in 72 clicks.

2006-03-20T01:34:00.000-03:00

This last week I stumbled upon a Human Metrics test that I took while I was procrastinating at work… you know, the Meyers-Briggs Jungian Psychology type that is supposed to tell you what you should be doing with your life based on your personality. I thought it sounded really nice to click a YES or NO box on a website and have the computer spit out an analysis that would point me in the right direction in this crazy world. If it were only so easy! Anyways, I’ve since become obsessed with this, and I’ve made some good friends take it and have been amazed at what comes back. I've since also met people who have had to take similiar tests as parts of job interviews and applications to management programs. (if you ever want a job at Enterprise Rent-A-Car, you will thank me)

So… I know that many of you read my blog as a distraction while you should be working/computing/producing or learninghowtocurethehumanracefrominfectiousdiseases (that’s you Emily Wroe! And get back to work!! I feel a sickness coming on) Lets see what you guys get, though. I’ve attached my profile below, which is creepily accurate, even in the bad ways – I’ll admit! I’d love to hear what you all get back.Here's the link, when you get your results, go to the "Keirsey temprement sorter" and get your profile.

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

In anticipation,
your favorite “Champion Idealist”

The Champion Idealists are abstract in thought and speech, cooperative in accomplishing their aims, and informative and extraverted when relating with others. For Champions, nothing occurs which does not have some deep ethical significance, and this, coupled with their uncanny sense of the motivations of others, gives them a talent for seeing life as an exciting drama, pregnant with possibilities for both good and evil. This type is found in only about 3 percent of the general population, but they have great influence because of their extraordinary impact on others. Champions are inclined to go everywhere and look into everything that has to do with the advance of good and the retreat of evil in the world. They can't bear to miss out on what is going on around them; they must experience, first hand, all the significant social events that affect our lives. And then they are eager to relate the stories they've uncovered, hoping to disclose the "truth" of people and issues, and to advocate causes. This strong drive to unveil current events can make them tireless in conversing with others, like fountains that bubble and splash, spilling over their own words to get it all out.

Champions consider intense emotional experiences as being vital to a full life, although they can never quite shake the feeling that a part of themselves is split off, uninvolved in the experience. Thus, while they strive for emotional congruency, they often see themselves in some danger of losing touch with their real feelings, which Champions possess in a wide range and variety. In the same vein, Champions strive toward a kind of spontaneous personal authenticity, and this intention always to "be themselves" is usually communicated nonverbally to others, who find it quite attractive. All too often, however, Champions fall short in their efforts to be authentic, and they tend to heap coals of fire on themselves, berating themselves for the slightest self-conscious role-playing.

ENFPs are both "idea"-people and "people"-people, who see everyone and everything as part of an often bizarre cosmic whole. They want to both help (at least, their own definition of "help") and be liked and admired by other people, on both an individual and a humanitarian level. They are interested in new ideas on principle, but ultimately discard most of them for one reason or another. ENFPs often have strong, if unconventional, convictions on various issues related to their Cosmic View. They usually try to use their social skills and contacts to persuade people gently of the rightness of these views; this sometimes results in their neglecting their nearest and dearest while flitting around trying to save the world.

A Very Big Day.

2006-03-18T03:37:00.000-03:00

Well my friends. It’s been quite a day here in Santiago. I got my first haircut in Chile. This is a big deal for two reasons, which you will immediately recognize if you’ve been with me on this blog since the beginning (10 points for you!).

Reason Number 1: They love mullets here.
Reason Number 2: They love mullets here.

Since January I’ve known I needed to suck it up and find a place to cut my hair… in the US I was quite religious, going to Kat at A Cut Above on Cache St. every 6 weeks like clockwork, I even went as far to keep track of my haircuts on a calendar. It was one of the only predictable things in my life. So you can understand the state of anxiety I’ve been in. For the last three months I’ve been asking around, keeping mental notes of friends with nice haircuts and today I finally got up the guts to walk into a place called “Hair” – un lugar muy cool y muy de moda – and put myself at the mercy of small silver scissors.

It’s quite a process, the haircutting thing… here it comes with a scalp massage and a 15-minute shampoo, which was nice… I tried my best to relax even though I was rehearsing in my head the vocabulary words that would help me avoid the fate of the affectionately named “mono”. By the time I sat down in the swivel chair I was ready for battle, though slightly thrown off by the hairdresser’s nice smile and friendly hand on my shoulder.

She must have seen the fear in my eyes.

She asked how I wanted my haircut as she combed through my wet tangles, holding up the long layers that sweet, dependable Kat left as a guide. I made it VERY clear I’d like just the ends taken off, just a trim please, and ALL THE SAME LENGTH. I got a nice smile into the mirror as she said ‘But you see, you have different lengths right now, short up here, long back here’. Um… Short? Long? And immediately I knew where this was going. Halfway though I kind of gave up, she was cutting furiously, reaching for special shearing scissors, lifting and layering, clipping and snipping. Twice I tried to mediate, getting that same nice smile, a nod into the mirror and some version of “Si, mi amor” (Yes, my love) or “No te preocupes” (Don’t Worry).

Yeah.

I walked out 20 minutes later with only a mini-mono… It’s really kind of barely a suggestion at a femme-mullet, and things could have been much worse. Thank god I practiced my special vocab words.

I kept trying to check it out as I walked around in the afternoon, doing most of my errands in the upscale, mirrored high-rise district of Los Condes. It was hard to look inconspicuous checking the new do though. I also ended up in a Hooters (no joke) at one point accompanying a friend I ran into on the street who was trying to find a sports game on ESPN2. And the Hooters girls didn’t even blink an eye at my new hairdo. In the end, I figure it’s more of a social experiment than anything else… maybe it will make me blend in a little bit more. Viva Chile. Viva el Mono.

¡Hola Argentina!

2006-03-13T16:54:00.000-03:00

I went to Argentina to renew my visa this weekend, a 7-hour bus ride over the Andes skirting the base of Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Western Hemishpere. The trip there we did during the day and I didn’t even notice the last 3 hours pass because I was wide-eyed and plastered to the window watching the incredible scenery. We arrived in Mendoza in time for a shower at our backpackers hostel before hitting the streets to get a taste of the other side of the border. It was wonderful to be in Argentina again, a country of the most beautiful people and the most lively and passionate Spanish I have ever heard. I wish I could include some sound-bites because it’s just impossible to explain. It brought back so many memories from my time in Buenos Aires 5 years ago (oh my god, its been that long!). Y saludos a Tomas especialmente, aunque tengo que confesar que no encontré ese "Fernet" por ningún lado! En serio, ¿lo has inventado?

It was a fantastically random time. Over the weekend, I found myself sitting in an outdoor puppet theater with a Dixie cup of cheap wine watching a poetry slam turned interpretive tutu dance complete with Zorro masks; Dining (scarfing) with the elderly population of Mendoza at an all you can eat barbeque house/casino serenaded by a lounge singer; and in the middle of a spontaneous dance party, at which point an Argentine girl there asked me ¿Dónde aprendiste bailar en Español? Literally: Where did you learn how to dance in Spanish? That was no typo… I thought it was such a beautiful way to really express so many of the small subtleties of a culture that come out through the language. And kind of flattered she thought I knew how to “dance in Spanish”.

Because of the exchange rate (bad for argentina, good for visitors) I felt like I was actually on vacation and my very strict budget was able to go much further. After stuffing myself with dulce de leche, Havana alfajores, steak, wine, cafe con leche, sweet medialunas and the best icecream in the world I rolled myself onto a midnight bus and we made our way back to Santiago under a nearly full moon. I arrived to a couple changes – first, the clocks… Autumn is on its way here, and second, a newly inaugurated president. Or, I should say... Presidenta!

some everyday

2006-03-02T21:23:00.000-03:00

its kind of strange having this blog ... sometimes ill be in the middle of doing something and i'll catch myself writing about it in my head. Like when you hear a really good joke or something funny happens that day when your walking to the bus and you want to remember so you can tell your roomate/boyfriend/dog when you get home. I have no boyfriend here and i think the dog i live with doesnt have much patience for my long stories, so they end up here. But i realize you and i dont get to share much of the everyday. And while living here has been a series of high highs and low lows, a couple epiphanies, one near death experience (sorry mom i didnt have the heart to tell you), and some good trips, a lot of it is day to day. I ride my bike around and watch The OC in spanish subtitles and look for good nectarines at the market. So i thought i might share some photos from the 20 square blocks that my city life revolves around.

This is my blue house, and Tapka the dog that sighs and walks away when i try to share. Its okay... she just got spayed - my one small victory recently - and banged around the patio in one of those big plastic cones for a couple days. That was at least a few afternoons of free entertainment.

The NESsT crew at a Wednesday afternoon picnic at the park next to the office. Every wednesday one person brings lunch for everyone to share... awww.

Me and el Maximiliano in my favorite bar Clandestino. This place is awesome, you knock on an unmarked door in a dark alley and the bar itself is like a series of linked caves with benches built into the wall and tables and upolstered ottomans scattered around with a tiny dancefloor where they play great hip hop and bad 80s music. And cheap liters of Heinekin. Max is a photographer and trying to teach me to take better pictures, apparently this photo is missing the "onda" of Clandestino but I still like it.

Guard with sword at La Moneda, the Presidential Palace in the Centro. My friend Scott from college was in the city this week and i ran around with him and did the tourist thing, which i hadnt really done. We also saw a chilean guy walking on the street with a Dartmouth Hockey shirt. Scott stopped him and asked what was up with the shirt. The poor guy almost broke down in tears, it turns out his girlfriend is at medical school there and she left the day before. He lost all words and just made crying motions down his cheeks. Them dartmouth girls...

Sunset over Santiago. Taken from the top of Cerro San Cristobal, my wilderness sanctuary. You can see the Andes in the distance and I'm sitting here typing away near the bottom of the hill.

CHEE! CHEE! CHEE!

2006-02-27T03:41:00.000-03:00

Say along with me....

CHEE! CHEE! CHEE!

LEY! LEY! LEY!

¡¡¡ VI-VA CHI-LE !!!

now multiply by 70,000 voices, 140,000 stomping feet and Bono.

I saw U2 tonight and it was incredible. I didn’t think that it would really be that cool at all ... of course, I expected an entertaining experience but not much more. I was offered a ticket when a friend's girlfriend got sick and I accepted yesterday, thinking a concert with 70,000 people might be pretty lame but at the very least the people watching would be good. And it seems like a handful of U2 songs have been playing in the background during many of my most salient memories, usually from portable radios in random but special places.

The concert had been sold out since the second day tickets were on sale at the beginning of January, and Chileans are absolute fanaticos about U2. Like beatles-mania style. For the last month there have been signs plastered on every concrete wall announcing the arrival of the "most important band in the world", the music TV station has been running "Yo Amo U2" documentaries and looping music videos from the beloved 80's. Radio DJs have been playing "with or without you" non-stop and counting down the days, then hours and then minutes until the event at Estadio Nacional, one of the country's most sacred landmarks.

The performance was great and the music was orchestrated with an unbelievable and nearly heart-stopping light show. Chile's loud and proud national chant shook the entire stadium, Presidenta Bachelet made an appearance and got almost as big of a cheer as Bono himself, and the little old lady in front of me shouted "¡otra! ¡otra!" and shook her little fist in the air demanding an encore. And, I saw the greatest human wave I have ever seen in my entire life.

At one point, the Spanish translation of the Declaration of Human Rights was scrolled on the largest center screen. I felt myself suck in a breath when the crowd erupted into the loudest shouts of the night when Article 5 appeared: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The shouts were a welcome acknowledgement of an ever-present part of national history. The Estadio Nacional where we were singing, shouting and stomping was used as a concentration camp during Chile's military coup in 1973. Nearly 40,000 political prisoners were held in the field and galleria and many of them tortured and murdered in the corridors and locker rooms in the stadium at the hand of the military government. A sharp reminder of how much further we have to go to just secure basic human rights (I wont even attempt to talk about my own country here) but also a reminder of how resilient people can be. It’s horrifying to imagine the acts that transformed the city's center of community, pride and identity, into a source of pain, torture and fear.

Fast forward to now. February 2006 and one of the "worlds most important bands” is playing on the same field - the band itself in many ways a product of a society living in violent conflict. The stadium is filled with a new generation of music lovers and hope for a different direction for Chile. If I were as idealistic as I used to be I might even say a different direction for the world. I think I may be getting too old for that though.

It was a very moving evening, I had to swallow hard and wipe tears away more than once. And the little old lady did get the encore after all, a beautiful acoustic version of Mothers of the Disappeared, played on a traditional chilean Charango guitar.

2006-02-21T22:49:00.000-03:00

alive and kicking
sunrise volcan chillan
central andes
feb.19.2005

Buena. Onda.

2006-02-09T00:26:00.000-03:00

I went for a run after work today, up Cerro San Cristobal, which has become my “wilderness” oasis here in the city. It’s the biggest open space park in Santiago with elaborate swimming grottos, Japanese gardens and DIRT trails, whoo hoo. Its about 5 minutes from my house through my funky neighborhood of brightly colored houses in Bellavista. The bad part is its quite dangerous in the evening and infamous for muggings by groups of teenagers that use the maze of trails to ambush oblivious park-goers. As I was running up a long flight of stairs I saw a pack of punk 15-year-old boys blocking my way. I put on a serious face, felt my shoulders tense and braced my self for the typical barrage of crude comments or catcalls. When I approached them, the smallest of the group spread his arms out, pushing his friends to make two lines of boys on either side of me. At the last minute, one boy took off his hat, bent over and made an exaggerated gesture of sweeping dirt out of my way. The rest of the group did a collective bow and gave me a very gentlemanly “Adelante, por favor Senorita” Ha. I thought it was hilarious. I laughed right out loud and gave them a huge smile. Cute.

These last two weeks have been pretty great. I feel like I’m getting into my groove, making some real friends, and getting out from under the poopypantshomesick cloud that had me trapped in January. Friday morning my friend Kristy and I decided to do a backpacking trip to Reserva Siete Tazas (Seven Teacups Reserve) that’s named for a serious of “teacups” and waterfalls on the Rio Clarillo. It was nearly impossible to get any information on campsites or find a map or even bus schedules out there so we decided to chance it and figure it out when we got there. 8 hours and 3 buses later we were standing in front of the Guardaparque hut, trying to get our bearings and to secure a campsite for the night. The park ranger was pretty gruff with me at first, but also visibly amused at the sight of two gringas with huge packs looking for a long walk and a map. I went back to talk to him at the station three times because the camping regulations were confusing and the map that we finally did get was totally bassakwards. He told me each time that they were completely out of sites, we got there way too late for a weekend, that our only option was to leave the park and go to a private campground that was really expensive and also “dangerous”. Great.

However, if I’ve learned anything in Chile it’s that No doesn’t necessarily mean No if you're talking to the right person and happen say the right things.

La Familia Ramirez

20 minutes later we had an invitation to set up our tent in the Ranger's yard for the night and to please join him, his assistant Carlitos, and his family to “tomar onces” the traditional early evening meal of homemade bread, eggs, a garlic tomato salsa and fresh avocados with sweet hot tea to drink. He also handed us three days of camping and park entrance passes but only charged us one day at the student price! It turns out his name is David... David RAMIREZ. Ha! Our common last name and some nice chatting changed everything (and I told him one of my favorite people in the whole world is a David Ramirez!). By the time his daughters showed up from their afternoon at the river, he introduced me as their long lost Tia Kelly all the way from California. Kristy (and both little girls) looked at me with wide eyes and I couldn’t do anything but shrug and smile big. They were the sweetest family and took great care of us, stuffing us full of food, and the girls were card game fanatics. I taught them to play “Anda a Pescar”, Go Fish in Spanish, which they were still playing at the picnic table by lantern when I crawled into the tent, exhausted. The next morning the mom got up with us and made sure we had a warm breakfast and tea and we gave them our chocolate bar as a thank-you. We said goodbye to the Ramirez family with an exchange of addresses, hugs, and besos and headed out for two great days of hiking to a place called Valle del Indio. That night we set up camp near the bright blue headwaters of the Rio Clarillo, within sight of a beautiful cascada, and woke up in the morning to frost and horses outside of the tent.

Rio wildflower

The Siete Tazas

Me and the Lioness mid-traverse

We finally made it to Siete Tazas on Day 3 and climbed down into a lush canyon full of tiny yellow butterflies and wildflowers to the Salto La Leona (Lioness Waterfall). We ended up having to traverse one of the canyon walls – where my Jackson mountain goat skills came in handy – to cross the water and access the park exit because we accidentally got into the canyon through the wrong entrance. Whoops. We ended up missing our bus but finding a stand that sold us cold Coronas and Churipan (the beloved Chilean version of a hotdog). We finally caught a bus back to Santiago at 430 am the next morning. Good little weekend.

Intense.

2006-01-20T00:01:00.000-03:00

For real.

Lets see… it feels like years since I last wrote. On Sunday Chile elected Michelle Bachelet, the first female president in the Americas (whoo hoo!).
So cool. I was on the NESsT staff retreat at an old monastery in Lo Vicuna.Our only company was the cows, horses and baby sheep out back – no internet, telephones, TVs - nothing. We had heard she was ahead in the polls on Sunday afternoon. When we heard horns blaring, alarms, shouts, and celebrations at about 11 that night we all looked up from our glasses of red wine and smiled at each other, sighed with relief and exchanged “¡que bueno!”s and “wow!”s. The election was quite close and she was running against billionaire right winger Sebastian Pinera, who owns nearly all of Chile through slightly suspicious monopolies. A pretty amazing woman, Bachelet is a socialist, a single mother (in a country where divorce was only legalized last year), a pediatrician, and the first female Minister of Defense. Her father was killed and she herself was a prisoner during the violent dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.Its been a recent return to democracy (1990) and it gives me a lot of hope to see a real person with real life experiences like Bachelet rise above big business and the plastic smiles of politics to assume such an important post in an emerging country. Of course she has a long road ahead but I was quite proud of Chile and excited to be a (tiny) part of history on Sunday.

Otherwise, I’ve been quite busy. We did a bunch of site visits to the organizations we work with in Valparaiso and Santiago for the board meeting last week. It was a vivid reminder of the reasons I came all the way the hell down here. Even though I felt like I sort of knew them from reading all of the business plans, writing investment briefs, and translating power point presentations, some of the people from the organizations really blew me away. And I was again blown away at the staff retreat this weekend… I’m realizing how much of a difference people can make when they are committed and determined. Not in an idealistic, bleeding heart kind of way, but by really looking hard at problems in their community or their country or society and saying “This has got to change” and then finding a way to do just that. Of course it’s a slow process but quite inspiring to be in a room full of people working towards a goal.

It was also really cool to spend time out of the office with the people I work with. I convinced most of them to do a hike/scramble up this cactus covered cerro before the retreat and we had to jump a fence and got chased by a fat woman and her dog. We scared ourselves by checking out the deserted monastery with headlamps and drank a bottle of horrible Hungarian Unicum which Eva brought from Budhapest, then played Cranium in three languages. By day we pounded out a year’s worth of planning and strategy. Well… they pounded it out. I sat quiet and slightly intimidated, but excited, by the process.

I’m looking forward to a weekend without commitments or things to wrap my brain around. There’s an outdoor jazz festival that’s been going on this week. I went last night with a couple of friends and a picnic dinner and we set up for free on beach towels across the river to watch this crazy Polish elektro-jazz band called “Pink Freud” rock out with a light show and everything. Sweet.

I owe you some photos to keep you entertained. Here are some of my recent favorites:

Ships in Valparaiso's Port

Cerro Alegre.Valparaiso is built into hills rising from the bay and each "cerro" is its own neighboorhood with winding staircases and ascensores which are little box elevators that go straight up the hill on traintracks

Inside an ascensor, I was pretty psyched

On the trail. This was before our run in with the fat lady and her dog

The beautiful walk back to our monastary

back on the caballo

2006-01-08T21:40:00.000-03:00

Thanks guys for your nice emails and posts about my nasty bout with homesickness - its so nice to be reminded how supportive you are even when i feel like im floating out here. I realized i should end the pity party and after new years I attempted to rally out of my pink striped pajama pants and back into my routine and to my "normal" self. I'm still not quite there but trying to keep busy and aware of the opportunities ahead of me.

There have been some good distractions including the Love Parade in my last posting (crazy!) and a very busy NESsT life. I am finally starting to see the results of my contribution to NESsT, which makes me feel less like I'm struggling to keep up and more like I'm actually doing good work. Last week we had a team of NESsTERS from the MBA progam at Columbia University in the office to present a project they have been working on for the last couple of months. They were a dynamic group with some diverse backgrounds and about 4 or 5 years older than me so it was cool to pick their brains not only about school but about the different paths they took to get there. Heres a photo of a couple of friends from work and Columbia out at a fun tapas bar called Barcelona. Giselle, Stream, Loic, JuanJo, me, and Lauren.

We are also in the middle of the annual board meeting, so all of the NESsT board members are here for a week of meetings and site visits. They range from a social-issue documentary film maker who moved his family to Zimbabwe to a big wig investor from JP Morgan in NYC. Quite interesting to see them all standing in the office in an array of Chacos and button down shirts. But another opportunity to meet some great people and get some perspective on the work we do and - well - life in general. We travel to Valparaiso tomorrow to visit an organization that works to rehabilitate and integrate people with mental disabilities into their communities. Their social enterprise is a pottery and jewlery workshop where they provide on-the-job training and employ some of their patients. I'm looking forward to seeing the organization in action after working on their investment briefs and translating miles of power point presentations.

I guided a trip this week which got me out of the city and reminded me how much exploring there is to be done. It was a last minute call on Thursday night, my boss asked if I wanted to guide "a bunch of guys that are here filming a Budweiser commercial". Oh sure! It ended up not being the crazy party i anticipated but still fun and nice to revisit a favorite place in the mountains as the snow continues to melt. I really enjoy being able to watch something in a transformation process - in this case a glacial valley moving from spring to summer. As we walked along I was making little notes in my head of the new flowers that werent there a month ago or how much faster the water was running, the parts of the trail you could access now that the snow is receding, finally being able to see the lake...

Laguna Morado

Love Parade Santiago

2006-01-07T23:53:00.000-03:00

A friend and i got pulled into Santiago's Love Parade this afternoon. The main city avenue of Alemeda was blocked off for the whole day from Plaza Italia, which is about 5 blocks from my house - I can still hear (and feel!) the music pumping and its nearly midnight. Wild! Kind of like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade only less clothes and more techno music. There were babies, dogs, the ubiquitous goths, crowd soaking water hoses, whistles, hot pants, and lots of confetti stuck to it all. Please note especially great mullet on the guy with the yellow ducky.

One of my favorite costumes all day. Bachelet is the socialist female presidential cantidate. Not even politics can escape the Love Parade!

hmmm...

2005-12-30T20:47:00.000-03:00

ok. Im a little homesick. maybe more than a little. i just got back to Santiago yesterday morning from a week in California with my family for christmas. It was so great to be there and to spend time watching movies, eating a great big dominican dinner for christmas eve, going through all of our family traditions that I would have hated to miss. It was such a relief to just slow down and let myself turn off 'survival mode' - not having to constantly ask questions, struggle to find the right words, worry about things working out, or navigate anything (except I-5 from the saftey and comfort of my own car).

being home i think also made me realize what a different world i live in here, and how far away i really am from everyone i care about. of course its nice to be connected by emails and skype (best invention ever) but i couldnt help but feel that the world at "home" was slipping right by me and most of all, without me, while im busy being a little dot treading water in a huge south american sea. a happy little dot most of the time but still... it was hard to get on a plane to come back to a place where i dont have close friends yet and it seems like things take twice as long and are twice as hard to do. i've always loved the challenge of living abroad and finding myself in the middle of a new and challenging situation, its almost like a game. the harder it is, the more exciting it is when i figure it out, or find a place for myself. right now, i kind of want to take my toys and go home.

i know this feeling will pass like it always does, especially once the holidays are over but for now im kind of stuck ... one of my roomates asked today why i was so unusually quiet, was i sad? mad? plotting world domination? At which point i laughed and then started to cry right into my bowl of spinach fettucini.

the magic of maitencillo

2005-12-11T23:30:00.000-03:00

Had an incredible trip to a special little place called Maitencillo this weekend. The Presidential elections were today so everything in Chile comes to a halt. No alcohol is sold from 9PM the night before, most stores and shops close, the endless stream of political propaganda is suspended on TV, and all of the campaign signs that have literally covered the streets and all public places for the last 3 months must be taken down for a 24 hour period leading up to election day (clear minds, clear decisions the thought goes). I figured since I can’t vote I would still take advantage of the opportunity for a clear mind.

I found this great little ocean village when I was on a scouting trip with some other guides from Santiago Adventures last weekend. We drove up in the truck, got out at the town “center” which was basically 8 or 9 little huts set up as make-shift seafood stands of salmon, mussels, clams, abalone, calamari, shrimp, lobster and scallops. Salsa music was playing from a portable radio, the sun was shining, pelicans were swooping for scraps from the brightly colored fishing boats, and the weathered fishermen were wrapping up their nets having just dropped the daily catch at the stands. Major “Buena Onda” –my favorite Chilean expression – “Good Vibe”. I’ve been thinking about how I could get back ever since we drove away so I rounded up some girlfriends and we headed westbound this weekend… getting there and back to Santiago was quite the adventure (isn’t it always!?) but worth every confused second we spent on micros, collectivos, speeding taxis, and buses.

We spent the night at this place that had so much personality… there was an Indiana Jones climb to reach our little treehouse cabaña following crisscrossing dirt paths and stone steps through an enchanted forest of morning glories, nasturtiums, bamboo and eucalyptus. The cabaña itself was beautiful and cozy with candles, sea glass, hanging mobiles, and furniture made from seashells and driftwood.

After basking in the warm sand and drinking hot chocolate on the beach we shared a couple bottles of white wine and made a wonderful dinner of fresh salmon and mussels right out of the Pacific, homemade bread, and salad with nasturtiums we picked from our deck. I think we all felt a little bit like troupe of mini-Pablo Nerudas. I fell asleep with the sound of the ocean coming through the small port window I had left open, feeling very lucky and muy contenta.

El Nido.... NESsT

2005-12-05T13:46:00.000-03:00

Here are some photos of my walk to the office (our street Jose Arrieta and our office door) so you could share a little bit of my NESsTER day-to-day. Hard to believe I'm starting my third week, time is flying by!

So what do I do there? A little background… NESsT is an international NGO that works in Latin America and Central Europe with headquarters in Santiago and offices in Budapest, Hungary and San Francisco. They work in Social Enterprise (developing a profit generating business tied to the social mission of the NGO to facilitate self-financing) and Venture Philanthropy (investments from donors into the enterprise or the NGO itself that ultimately generates a social rather then a financial return). Its exciting to me because I believe there are so many good people working very hard with worthwhile organizations in the Nonprofit world and really changing the world and their communities for the better. However, many of these organizations spend so much time in the exhausting cycle of fundraising just to stay afloat and while the directors and employees have a lot of focus and passion for their cause the burnout rate is very high, pay is quite low, and overall accountability in the nonprofit sector leaves a lot to be desired, especially from the perspective of serious donors.

NESsT is taking an approach of combining the tools and strategies of business with the mission and values of the NGOs to facilitate social change in a sustainable, creative and smart way. The importance of civil sector organizations (NGOs and nonprofits) is finally beginning to be recognized on a broader scale and many of the top MBA programs now offer degrees and certifications in Nonprofit management, emphasizing social innovation and the development of specialized management skills that are very much needed in the nonprofit sector. That’s kind of how I came to NESsT… I was getting quite frustrated with all the problems and inefficiencies I was experiencing in my work in the nonprofit sector and thought there HAD to be a better way to do things. The ideas of venture philanthropy and social enterprise (as well as microfinance) are gaining incredible momentum and hopefully will be able to pass the experimental phase in the coming years and become viable ways to literally change the world. NESsT is a leader in the movement and I’m hoping my experience with them will help me to decide if this is a career I would like to pursue.

My main responsibility as a "NESsTER” is working with the Latin American portfolio in the Venture Philanthropy Fund. Its neat because I get to meet face to face with the people behind the organizations that focus on Women’s rights, public land conservation, community development, and education, as well as work with their business plans, investment briefs, accounting, and assist a bit in consulting. I’ve been very impressed by the degree of professionalism and success that NESsT maintains across Latin America… they are a balance and a bridge between the down to earth, passionate people that are attracted to the nonprofit world with people that know how to actually get things accomplished in the business world. Movers and shakers with heart and a conscience, you could say. Lots of work but I’m enjoying it! And I work in a pink building… how can that not be cool? ☺

El Morado

2005-11-27T23:01:00.000-03:00

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!

2005-11-24T02:17:00.000-03:00

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?

2005-11-20T22:04:00.000-03:00

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

2005-11-11T18:56:00.000-03:00

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

2005-11-06T16:50:00.000-03:00

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

2005-11-05T16:09:00.000-03:00

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

2005-11-02T18:21:00.000-03:00

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

2005-11-02T17:25:00.000-03:00

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.

Parque Santa Lucia

2005-10-26T16:16:00.000-03:00

This parque is one of my favorite places to explore. It was an army fort in the 1800's and now is a maze of pathways, fountains, trees, and vines. You can see the "New" Santiago peeking out from the background.

Last night I had my first dream in Spanish

2005-10-26T16:11:00.000-03:00

I can’t quite remember what it was about except that at one point I was getting directions and the end of the dream someone gave me a dog and I named her Lula – short for Talula. Weird right? When Spanish comes back into my dreams though, I get pretty excited because I know my brain is getting back into it even if I still have doubts while I’m awake. And the dog? … an extra bonus I guess.

I had my third day of classes at Escuela Bella Vista, which I am really enjoying. Its great to be a student again!! The school is full of people from all over the world, which is exciting. There are a couple other Americans (all from Northern Cali, I don’t get it) but it has a really neat international feel. There are students from Japan, Germany, Switzerland, France, Finland, Sweden, England, Italy, New Zealand, Turkey, and uh… Northern California - among other countries. The collective experience of traveling and living abroad is incredible; I’ve talked to people who have lived in Indonesia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Brazil, Peru, China, Japan, Thailand, all over Europe, and even Antarctica (for real). And now they’re in Chile. For many people Spanish is their 3rd or 4th language, which I think is SO COOL. I spend 4 hours a day in class and each afternoon there is an optional hour and a half with the professors and other students of conversation or a movie, and Friday nights a couple hours at the bar (its amazing how fluent we become after a few cervezas!). The class style is complete immersion and most of the students are dedicated to perfecting their skills so we all speak in Spanish regardless of how long it takes us to get the point across, and by the time I leave in the afternoon I’m starving (why does thinking make you hungry?) and exhausted. I've learned so much already and I look forward to class every morning which is a great feeling.

Oh… an update on the apartment situation! I went to meet Neva and her other potential roommate Carolina yesterday to go up to the flat in Lastarria. And shoot, as much as I LOVED the neighborhood, the apartment wasn’t really what I was looking for. Both girls are British and are in Santiago working for the British consulate. They don’t really speak Spanish at all and hang out with a lot of “Ex-pats” (as many foreigners refer to themselves here - i hate the word), which kind of turned me off. If I wanted to do that, I could have just stayed nice and comfortable in Jackson. Also, they were kind of pressuring me into signing a lease, which had to be done today and if they didn’t have a third person (me) they would lose the apartment. I don’t know… bad vibe. I backed out as nicely as I could, so I’m back in the housing game, but definitely more certain now of what it is I’m looking for.

I do still believe everything I wrote in my last posting though… you never know how good things find their way to you, sometimes it happens only AFTER what seems like a disappointment, so I’m still hopeful that something good in the housing department is on its way.

Whoa

2005-10-24T21:26:00.000-03:00

Wow, OK. So I’m not really sure how to start today. First, sorry I’ve been gone so long! I’m hoping to post every couple of days but this week has been NUTS. Nuts, really… and every time I started to write it just couldn’t come close to what I was feeling. Yesterday marked exactly a week since I arrived in Santiago. Besides a long spell of loneliness yesterday while I was sitting all by myself on a perfect afternoon in a beautiful old park while pairs of friends and lovers and the cutest families walked around me (blah, that sucked), I've been feeling really strong and even kicking butt a little bit.

I went into commando-kelly "survival" mode last Monday… intently searching for a temporary space to unpack my bags for a couple weeks, scouring for a more permanent one to start building a little life here, trying to buy a cell phone (an absolute essential here), buzzing off to meetings at the NESsT office to finalize my responsibilities, sifting through the sea of Spanish schools, orienting myself to the Metro and trying my luck on the Micros (deathbuses – yikes!), and more than anything wandering around the city hoping to find a tiny glimmer of where exactly I might find MY place in this humungous metropolis.

I am a huge HUGE believer in vibe - in that gut feeling that you cant describe, even to yourself but for some reason things are RIGHT. I can think of a hundred examples but you know what I mean, right? Like all these pieces that are floating around in the universe suddenly slide into place and BAM it’s all very clear. And it’s just good. Serendipity, Symmetry, Fate. Whatever it is, I’ve tried very hard to surrender to it… not in a hippie weirdo way but when I let go and just let things happen or take a leap in the direction that FEELS right (thought not necessarily the easiest way to go) it works in very magical ways. Which makes me think that there is some method to the madness and randomness of life but that’s a whole other discussion. Probably a whole other blog.

I’m not sure if I can explain it very well but... from the beginning my move to Chile has felt much different from all of my other travels. I think its been a long time coming and once I put it in motion and decided I was going to go for it - more than a year ago now - incredible doors have opened (sometimes with a little more force on my part ☺). It has felt like a big wave, building and gaining an incredible amount of energy as it all comes together piece by piece. There is something inside of me this time that has been very still, very calm and focused and unafraid, not even nervous, really. It’s a great feeling, not one that I’m used to – this “calmness”. But I’ve decided to trust it and plow ahead, pulling on the small threads that seem right even when the minutia seems to not be working.

So getting to the point of this entry (I hope you don’t mind we took the long way here) today has been one of those BAM! Whoo Hoo! YAY! days. I’ll explain… I’ve been doing a lot of “wandering” as I mentioned before – checking things out, let it all sink in, trying to keep an open mind, putting my feelers out. My third day, I stumbled upon this great little neighborhood called ‘Lastarria’ which is tucked in between Parque Forestal (Forrest! Yay!), Museo de Bellas Artes, 2 Universities, and has so much personality – little street cafes, Turkish bakeries, winding pedestrian walkways that dead end into gardens, music clubs, eclectic record stores, old bookstores, tons of tiny shops with shiny, funky stuff, young fun interesting looking people walking in the street. Over this week its become almost a sanctuary for me… trees, dogs, bicycles, people doing that crazy Brazilian capoeira thing and playing music in the park… but everywhere – EVERYWHERE - I looked (and I was being industrious as hell) it seemed impossible to find any kind of room rental anywhere close to this special place. I was bummed and thought maybe I should go door-to-door and shop-to-shop to see if anyone knew of a room because THIS place was IT. I never got up the nerve to go that far but I might have… IF TODAY IT HADN’T LANDED IN MY LAP.

I was on the internet at school after my first day of Spanish classes (which were awesome) and searching AGAIN for housing when one of the teachers, Christian, asks me to hang around for a bit because he knows of a girl looking for a roommate in the Bella Vista neighborhood. Bella Vista, I thought… not what I want, but I had seen so many CRAPPY rooms for way too much money, I figured I’d wait 20 minutes and if she didn’t show I’d hit the pavement again. Suddenly this beautiful girl comes blowing down the hallway and into the computer lab and exclaims “Kelly!” I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before but it turns out she overheard me talking to Christian last week about my apartment search and asked him about me. We went to talk about the flat she was about to move into, and it just so happens she is looking for a third roommate – her excitement about the place was contagious and it turns out it wasn’t in Bella Vista but the EXACT street that I had been so drawn to in Lastarria, a barrio of a couple square blocks and the one place in the city (of 5 million people and infinite geographical possibilities) where I got the best feeling – that “vibe”. Craziness. I visited the building today – which is beautiful – but wasn’t able to go up to the apartment because the current tenants weren’t home.Tomorrow I have an appointment to go up and actually see it.

There’s more, but this is getting really long so I’ll save the rest. And I’ll let you know how tomorrow goes. Keep your fingers crossed!

Lots of love. K

2005-10-18T21:25:00.000-03:00

Hello Hello! For my first posting I bet you were expecting a picture of something more exciting than a concrete wall. But I couldn’t help it!... I love this. I think too, it’s pretty revealing of how I’ve found Chileans to be on first contact – very sensitive and sweet. This is a parking sign outside of the grocery store down the street from my apartment in the middle of the bustling capitol city of Santiago, indicating special parking for handicapped people AND pregnant ladies. Literally, a “Future Mommy”. Ha!! I’ll spare you the Cultural Anthropological analysis for now but I think this is a good thing. As amused, overwhelmed, and stimulated as I have been since my arrival on Sunday, I seem to be very confusing to a lot of Chileans. Its pretty cute actually because I have been told by 4 or 5 people that they cant “figure me out”. The cabdriver from the hotel I was staying at drove me to my new apartment today and finally blurted out that he wanted to know where I came from. Because they had been trying to figure it out… I looked maybe Mexican but not really, almost Chilean but definitely not, I spoke Spanish but not like the Argentineans - but I could be; I seemed Latina though, so maybe I was from Spain? But no... An Anomaly! I sat there giggling to myself and thinking they should let me know once they figure it all out ‘cause I have some questions myself.

It’s been a pretty exciting couple of days, it’s great to be back in South America in a big beautiful city that is so different but seems very familiar in other ways. My Spanish is coming back slowly but surely, I feel like a champ for semi mastering the Metro after a couple rookie errors, and I think I’m going to be able to do this thing. Today I moved into an apartment with a very nice Chilean guy named Eduardo and a Minnesooooouuten (from Minnesota that is) who is here teaching English. Funny, I was having these random good vibes about Minnesota before I left Jackson, anyone remember that? Maybe it’s a sign!? I’ll take it! My room is pretty neat, one entire wall is glass panes, half of which open to a patio, so I get lots of sunshine and look right out onto a garden and a wall full of climbing vines and plants. Nice. It may be a temporary place because the location isn’t the best but the set up is much better than a boring hotel.

I start working in about a month, (more on this in my next post) and visited the NESsT office yesterday to introduce myself and check things out. They have an office dog named Elvira, also a good sign. Tonight I’m going to practice my “you want to be my friend” smile because I’m going to need a couple of those pretty soon :) Speaking of… please do post comments or whatever on my little website... I think its pretty easy to sign in and it would be great to see your writing here next to mine.

Love, Kelly

2005-10-10T02:26:00.000-03:00

Whew, so this has been a little intense. A lot intense actually. After so much scrambling and effort, panicking, planning and packing, the reality of leaving Jackson kind of snuck up on me and pretty much kicked my butt. I don't think I have ever cried as much as I did in the days leading up to finally pulling it all together and driving away. My poor Papa had no choice but to sit back with his fingers crossed while I refused to give up the steering wheel even with tears streaming down my face, gasping for breath, and whimpering to myself as we headed out over Teton Pass. Jeez.

The time I spent in Jackson was pretty incredible. I had some serious thoughts about bailing on the whole Chile plan and settling in to some great little cabin on Fish Creek with a couple puppy dogs and a sunny deck, my heart happy and ready to start putting down some real roots for once.
Not me, right? Not Now!! Yikes! Get this girl on a plane!!

It is good to know though that there is at least one magical vortex of a place that can grab me and shake me and make me feel so alive and so Right. And maybe there is one or two more out there - there's SOMETHING out there. And hell,if not, I know the way back.