The Eighth Wonder of the World- Part One

Some may say I'm spontaneous. Or ignorant but adventurous...let me explain
I went to India thinking they spoke Indian (this is embarrassing but all too true) never knowing who Tibetans were besides the obvious fact that they were the people I would be tutoring in English
I chose Tulane under the pretense that it was "far" but not too far from my hometown- I was thinking maybe 6 hours driving, an hourish flying. It wasn't until I google mapped the distance in May of my senior year of high school (after committing to Tulane of course...) that I realized New Orleans was approximately a 10.5 hour drive...
I only knew a few things about Chile when I came to this beautiful country- the most important things obviously- I knew it had many vineyards, was near the coast, they speak spanish, oh and once some miners got trapped underground in Chile for a really long time. Yuup- ignorant little princess right here- I didn't know anything about the culture, the history, the intense dictatorship of Pinochet that many Chileans that I interact with here on a daily basis endured. 
When I described this problem I have with jumping into life decisions without any pretenses to my friend here she actually replied interestingly enough with an alluring response- she said that it's actually great that I am willing to travel and do things without knowing much- I'm not afraid to be outside my comfort zone and experience new things. I kinda liked the sound of that-I'm adventurous- let's go with that. Of course I have continued this trend here...and that's what brings me to the purpose of this post- my INCREDIBLE adventure to the one and only PATAGONIA. It all started when my friends who had been talking about planning a trip to Patagonia asked me if I wanted to join their group. At this point my familiarity with Patagonia included the fact that it must be a big, beautiful mountain because there was a company named after it. I had no idea that Patagonia was a protected natural region where there are valleys, wetlands, lakes, glaciers, mountains and "towers" that are unlike anything else I have ever seen. Nevertheless, approximately 24 hours after I am invited to join this group of my fellow adventurers, I find myself frantically buying a plane ticket to a town that I trust is close to Patagonia (is it a place or a mountain or something? I don't even know) because we soon discover that once one of us buys a plane ticket, the price goes up, and therefore I must put in my credit card information right now and book this trip. Yuup- classic Carly. Purchasing a ticket to a place I have never heard of- Puntas Arenas- looks pretty far- ends up being incredibly close to Antartica too- that's cool. I trust that they have a plan (thank heavens they do) and I just go with the flow from this point. When we all gather to discuss things and the questions fly about what we absolutely want to see and do- I just nod my head when people say things like "Glacier Gray" and "catamarans". Mmmhmm. sounds good to me. I'm sure it's pretty there. Camping? Okay- I was a girl scout once. I think we camped outside. It may have just been in my backyard though, I can't remember *insert laughing out loud emoji here*
Things progress and we are buying food to eat while camping, finding sleeping bags to borrow and assembling tents. Packing of course is the hard part. Packing and I have a bad relationship. There have been fights, tears, changing of flights...you know- the usual. So in anticipation of this mental breakdown that is bound to occur if I try to pack alone, I invite my friend Hannah over for dinner so she can sit on my bed and coach me through the process of carefully selecting which things are most important and which things are much too heavy to be carrying around on my back for 4 days. She is a gem and no tears are shed. Albeit there may have been a brief cry seesh previous to this lovely packing experience- something to do with a library fine and the inability to check out my textbook or pay the fine at all....but that's a story for another day. Let's just say that sometimes you have to cry at the wrong moment because the stress just builds over time. And even though I pretend I'm spontaneous 90% of the time, sometimes even I get a little scared. 
Moving on...After about 2 1/2 hours of sleep, I wake up in the dead of the night to hop on my shared "transfer" taxi type thing that is a much cheaper option than getting my own taxi (imagine 60-70 dollars versus 14 dollars). The only downside is that you have to be ready almost 2 hours before you want to be at the airport. Thus for my 6:15am flight I am picked up from my house at 3:05am. I meet everyone at the airport, sleep on the plane and eventually arrive in Puntas Arenas- the town where Magellan passed through on his journey to Antartica. As my friend put it "I could have spat on Antartica!". 

Google informed us that we were there^

We then took a 3 hour bus to another town (actually more northern) called Puerto Natales, which is where most people stay before and after their trek to Torres de Paine (that's right- Patagonia isn't a mountain- it's a region. and in that region is a Natural Park called Torres de Paine- for the iconic "towers" that are in the Park- more on those later). We stayed in the best hostel ever- very crunchy, but clean and super helpful! Plus they had hot showers, breakfast included and homemade peanut butter and bread at that breakfast table. mmmm. That night we got our last minute essentials- Trash Bags! You have to put anything and everything you carry in a trashbag in case it rains, snows, etc. so that your clothes and sleeping bag are dry when you are freezing at the end of the day and need to get warm(ish)- and then we FEASTED. I'm talking a "treat yourself" feast. I ordered sea bass and finished with a slice of cheesecake. YESSSS.

After dinner I proceeded to re-evaluate my entire packing situation. Typical. I was informed that my 32ºF sleeping bag, blanket and sleep liner would be no match for the cold of the park. Being the cold natured person I am- I said where do I sign up for the warmest sleeping bag you have. We also rented sleeping pads to provide that crucial layer of insulation between you and the cold earth (take notes! this is crucial camping advice! :D )  Of course then I had to re-arrange my entire backpack, but it was okay because you could store things at the hostel because otherwise I would have been carrying so many unnecessary things. My backpack was still heavy- here's a rundown of what I packed: two sets of warm clothes (long underwear, one pair of leggings, hiking pants, ski jacket, rain jacket, fleece), wool headband, two pairs of gloves, sleeping bag, canned tuna, a jar of PB, pitas, protein bars, beef jerky, apples, oats, nuts out the wahoo and chocolate(:
Quick note about that beef jerky. Or should I say Ch'arki. Let me clarify- Chilean Beef Jerky is quite different than the Jack Links you can find in the US. 

That is a very accurate picture. Really- it kind looks like a raw hide or something but the truth is that once you put it in your mouth it tastes the same as the beef jerky I'm used to. I'm not going to lie and say the texture isn't slightly hairy and weirdly crumbly. I don't even know what I'm trying to say but just go with it(; And I haven't even told you the best part- when I was trying to find beef jerky in the grocery store- after I finally explained what I was looking for- the nice sales boy tried to convince me to get the other kind of jerky they had. On the label it said Equine. Mhhmm... that's the same Equine synonymous with Equestrian- AKA he was trying to get me to buy the HORSE JERKY! I died- and then told him I had a horse and that I absolutely would not be buying that type. My host mom even insisted that it exquisite when I told her that story- but I just kept shaking my head- no way. 
ANYWHO-The next morning- without much a plan (we actually found that you can't really have a plan when you are trekking throughout the park because you have to be flexible with the weather, what's open, where you can camp, etc.) we boarded another 2 hour bus to the actual park boundaries. We watched an informational session on how not to get put in jail for starting a fire and then we got on one last bus that brought us to one of the bases of the park- 

where it says H (Hotel Las Torres). Although the initial weather conditions were cloudy, raining and downright depressing, we embarked our journey in the direction of the famous "Torres". We hiked for about 2 hours to the first refugio along the trail. Refugios are indoor areas that you can pay to stay in but they are much more expensive that paying to camp. You can hang out in these areas if you buy something, so we stopped for lunch and purchased a few things to satisfy the guys working there and then took advantage of the bathrooms (with TP!) and the nice warm stove. At this point it was snowing and we were climbing in elevation at a rapid pace. It turned out that our first day was actually the steepest climb we did the whole time. Additionally it was snowing essentially the whole time- it started off as sleet and quickly turned to snow. The cherry on top was the fact that this was my day to carry the tent. Lovely. Nevertheless we pushed on to the next campsite where we figured we would be staying for the night. Unfortunately we had heard that the lookout for the Torres was closed due to weather conditions but we still pushed on in the hopes of potentially still seeing some incredible views (although it is virtually impossible to see anything that is less than incredible in the park- even if the sky is cloudy). Through the snow and cold we pushed on and FINALLY made it to the campsite. The worst thing about the way the park is laid out is the fact that once you leave one campsite/refugio to go to the next one you are met with the fact that you cannot see anything in your path for the next 1-4 hours. It's almost like you have no destination and it can be really discouraging when you feel like you should have arrived hours ago. The only gauge of distance we had was the estimated times they print on the park map- which were pretty realistic, but still varied due to stopping and such. When we got to the campsite we signed in (this one was free! yay!) and began to clear off some areas to set up our tents while it was SNOWING.

We really roughed it the first day. And while in retrospect was the perfect way to do it, that did not make it an easier for any of us to be optimistic about what we had gotten ourselves into. The first day of hiking we covered about 10.5 miles- according to my fitbit- but unfortunately we really didn't have a view of much due to the snow and clouds. We made it up to the point on the map that says Campamento Torres. 

I leave you with the pathetic yet hilarious account of our first dinner. Oh the noobs we were (noobs=newbies). Not only was one of our camping cookers broken, but we also were unaware of how to use the can opener on the swiss army knife we had. Thankfully the campground "guard" took pity on us and let us use his camping cooker. We set up shop and started boiling water for the rice we brought and then I began to read the directions on the bag. Cooking time- 45 minutes. WHY DID WE BUY BROWN RICE- were we trying to be healthy or something??! Surprisingly I had no part in that....gasp. I was the one who purchased the pasta that cooked in 8 minutes. You win some and you lose some.
Here's how dinner went down- we had two camping cookers (we had one functional one and then the guard's cooker) along with two pots cans. I believe that I could equate the capacity of these puny pots with the amount of food that you fill one can of soup with. Yuup. We were struggle busing hard core. I knew it was bad when I couldn't feel my toes in my wool socks and hiking boots at about the same time in which the rice was approximately 30 minutes from being done. The other great debacle of the night? Our can opening technique- knife to can

That would be the knife-to-can technique- I was holding my beloved chocolate and Ari was pretending to be warm and happy

DANGEROUS- I know. I survived Grandad- don't worry(;
Luckily I only found one small piece of metal in my tupperware supper of green beans, chickpeas and rice. Additionally we tried to be semi-gourmet and served up some powdered asparagus and tomato soup with our (crunchy) rice. Everything tasted delicious and I actually became fond of the semi-cooked crunchy rice. Who likes soft rice anyways..
We finished cooking and cleaning asap and ran to our tents while it was STILL snowing. After painfully removing all my clothes and putting on dry wool long underwear, sweatpants, my ski jacket and zipping myself up (almost all the way) in my sub-zero temperature sleeping bag I pretended I wasn't cold, moved so that I was up against Sophie for some body heat and drifted off to sleep (kinda). Although I had dreams about my toes falling off- maybe dramatic, but they were quite numb all night long and I was scared!- I SURVIVED CAMPING IN THE SNOW. 

xoxo
There's more to come- don't fret. 

My last page of notes I have saved to blog about...

So these blog posts are becoming more random as we progress- sorry about that. I feel like I'm at the point in my study abroad where my spanish is decent, I have re-taught myself how to do homework and my mama no longer hides her passive aggressive nature....lolz. Oh mama. She has a habit of repeating her stories over and over *cough dad* and most of them include life lessons about how not to be a bad host student (make sure you compliment her food and don't stay in your room the whole semester...) and others include her summary of what it means to be a host mom (clean the house, wash the clothes, cook- things that she insists she does spectacularly...). Last but not least she just got off the phone with her mother (my abuelita you could say) and spent the last ten minutes complaining about how I just mentioned that the peanut butter jar was almost empty...eek! I don't know where the line is apparently....She bought it for me the first time so I just figured I would mention it- but we shall see! Of course I have no problem buying my own peanut butter too..The thing is- when she then came down to the kitchen and started talking to me she was all smiles- oye dios. These Chileans and their cooped up emotions- I guess we all need to vent.
On the flip side- my mentor- a Universidad de Chile student that was assigned to me- Andrea, is the bomb dot com. We meet last week over dinner and she was incredibly friendly and happy to help me practice my Spanish. She also rolls her own cigarettes- so there's that. She claims that if she rolls them then she know's what's in them, ie: no nicotine (not sure I believe that's how it works...but then again I don't know much about tobacco). I knew she was a keeper because she also agreed to have our first meet up at a pizza place that got rave reviews on Trip Advisor (so of course I knew it HAD to be good). Nom Nom!

Her first impression of me via facebook? I must really like wine and sports because that basically sums up the contents of my facebook photo library- very accurate eh. Maybe I should start putting down my glass of wine before posing for all facebook-possible pics (said no one ever..)

I'll leave you with a summary of my recent bus ride companions- so far I've had the lady that talks to herself, the students that walk on the bus like they own it- and somehow talk their ways out of paying (like way more than "that one time"), additionally I've had the overly-nice grandmas that stand up out of their seat claiming that they are getting off soon- and then proceed to remain on the bus even after I hop off- and my favorite- the lady that asked for my bag and then proceeded to hold it in her lap for me (so she could watch it and no one would pickpocket my stuff) the entire bus ride while I stood squished up against the hand rail. Oh the bus- what great friends you introduce me too...

GET READY for the PATAGONIA POST! It's coming folks(:

xoxo

Before I forget all the very important details- The Caleu Post!

My apologies for the wait- I hope the anticipation did not kill anyone(;
Lets start from the very beginning- it's a very good place to start (Sound of Music Reference here!)
So Hannah and I decided that we needed a weekend away, and when I started looking for day trips I realized that most of the touristy destinations would probably require a weekend away. However, I stumbled upon a hidden gem (I think we can call it a gem...but I'll leave that up to you to decide when you hear the deets..), called the Nacional Parque de Campaña. Online they showed beautiful views, nice hiking trails, the works. It appeared as though there were a few hostels in the surrounding area, but of course, with our last minute travel decision most of them were booked. Quick note on that one- *spoiler alert* This hostel booking website also said that Hostel Caleu "only had one room remaining to book!" as if you needed to rapidly find your credit card and reserve the room before the millions of other tourists would snatch your overnight getaway right out of your hands. On the other hand...when we arrived- it was PLAIN AS DAY that there was not a soul staying in this hostel. For heaven's sake, when pulled up to the hostel and got out of the taxi, we found a lady who appeared to be running the show- and get this- she knew Hannah's name. Do you think she knows all of the names of her customers? I think so- mostly because she has one every once in a blue moon! Therefore I highly doubt Hannah and I's frantic facebook messaging back and forth was necessary...

Back to the deets- So after calling the hostel- failing to communicate my questions with my scratchy man voice (my throat is always so dry here!), crappy chilean phone and sub-par spanish conversational skills....I meandered on over to my host mom's room to beg for help. 3 phone calls later we determined that the Hostel in fact does exist (the address online literally gave a street name- a street that does not exist on any map I checked- and of course, without a street number), that there were alleged buses to this hostel and that it was- and I quote- "easy to get to once you arrive in Caleu." 
I kept asking Hannah if she was sure we should book the reservation (there was a cancellation policy of course...) because we really were going to have to wing it if we were going to try to locate this place. Her response? "This is going to be so fun!" and "Let's do it!". Thank you Hannah, for your valuable thoughts. We did even have a street address for heavens sake! But I kept calm and carried on...

I mean how could you resist her optimism...

So the next morning- following my FAVORITE 8:30am FRIDAY class (if you are not sensing some sarcasm here you need to re-evaluate things)- Hannah and I met up at the Metro station where you can catch a bus to virtually any city in Chile....except Caleu of course. After some discussion we determined that we need to first take a bus to Til-Tíl (the accent is important! without it people cannot help you locate the city you need to go to- correct- they cannot infer that Til-Til and Til-Tíl are the same place...).

After about an hour on the bus people start getting off at what appears to be random destinations. This often happens here- buses turn into public taxi rides and there are rarely definite bus stops. Therefore it took Hannah and I a while to realize that we needed to get off the bus before the driver took us all the way back to Santiago. Luckily we were able to communicate that we needed to be dropped off at the "Bus Terminal" (terminal is a very loose term) where another bus could then take us to Caleu. Because you know- that bus must exist if the lady on the phone says so...
We hop off the bus and land smack dab in the middle of an incredibly rural town "center". 

Upon taking 10 steps, potentially looking around one time (we did NOT even look lost at this point) people began to ask what we needed. No worries folks- we got this- we know what we are doing- all we need is the bus stop. Someone responded that a bus runs on the road to our right and thus we stood on the sidewalk and proceeded to wait aimlessly for the potential next bus to pass. 
Next thing you know a mail man approaches us (yes a mail man...) and once again asks us what we need- (as if gringos always need help! sheesh) We tell him that we need to go to Caleu- and his reaction? He chuckles to himself, asks us to repeat and then says- "lol, you should just go back to Santiago because there ain't no bus to Caleu from here" Use your imagination here because that is a rough- but accurate- translation (; Swell. Not losing too much hope (but still a considerable amount) we proceed to walk toward an official looking building. At this point Hannah may have lost all hope- she left me to communicate our serious struggle in Spanish while she gave me the deer in the headlights look. For those of you who don't know Hannah- please note that when it comes to spanish skills- she is way better at pretending she understands what people are saying and proceeding to promptly respond in a manner that would lead you to believe she knows her spanish well. Thus- when she left all the talking to me- well, I was utterly confused. Luckily my need based spanish kicked in and I kept my cool for the both of us. Upon entering and explaining our predicament once more we finally get ourselves somewhere. These nice people have attempted to call the hostel for us and after some slight research on the Internet on their computer they find out that we need to take a cab and that against all odds- once again- the hostel is REAL. 
Skipping the gory details- lets just say we arrive 45 minutes later! SUCCESS=

Not only does the lady know Hannah's name, additionally, when we ask about when breakfast starts she responds "Whenever you come to the restaurant". Lolz- our own private hostel. Maybe there really was only one room left...because there is only one room in the hostel!   
We explore the grounds and find both signs that say "do not eat the fruit" and a plethora of beautiful fruit trees- that we proceed to eat off of....don't act surprised- how could you resist!

I swear- I only stole one! (of each....)
We then proceeded to embark on the next CRUCIAL step to our wellbeing and happiness- wine of course. And we must've had the luck of the Irish (she does have red hair...and I got some freckles!) because the one building in the small town of Caleu just so happened to be a mini-market, that happened to become open once we arrived (gringo perks!) and most importantly HAD a box of cheap wine. I'm talking three dollars for 1 L of red wine...that's right- slightly more than one bottle- perfect for the two of us to enjoy our night(:
Oh the night....after relaxing by the pool and doing some light reading/homework we made dinner in our little mini-kitchenette. 

Hannah brought pasta for us to cook so we feasted on some spirals and tomato sauce that resembled ketchup (red sauce does not exist here...apparently the Italian immigrants don't trust Chileans with their secret recipes...they can't make pizza correctly either!).

I have stolen all these photos of Hannah- in the midst of our chaos she was able to document our adventure!

Above all- of course. The town made an executive decision to shut off the power. Maybe there just weren't enough citizens in the area to incentivize the continued electricity or maybe the only social servant of the town fell asleep on the job...all i know is that were lucky that the electricity did not pertain to our gas stove cooking! Ironically enough, the one time that having a TV would come in handy (lets just say that there are limited amount of things we could do to entertain ourselves in the isolation of Caleu) and the one time that I have actually been around a TV- the TV didn't work. Nevertheless Hannah and I politely requested some Chilean cards (fun fact: not the same! there aren't kings, queens or jacks, just numbers 1-12). We played go fish while feeling slightly tipsy but incredibly entertained- read: when else would go fish be sufficiently entertaining? Thus the wine was a necessary aliment....
We fell asleep at a nice early hour of 10pm, chatting the night away and laughing at the absurdity of our situation. We woke up the next morning and informed María (let's call her María..because honestly her accent was so thick that neither Hannah nor I could figure out what to call her) that we were awake and would love some breakfast. She served us a tasty meal of eggs, fresh bread, jam and juice. Accordingly we received a quizzical look when we requested black coffee- but by now I'm used to the disbelief of American customs. 
We went on to pay 2.000 pesos to enter the "Parque" which consisted of a hill- yuup- they called the elevated areas of hiking here "Cerros" which translates to "hill". This particular hill was called "Cerro Ruble" and I am quite sure that we were one of 5 people to climb it that weekend. The trail started off simple enough, sandy and winding around the mountainside. Two hours later it became more of a trek- there were multiple 'trails' and an increasingly steep path up to the top. We never made it- not that I could really tell you what that would constitute- but nevertheless we enjoy some incredible views of the mountains and valley (and apparently some of the mountains we saw were the Andes all the way in Argentina!). 

Somehow we also proceeded to finish all the pasta we made despite me initial suggestion that we would never finish 5 servings of pasta....hiking makes you hungry! We safely and happily returned back down the hill, requested María to call a cab for us (only a minor struggle...) and hopped in the car for one heck of a political debate. The cab driver decided to ask for our thoughts on his passionate assertions about Chile and the corrupt nature of the system. Let's just say at the point I just smiled and said sometimes bad things just happen...and I'm sorry if you think the US sticks it's nose in erebody's business....We paid and somehow managed to get dropped off at a bus bench where quite literally 2 minutes later a bus to Santiago promptly pulled up to the curb. Sweet victory I tell you(: 

Oh come on- we deserved that wine!

The cherry on top....when I finally made it home to my sweet abode in Nuñoa, there was homemade pizza in the oven. ¡Qué Linda! 

xoxo