"I wonder, what have learned that you didn't know before?"

In my grandmother's most recent email to me she posed this question.  It really got me thinking, because while I often say that I have "learned so much" this year, I've never really pinpointed exactly what I've learned. 

I think the first thing I learned is not to be afraid, or rather not to let fear impede me from doing the things I want to do.  When I arrived in Chile this year, although it was not the first time I had been here, it was under entirely different circumstances.  For one thing, I was alone.  Last year I had a travel companion who spoke better Spanish than me and for the first couple of days she was my safety net.  This year, there was no safety net.  There was just me and my Spanish.  I wasn't entering a program filled with students, all my age and all from California, I was entering a program full of people that I possibly had nothing in common with and hadn't met any of them ahead of time.  Not to mention the fact that I was coming to teach, but had really never done any teaching before.  It's safe to say I was stepping into (almost) completely unknown territory:  a city I'd lived in before, but with none of the comforts from before.  All my friends were gone.  I couldn't run to the UC study center every time I had a problem.  I was afraid, but I didn't let it keep me from facing the challenges set in front of me.

Maybe the next thing I learned is that budgets exist for a reason.  We didn't get paid until after about 6 weeks of living in Chile and so I came with what I thought would be enough money to see me through til then.  However, my traveling spirit took over and I overreached my budget considerably.  This led me to do the one thing I had been absolutely set against doing:  I had to crawl back to my parents, tail between my legs and ask for some money.  After some deserved "we told you so's" they sent me some emergency funds and I made it through to my first paycheck.  After that, I made sure to carefully budget each month.  We are paid monthly, in cash, so at the beginning of each month I divvy the money up into envelopes that say things like "rent", "food", "travel", etc.  Thankfully, since then I have been able to live comfortably month to month.  My parents have sent me some cash at times, out of the goodness of their hearts (and because I think old habits die hard) but I know for a fact that had they not sent me the extra funds I could have gotten by just fine and I think that is an invaluable skill when entering the adult world. 

Next, I suppose I learned that "our way" is not "the only way."  The US is a big, bad, powerful country, but we are still just one country and one culture and our way of doing things is not the only way and it's not even necessarily the right way.  I learn this lesson every day, teaching and living in a foreign country.  The littlest things are different, from the fact that every single one of my students writes out their entire quiz in pencil, then writes over it in pen and erases the pencil, to the fact that when you go to a restaurant you have to ask for water, they never give you ice and if you see your waiter even once after they bring you your food its a miracle.  But there are a lot of big differences too, like the fact that in one city you have millionaires living in mansions and you have people living in slums built on the train tracks.  You have people who, after being oppressed by a murderous dictator for twenty years, now use every opportunity to stand up to the government, including doing things like hurling bricks through windows or lighting churches on fire.  I guess in short, I've learned that we are not the center of the universe and the cultural norms that we are raised on don't apply everywhere else.  We make the mistake of making blanket, general statements about the world constantly without having the slightest idea what the world is actually like outside our own country, or even state or city.  The thing about this world is that we're not all the same.  We're all different and I think we would be better served acknowledging and celebrating those differences rather than ignoring them and trying to make changes based on the idea that we are all "one." 

I have learned that work is important.  I have also learned that fun is important.  And I have learned that every now and then one needs to be sacrificed for the benefit of the other.  I have had some of the best nights of my life when I decided to be irresponsible, stay out too late and do things I shouldn't do.  I have also had some of the worst days of my life when I came into work after staying out too late, being irresponsible and doing things I shouldn't do.  I never want to be someone who stays in every night and who "lives to work" as a friend of mine often says.  I want to be someone who "works to live."  I want to have a healthy work life and have a healthy social life and I think I'm finally starting to strike a balance. 

I have learned that dating sucks and that thinking about dating sucks and that worrying about dating sucks.  And that it's better to just go out without any expectations, without any preconceived goals, with your friends, just doing what you love and having a good time.  And if you meet "Mr. Right" in the process then that's great and if you don't then you had a great time out with your friends.  When you set goals like "I'm going to meet a guy tonight" it never happens, and you know who you let down?  No one.  Only you.  And letting yourself down sucks.  So just chill out and meet everyone and someday you'll meet the one.  I'm still working on it.

I have learned that sometimes you have to be selfish.  Sometimes you have to make decisions that are good for you, even if not everyone agrees with you.  Sometimes you have to turn down an invitation to a party, sometimes you have to go out with a guy who's bad news, sometimes you have to call in sick to work and spend the day in your pajamas watching 30 Rock.  You don't do anyone any favors by not being at your best, so be at your best as often as you can and do what you need to do to make that happen. 

I have learned that love is painful and that the loss of love can be almost fatal.  I've learned that I'm scared of love and scared of sharing my love and I've learned that that makes my life challenging because I am a loving person.

I have learned that I do not trust easily and I take betrayal of trust to heart.

I have learned that people can be wonderful and they can also be awful.

I have learned that my life has been easy, compared to most.

I have learned how to cook.

I have learned that I really can't sing.

I have learned that I want to learn and to educate myself everyday for the rest of my life.

I have learned that I love reading more than I thought.

I have learned that everything matters, but some things don't matter as much.

And I have learned that I still have a lot of learning to do.

This is the end...beautiful friend

This morning I got to the metro about ten minutes earlier than I usually do mostly because I have stopped doing my hair in the morning and thus I was ready to go at 8:30 instead of 8:40.  It's a good thing I got there early, too, because I had to wait for five trains to pass me before there was one "empty" enough for me to board.  I always wish there was a take-a-number system in the metro because frequently people who have only been waiting for like five minutes shove past me to get on and the result is that I am overcome with rage.  Today, as I finally wedged myself onto the metro almost leaving my backpack behind in the wake and shaking with anger I thought to myself "I can't wait to get out of this country."

The sentiment followed me all the way to school, a commute which took roughly an hour and a half, which is even longer than usual and by the time I got to my first class I was already ready to turn around and go home.  And then one of my students asked me something.

"Profe, are you going to be teaching classes here next year too?"
"No, I can't.  My contract has an end-date."
"And are you going to stay in Chile?"
"No, I'm leaving.  I'm going back to California."
"You're going back?  But then we'll never see you again."

And at that moment it hit me.

I'm doing this all over again.

I'm leaving a place and people that I love and putting a gigantic distant between myself and them.

You would think that saying goodbye gets easier after a while.  After all, in the last six years or so I've moved something like eight or ten times, always leaving people behind, always putting distance between myself and people I love.  I have to admit that the invention of things like Facebook and Skype definitely soften the blow, but the truth of the matter is that nothing compares to being able to hug and sit with someone you love and share a glass of wine and talk about everything that happened to you that day.  Seeing their face staring out at you from a computer screen just isn't the same.  Just ask anyone who's ever been in a long distance relationship (me.)

The fact is I constantly find myself in multiple long distance relationships with my friends and family and although they are not necessarily romantic they do take effort and work.  I make a point to try to be in contact with my best friends and my parents at least once a week and when I go a long time without speaking to them I can feel it and it feels unpleasant and distant.  Even when I'm at home it's the same problem because so few of my friends have chosen to stay in our hometown.  I have and have had friends in Hawaii, Canada, London, Korea, Italy, Kentucky, New York and a slew of other places that are more than just a quick drive away.  In a way I'm lucky to have such adventurous and cultured friends and it makes sense that we would all be attracted to each other because we clearly value the same things and have the same interests.  On the other hand, it makes sustaining relationships with them tricky and their always has to be effort on both sides.

This is what I'm getting myself into all over again when I leave in two months.  I always knew this day was coming.  It was never likely that we were all going to call Santiago home for the rest of our lives and unlike my study abroad program last year that had mostly California residents, these people I've come to know and love come from all over the country so that even once we're all back in the states we'll still have hundreds of miles separating us.  And that's not to even mention my Chilean friends some of whom I very well may never see again as long as I live.

Santiago is not a hub like London or even Buenos Aires and round trip tickets from California are in the range of about $1,500.  Always.  This is not chump change and it's not something that most people can just come up with.  And that's just airfare.  There's also money to be spent upon arrival.  In short, it's not a trip you can feasibly take once every few months.  It's not even a trip you can take once a year.  It's a trip that I logistically won't be able to afford for probably three or four years.  There are people in this country with whom I have formed real and lasting relationships and it is genuinely painful to have to leave them behind knowing that if we meet again it may not be for several years.

This is the life of a wanderer, a word that I often attribute to myself.  I like change and I am easily bored by staying in one place.  But there are consequences to this lifestyle.  While the people I have met here have made a lasting impression on me and I will never forget any of them, knowing that in two months I won't be able to walk six blocks and buzz their apartment with a bottle of wine and a bar of chocolate breaks my heart.  And while I'm returning home to cherished friends and loved ones, people I left behind when I decided to come here, those reunions are always bittersweet because I've scattered myself between many people and barring some bizarre circumstance in which every person I care about decided to move to the same city, I will never be completely whole because I will never have my whole heart within reach.

Just a handful of the goodbyes I'm dreading

Last year when I left I left desperately in love with someone I'd met here and it was one of the most trying moments of my life.  I've been thinking how much easier it will be to leave this time now that I'm not leaving in a brand new relationship but the closer the date looms the more I realize that that's just not true.  Sure, I great deal of my tears my last week in Santiago were for him but they were also for all of the incredible friendships I'd forged in the meantime.  I don't anticipate this departure being any easier, even though I have come to desperately miss the US, part of my heart will forever be in Santiago it's hard to know that the two parts will never and can never be totally united.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Well, another year has gone by.  This one even faster than the last one.  Suddenly I woke up and I was 24.  When did I get to be 24?  Aren't I like, 14, or 18, or 21?  Aren't I at some age where I have minimal responsibilities?  Where all there really is to do is have fun and mess around?  I don't feel like a real adult, how is it possible that I became one without noticing?

Looking back at my last 24 years I have to think about the last 10, because before that there isn't much to think about.  10 years ago I was in high school, a clueless freshman, more concerned with who I was sitting with at lunch than with anything else.  Then all of a sudden I was 17 and ready to graduate with trips to New York City, Hawaii and Italy under my belt.  (I blame/thank Napa High Choir for giving me my original travel bug.)  College came next, along with moving away from home for the first time.  Dorm life, dining halls and absolutely no one (save a killjoy RA) telling me what to do.  I was playing Division 1 water polo and trying to maintain my GPA, one of the most difficult things I've ever done in my life.   After sophomore year I was desperate to find myself, learning that perhaps UCSB wasn't right for me.  I took a leap I never imagined taking and dropped everything and moved to San Francisco with two of my best friends, got a job, and lived (mostly) on my own for the first time in my life.  I paid my rent and bills and I was really proud of myself at the tender age of 20, feeling for the first time like I was really capable of taking care of myself. 

And then it was back to UCSB because despite everything, SFSU didn't want me and well, if they didn't want me then I certainly didn't want them.  The easiest course of action appeared to me to be to re-enroll at UCSB and finish my degree there.  I was almost 2 years older and a great deal wiser and felt that I could tackle the place that had once, at the risk of sounding dramatic, sucked out my soul and put it through a woodchipper.  Yeah, I went there.  I moved in with some Swedes and somewhere between desperately trying to find a job and tanning out in the January heat wave, Chile madness overtook me.  I wanted to learn Spanish (by the way I changed my major from English to Spanish somewhere in the whole mess, for some reason), I wanted to live abroad, I wanted to experience a new culture and I wanted to DO something.  Something really cool.

And so I set out on my quest to get to Chile.  I applied to the study abroad program and jumped through approximately 3,457 hoops to get accepted and get my visa.  A year later I was on a plane to Santiago with a girl I barely knew from Spanish class.  I have never been simultaneously more terrified and more excited about anything.

Of course, Chile was everything I hoped it would be.  It was crazy, exciting, stressful, amazing, adjectives adjectives adjectives.  I made some friends that I will never forget.  I had a multitude of experiences I will never forget.  I fell in love, both with the country and with someone I met there.  In six months I had more experiences than I ever knew I could in a lifetime.  As soon as I got home I was itching to go back and between getting my heart broken and graduating with the best GPA I'd ever received in college (Dean's List, what what!) I figured out how to get back while furthering myself on the path I'd chosen for myself: to become an ESL teacher.

Which brings me to now.  8 more months in Santiago, Chile.  8 months of fully supporting myself (with the occasional generous donation from family members), of working full time as a professor of English and of learning what it really feels like to be a responsible adult.  I've made lifelong friends here this time around too and will always look back at this year with fondness and gratefulness. 

So, I guess I didn't grow up overnight.  It's been a very long time coming. 
Oh, also, for my birthday I went surfing.  I'm addicted.  Here are some pictures.

Soap Box

Protesters burning a church.  A church!!!

Alright, I know I'm not Chilean.  I know that my perspective is different.  I know that perhaps I have no right to be weighing in on this situation, but as I was forced to live through it (and am being forced to endure a less intense version of it at all times) I am going to comment on the national strike that occurred yesterday and the day before here in Chile.

For three months the students of this country have been "en paro", meaning on strike.  They haven't been attending any classes for three months.  Some of them even took desks and chairs from inside the school to barricade the gates of the schools so that they cannot be entered.   From what I can tell, and I have spoken with several Chileans on the matter, what they want is free education.  We're talking FREE.  As in, no tax hikes, no tuition, entirely government funded, FREE education.   Sure, it sounds like a great idea.  I am all for everyone being able to study wherever they want for as long as they want, and maybe, someday in the future we'll figure out how to do it, but the fact of the matter is that the government and public institutions of a country of millions cannot just upturn themselves and change everything about their policies in a matter of months.  It just doesn't work like that.  And that is exactly what they want and what they expect.

The students also want higher quality education which having both worked and studied in a Chilean high schools, universities and private institutions I can completely understand.  The quality of education here is nothing like what we offer in the US.  Last year I attended the best university in Chile and one of the best in South America and I found my workload was minimal, that I was hardly expected to attend class, that often when I did attend I was turned away because the department was striking about something and that in the end I took away perfect grades having done what I felt was about 10% of the work it would take to get the same grades at my home institution.  Higher quality education is a welcome proposition in any country.  It can always be better.

So, alright, the students here want affordable and high quality education.  Why then, Melanie, are you standing on your soap box with a maniacal look in your eye holding a hairbrush like a microphone?

Because they are tearing this damn city apart.

The last two days all of Chile had to endure not only barricades in their transportation systems and massive marches and protests throughout the country, it had to endure fires in the streets, rocks and molotov cocktails being thrown at buses and into store windows, churches being burned, gunfire and tear gas.  The city's resources in terms of police and fire departments were taxed to the maximum all by people who want the government to just hand them a big pile of money???  Stores were looted by workers on strike over unfair conditions.  Does anyone else recognize the painful irony there?  And who is this all affecting?  Sebastian Piñera, the president of Chile, is sitting comfortably in his office in La Moneda while the people the protesters really hurt are their neighbors, co-workers and friends.

People here have the right to protest.  They have the right to be pissed off.  They have the right to stand up for what they believe in.  But where does anyone get off behaving like this?  I know that the whole movement isn't comprised of violent people, and a number of people who believe in the cause have been recorded as saying that they are ashamed by the way some of their compatriots have been acting.  My heart goes out to them.  My heart goes out to anyone who feels downtrodden by their government, who can't afford a decent education, who works in unsafe and unfair conditions.  My heart will never go out to someone who is stupid enough to believe that the answer to all of that is to set a church on fire.

"Violence in the hands of the people isn't violence, it's justice!"

Lady, you must be out yo' damn mind. 

Paro Nacional (National Strike)

I haven't been outside to see how this is going, but this is the current situation in Chile:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20110823/lt-chile-demonstrations/

Vacation (All I ever wanted)

Church in Valle del Elqui

 So, I finally made it to vacation!  After 16 weeks of work with one 3-day weekend, I arrived at the 6-week paid vacation I'd been looking forward to since day 1. All my grades were entered, all the nonsense with all my students was taken care of (for the most part) and I was ready to party, sleep and travel.  The first four weeks were spent mostly hanging out with friends, trolling around the city, eating good food and catching up on my zzz's.  I was thrilled to not have to wake up before 7am every day. 

The final 2 weeks of vacation was extra special because my friends Megan, Chris and Katie flew all the way from California to visit me.  When you live as far away as I do it's very special when people take the time and money out to see you so I was determined to make their trip worth it.  They arrived late on the 23rd (Katie early on the 24th) and after spending a day in Santiago, where we were inhibited by terrible weather, we set off on the first leg of our adventure to La Serena.

La Serena is a town about 6 hours north of Santiago on the coast.  The town itself is relatively small and quiet.  It's on a lovely beach and we actually enjoyed some good weather.  One of the attractions in the surrounding area is a place called Valle del Elqui, a beautiful region with mountains and desert where they cultivate grapes to make pisco, Chile's favorite liquor.  We took a 2 hour bus ride through the beautiful terrain to Pisco del Elqui, where the Gabriel Mistral factory is located.  It was the most charming little town surrounded on all sides by snow-capped mountains and rich brown earth.

View of Pisco del Elqui

The main attraction of this tiny little town is the pisco factory and being three kids from Napa and one from Santa Maria it's hard to resist a tour of a drink dispensary that uses grapes.  For 6,000 CLP we got a tour, two tastings, a free glass and a free drink.  The tour was lovely, we were the only ones in the whole place.  They gave the tour in Spanish so I played translator.  Pisco, it turns out, is distilled wine.  Who knew?

Old delivery wagon

At the end of the tour we tasted two different kinds of pisco in the cellar.  Pisco is typically served with Coca Cola but we tried it straight.  It actually wasn't bad, it's a pretty smooth liquor that is reminiscent of whiskey because it's aged in barrels and has that kind of wood-y taste to it.

Storage/Tasting room

New dog friend in the square

 

 

 

On the beach in La Serena

The next day we decided to explore the town of La Serena a little bit.  We walked down to the beach by a lighthouse and had lunch.  Katie painted a water color and gave it to a local boy who was admiring it the whole time she painted.  We had some local Chilean delicacies (I always insist on eating seafood in the coastal towns because it's amazing) and admired the ocean for a while.  We also met a cool dog who let us play fetch with him a few times before deciding he'd rather eat the rock than chase it.

Katie, me, Meg, dog

La Serena kind of reminds me of Charleston, South Carolina, minus the excruciating heat and humidity.  We were in a really cute part of town with cobblestone streets and pretty buildings. 

Near our hostel in La Serena

For Katie's birthday, the 28th, we wanted to check out another one of the attractions in the surrounding area.  There is a place called Punta de Choros from which you can take a fishing boat to two separate islands.  One is called Isla de Choros and it's a wildlife preserve and the other is called Isla Damas.  We really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.  We took a van to this tiny little fishing village where they loaded us up with life jackets and giant waterproof ponchos, which turned out to be entirely necessary.  Then they walked us to the end of a dock where we found a tiny fishing boat crashing against the dock in the waves and informed us that this was our mode of transportation.  It took almost half an hour to load everyone into the boat because they had to wait intervals to allow the water to calm down to the point where it was safe.  Finally when we were all in the boat we set off for an hour journey in which somehow Megan and I would be the only ones completely soaked by the ocean spray.  It seems that we chose the wrong seats.

This is my fisherman/serial murderer look

The first island, Isla Choros, being a wildlife preserve, was not available for us to walk around on.  Instead the captain skillfully guided the boat around the island allowing us to see cormorants, sea lions and penguins.  It was a beautiful and dramatic landscape but I was so afraid of my camera falling overboard that I didn't take any pictures.  We were going to venture to the far side of the island to look for dolphins but the captain deemed the waters too treacherous so we turned back to go to Isla Damas where we were allowed to get out and take pictures.  It was a beautiful little island.

The dock at Isla Damas

Waves at Isla Damas

The ride back to shore was a little better.  They fashioned a tarp to the side of the boat to act as a barricade so we didn't get soaked again.  Part of the price we paid for the tour included lunch.  Mine was called paila marina, a seafood stew not for the faint of heart and only for the most avid seafood lovers.  It was delicious, even if I didn't know what half the food in it was.

We were exhausted from our day at sea but the next day we wanted to explore the little fishing village of Coquimbo to the south.  We could actually see the town from La Serena and it was only about a 30 minute drive down the coast.  There wasn't much to do there, but we had a nice walk along the beach and took in some pretty spectacular views.

Coquimbo

Coquimbo

After five days in La Serena we made our way back to Santiago where we stayed for about four days.  I showed them around some of my favorite parts of the city, including Cerro Santa Lucia.  It rained the previous nice so we had a lovely, smog free view of the snowy Andes.  Santiago can be a big ugly city but after it rains it is so spectacular.

Santiago from the top of the hill

Our last destinations were the coastal towns of Valparaiso, Viña del Mar, Reñaca and Con-Con.  My good friend, Lindsey, lives in Viña and graciously offered her house to us as a place to stay.  The day we left for Viña, however, we were almost stopped in our tracks by the biggest protest I have ever seen in Santiago.  The students here have been on strike for weeks now demanding free public education and it is starting to come to a head.  The morning we were to set out for the coast I left my apartment to find the streets full of students and police officers.  I live in what my friend referred to as "the eye of the hurricane" when it comes to demonstrations and protests because I live about 5 blocks from the most popular rendez-vous point.  I made it almost all the way to the hostel they were staying at without incident when this happened :http://vimeo.com/27375313
You can see me scurrying across the street about 14 seconds in right before a tear gas bomb is let off to my right.   I made it to their hostel but we were trapped inside for about an hour trying to allow some of the tear gas in the air to burn off.  Once traffic started moving in front of the hostel we rushed out to grab a cab and enjoyed a front row seat to the destruction throughout the city.  Tear gas, water cannons, students throwing rocks and lighting fires, it was a display of true chaos.  There is hardly a single wall in Santiago now without graffiti alluding to free education.  


Thankfully the bus terminal was well out of harms way and given the circumstances we were all to glad to be rid of Santiago.  We heard from one of the hostel workers that these protests were just the high school students and by night the college students would start up and it was expected to be extremely dangerous.  My roommate even called me and sent me a panicked text message later that night asking where I was and if I was safe.  Apparently she arrived to our street to find several fires burning and no sign of her gringa roommate.  


Viña and Valpo are always a treat.  We also went to have my favorite seafood empanadas in Con-Con.  In Valpo we took the oldest funicular in the city up to the top of one of the hills and spent some time in artisan shops and looking around at the street art that Valpo is famous for.

Lindsey and me admiring the street art

We also saw the movie "Horrible Bosses" which I highly recommend.  After two days on the coast we had to get back to Santiago again to see Katie on her way, but not before she tried one of my favorite Chilean dishes "chorrillana" (fries, meat, sausage, eggs, onions, heaven) and also made a few last minute souvenir purchases.  That night we went out so Megan and Chris could get a taste of Chilean nightlife and the next day they spent the day packing and I spent the day cooking.  It's amazing how vacation can be so exhausting.  But it was worth it.

Now I'm back to school with a much more favorable schedule than last semester and two classes of teachers.  It doesn't hurt that I've got 6 months of experience under my belt either making this semester look like a piece of cake compared to the last.  Here we go!

Pichilemu: ladron de mi corazon

On the way to the hostel

Anyone reading this blog knows I'm from California, but what you might not know is I'm something of an amphibious creature.  Okay, that sounds weirder than I meant for it to, but it's true.  I love the water.  I love being in the water, being near the water, hearing the water...if you stick me next to an ocean I'm happy.  In fact, in the last 6 years (minus the time spent here in Chile) I've barely lived further than 6 blocks from the beach.  It's something I just like to have around.  I feel like I belong to the waves.  They move me.

That being said, although I love living in Santiago, a city of 7 million filled with public transportation, stray dogs and smog, sometimes I feel the need to follow my fishy instincts and head to the coast.  Pichilemu is a beach that has been recommended to me by absolutely everyone, especially the surfers in my life.  I never got around to going there last year so when we had a three day weekend pop up and two of my friends suggested we take advantage of it and head west I was all for it.  Fresh air in my lungs and sand under my feet; I might as well be in heaven.

Just outside the hostel

 We took a bus Saturday afternoon and sadly missed the opportunity to take the faster bus.  There are two routes to Pichilemu and one includes about 500,000 stops at various little towns along the way.  I was advised against this route but when we arrived at the terminal it was the only option left so we had to take it.  We arrived to the coast just as the sun was setting and it was absolutely spectacular.  Something about coming around a bend and seeing the pacific ocean laid out in front of you always takes my breath away.  The road to the beach looked so much like California I almost felt like I was back there.  There was even a spot that was virtually interchangeable with Napa.  Dark green hills in the back framing vineyards with a railroad track by the road.  Needless to say even before I got to Pichilemu I felt at home there.

Walking down to the water

 That night we stayed in Surf Hostal Pichilemu.  We reserved a dorm room but since this is the off (off, off, off) season the dorms weren't open.  Since the website didn't specify that we got to stay in one of the private rooms for the same price and they are usually twice as expensive.  The rooms were clean with a private bathroom, ocean view and the warmest and most wonderful down comforters I've ever encountered.  We intended to cook dinner to save some money but the stove had no gas in it so we went out to dinner.  After dinner we tried out the local nightlife in the form of the Waitara club.  We managed to talk our way in for half the cover and had a great time dancing.

Self explanatory

 The next morning we woke up to sunshine and the sound of the roaring ocean.  We tried to check out but no one was there so we left our stuff at the hostel and went down to the beach.  The water was frigid but the temperature outside was actually lovely.  We were warmer than we've been in Santiago in weeks.  Despite the season there were a number of surfers out taking advantage of the rolling waves.  I made a promise to myself to come back and learn to surf by the end of spring so I can come down in the summer and paddle out with the pros. 

By the road

 The town is absolutely adorable.  Although most of the people there don't live there it really doesn't feel like a tourist town.  Many of its roads are dirt and there were horses everywhere.  It was so unassuming and fantastic.  Few towns can just rely on their natural awesomeness but this one definitely can.  In fact, the way we ended up paying for our hostel was running into the dueña in the middle of the "road" (dirt path) and paying her with the cash we had on us.  Things like that make me love South American even more.

Horses and cars mingling together

Pichilemu

 For lunch we ate outside and for 1,990 pesos (less than $4 US) we had fresh fried fish and french fries.  It is essential to eat the seafood in the coastal towns here.  The quality is so high and it is always fresh off the boat.  We wandered around the town a bit after lunch and got an ice cream cone to eat in the park.  Our bus left at 4pm and this time we got on the one that went straight to Santiago.  I fell 100% in love with Pichilemu and can't wait to go back.  It lived up to every expectation.

The road to the hostel

Photo credits: Jenna Rymer