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!