Pacific waves and waterfalls

It just keeps getting better. We are now in the hands of the Rotary club in Curicó, a (small? compared to Santiago, yes, but not compared to Asheville!) city south of the big metropolis. Here we cannot see the Santiago smog and the whole rhythm of life seems much slower. We arrived Sunday afternoon and on Monday they took us to the seaside town of Iloco. I never imagined I´d be so lucky as to spend three different days at the Pacific shore during my month in Chile! We spent the entire day at this hotel right on the beach, eating, drinking, walking on the sand, and just basically loving life. We went there ostensibly for lunch but stayed until sunset. The highlight may have been watching some of my teammates tasting a sea creature that our waiter had just harvested from the rocks in front of us. We had already finished a meal of several courses including crab, shrimp and cheese empanadas, two kinds of ceviche, fried conger eel (ubiquitous here), and abalone, with of course the customary pisco sour and then wine, and were relaxing with an amaretto when we saw the waiter run out to the shore. Melinda and Michael were just returning from a walk on the beach and joined him in harvesting a shelled creature shich none of us recognized. Upon returning to the restaurant, the waiter showed us how to remove them from their shells, drip a little lime juice on them, and suck them up. Wow.

Above are two normal everyday scenes one may see on the way to the coast from Curicó.

Today we visited two apple orchards and a national park. The first falls we saw was interestingly named Bridal Veil. (Don´t we have one of those in WNC)? This one´s 150´tall, about 1/3 taller than Looking Glass Falls, I believe. We were amazed at how clear and blue the water was.

The falls to the left is called 7 teacups. Unfortunately we couldn´t find a spot where we could see all seven falls and their pools, but it was impressive enough to see this much. Michael and I slipped through the fence at the lookout point and climbed right down to the edge of the lower pool you see here. Sam, you would´ve wanted to dive in for sure, but it was too cold for me! Plus, at this point we´d spent about four hours in and around the restaurant nearby and sunset was impending.

Tomorrow we have some vocational visits planned, and then a meeting with the mayor of Curicó followed by a presentation at the Rotary club meeting, which starts at 8:30pm!

Doors of Santiago

To the right is the entrance to an artist´s studio in the Pueblo de los Dominicos, a colonial cathedral whose surrounding buildings have been turned into an artisan´s colony.

Below is the entrance to the main chamber of the Supreme Court. The image of Medusa is supposed to keep secrets in and outside influence out.

To the right is one of the entrances to the oldest building of the University of Chile.

To the right- the train station in San Bernardo, a city of 200,000 about half an hour outside of Santiago.

Below, the main entrance to the cathedral on the main plaza in downtown Santiago.

Below right, inside the Congress building in Valparaiso.

Cold toes in San Pancho

Got to stick my toes in the Pacific again today! The second time in a week and only the second time since San Diego in August. What an indescribable feeling. Someday I will have to live on the left coast again (whether it's North or South America, no me importa). The water's a bit colder here than what you SoCal people have. No photos here of my team romping in the waves because I was too busy splashing in them, and then running a bit up and down the stretch of sand available, to get out my camera. But here's a shot of the port city of Valparaiso. Although it's not as active as it used to be (once it was the busiest port in South America) it looks to me like it's still got a lot going on.


We rode the funicular (anyone know what that is?) up to the top of the hill to look down on the coastline.

To the right is a model of the funicular (is that not the funniest word in the English language?) so you can see it's like a little train car that rides the rails up the side of a hill. Above is the view from the window as we ascended. It's so hilly here- really does remind you of San Francisco- that these things are everywhere and not only for tourists; they are actually used by the locals to get around. It cost us about 50 cents to ride up. Some like to call the town of Valparaiso San Pancho because Pancho is the nickname for Francisco and this is like a little San Francisco.



After drinking a pisco sour up on top of the hill looking down on the port, we went down again and had lunch (seafood of course- razor clams a la parmesan and then fried conger eel) at a navy-themed restaurant overlooking the ocean, where a sea lion napped on a rock. Then we had a tour of the Congress and learned all about the legislative process here. Similar to ours but interesting in that there is no joint committee that finalizes a bill after the House and Senate have each passed their version. Here the House introduces a bill, the Senate changes it, and then it gets voted on. Sounds like it would speed things up but our guide said bills often take years to come to a vote. Also there is no way to override a presidential veto; once a bill is vetoed it's dead and cannot be reintroduced for a year.

Tomorrow we present at the Rotary district conference, and then early Sunday morning we board the train headed south to Curico. We'll spend the next two weeks in smaller cities all within about three hours of Santiago. Expect to visit some more wineries and see a copper mine, among other exciting and surprising things. The Rotarians here continue to treat us as if we were visiting dignitaries, and I imagine those in the south will do the same.

Hasta luego, or as they say here- ciao!

Snail milk, army wine, and more

It´s hard to believe that it´s been four days since I´ve posted. In some ways it seems time is flying, but when I stop to think about all I´ve done and seen, I find it incredible that so much could have happened in only nine days! In addition to the major important sights in Santiago (the central market, the presidential palace, a couple of cathedrals, the national history museum and artisan villages), we´ve been out to the country and up to 7200 feet (what is called here the pre-mountains!). I´ve also had four professional visits now, where entire staffs it seems have taken at least an hour and sometimes more than two, to talk to me and my fellow educators on the team about how they do education here. We´ve been to a technical high school, an adult ed center, a four-room schoolhouse serving pre-K through 8th grade, and the University of Chile. Mostly what we´ve found is that we share the same problems! Everyone we´ve met is extremely kind and generous and seems genuinely interested in sharing with us.

We´ve also met a couple of mayors and had drinks in the oldest and most presitigious social club in the country. This club also boasts the longest bar in South America, so naturally we had to get a picture with Michael, who currently works as a bartender in Boone, standing behind the bar. (I´m not posting that one because this one gives you a much better view of the whole place). Apparently women have only been allowed into this club in the last few years and their presence at the actual bar is still frowned upon.

Today we met a snail farmer. She´s the president-elect of the Rotary club in San Bernardo, a city of about 250,000 people which lies about 15 minutes by train outside of Santiago. She has her own snail farm on her property, and in addition the club is piloting a project whereby unemployed folks with disabilities are trained to run a small snail farm in town. They ´milk´the snails by tickling their feet and harvesting the secretion that results. Apparently it´s loaded with collagen and elastin as well as natural antibiotics and other stuff that´s great for our skin. Labs buy it for $100 per liter, then put it into lotions and such. Also of course you can eat their meat, although that´s not popular here. Their poop is great fertilizer too. What a groovy operation this was, and employing disabled folks seems to be a great success. You just never know what you´re going to learn when you step out into the world, eh? (Remind me later and I can tell you all about snail sex, too).


And then what could top a snail farm but a vineyard run by the military?! This is a country that appreciates its wine, all right. We´re told the vineyard was donated to the military in the early 70s to save it from Allende´s agrarian reform project, because god forbid some land should go to the peasants! So the army now runs it and supplies its officers clubs and such with the wine it makes. Neither the equipment nor the process has been modernized much, so we got a good look at how wine used to be made. Then we had a taste and were quite impressed. They only make two kinds- a cabernet sauvignon and a muscatel (? not sure if I´m remembering that one´s name correctly, but it´s a very sweet white which I don´t like). The cab was great though, and we drank it with olives, cheese, and nuts right there in the dim and damp stone-walled and -floored fermenting room. Afterwards the San Bernardo Rotary Club presented each of us with a bottle of our choice boxed in a nifty little wooden crate with the image of an 18th century soldier on it.

All told it was another fabulous day for us, in the hands of yet more wonderful rotarios chilenos. It seems each day is better than the day before, and tomorrow should be no exception as we are going to Valparaiso on the coast, which many have compared to San Francisco. This is what I´ve been looking forward to most about the whole trip!! I promise to take lots of photos.

Finally some blog time!

So I failed my first Spanish test- the flight attendant asked me if I wanted beef or chicken for dinner and I said, "Water please." Now for those of you that speak Spanish and can´t imagine how I mistook "Carne o pollo" for "Algo de tomar", let me just say that the Chilean dialect is really freaking extreme. They pretty much leave out all the consonants, it seems, and half the words I learned in Mexico are not used here. Actually I´m getting used to it now (it´s been five long days since that flight attendant tried to trick me) and even hearing it in my own speech now and then, but still there are people whom I cannot understand one word from.

As I´d suspected would happen, Rotary is keeping us extremely busy and I´m not finding much time to post. Also I haven´t really figured out how to do this yet and it seems to take forever to upload photos, so I really need a good chunk of time to make a post. Maybe I´ll get better at it as we go along.


Here´s the view from
Pablo Neruda´s home in Isla Negra, about an hour from Santiago. What a wild place! Couldn´t take any photos inside the house unfortunately so you´ll just have to imagine the crazy collections: navigational instruments, seashells, butterflies and beetles, glass liquor bottles, masks, those women with big boobs that are posted on the fronts of ships to calm the seas...you name it. And the house was constructed as much as possible to feel like a boat, so low rounded ceilings, really narrow doors, everything wooden, etc. Sam would be in heaven. I really hope he can see it someday. And the view from the bed in the only bedroom in the house is such that I´d never get up if I lived there!

Sorry I don´t have the patience to try and upload more photos right now (I actually had about four more on here a minute ago and somehow deleted them!) but I will tell you that I´m having a fantastic time with many new and hopefully lifelong friends and I could definitely live here. Tomorrow I´m going to visit an ESOL class for adults taught (I think) by volunteers. Can´t wait to see how they do it (and how much they might want to pay me to stay and run the program for them.....?!) Just kidding, Sam- I´ll come home, really I will.

Part of my reasoning for embracing this opportunity was of course to experience an unfamiliar culture and to immerse myself in the Spanish language in order to hone that skill, but also (and more importantly?) it was for the personal growth that is precipitated by leaving a familiar environment and routine and experiencing new and challenging situations. This is not something I often do without the context of something big like this cultural exchange. Others can be more subtle with their growth perhaps; for me it´s often difficult to make small changes or add small new things to my experience, but I don´t think twice about leaving everything I know for several weeks and flying across the ocean for a little challenge. (Or moving across the country, as I´ve done four times now...) Something about leaving the familiar behind and jumping into a strange new situation with new people turns me on I guess. I caught a glipse of my reflection in an airport window last night and startled I thought, "what the hell am I doing in the Miami International Airport at 10:30 on a Tuesday night?! And who are these people around me and why am I with them?!" The answer, I suppose, is so that I"ll be faced with that very question.

Anyway, I´m here now and will post as soon as I´m able a photo from the plane this morning of sunrise over the Andes. Actually you can´t tell it´s sunrise but what´s amazing is how the mountain tops protrude out of a sea of thick clouds. It looked like the coast of Northern California with the foam all around the cliffs and rocks, but it was as if the ocean of foam was totally still.

Thanks for checking in...more later!

My GSE team

Here we are in full Rotary regalia (except for me, that is, with the

unauthorized scarf...). To my left is Stan Cutts, Rotarian and team leader; to my right are Melinda Bullen, Michael Diettrich-Chastain, Mike Shay, and Adair Cates. We've known each other now for about three months and I for one feel like we're an awesome team- a diverse group that gets along well and brings different strengths and talents to the table. We've been meeting twice monthly since we were selected as Rotary District 7670's GSE (Group Study Exchange) team. During these meetings we've put together an informational brochure about us and our corner of NC as well as a PowerPoint to accompany the presentation we'll make at Rotary clubs in the Santiago area of Chile. Our meetings have also included lots of good food and several samples of Chilean wine!