Solo ida

Iquique > Valparaíso (25 hours) > Santiago (2 hours) > Valparaíso (2 more hours) > 

Santiago (Yup, 2 more) > Puerto Varas (12 hours) > Valdivia (3 hours) > 

Pucón (2.5 hours) > Caburgua (.5 hours) > Temuco (2 hours)

Subtract the 2.5 hours I traveled by car between  Pucón, Caburgua and Temuco and that leaves a whopping 48.5 hours that I've spent on a bus this month (given that my calculations are correct...feel free to check).  If I believed in bad omens, this trip would most definitely not have happened. As I mentioned, the trip down to central Chile wasn't quite as smooth as we'd hoped it would be.  

We bought our tickets with a few weeks of anticipation, got everything ready (with not so much anticipation...can you say, last minute?) and rushed down to the bus station on Saturday night.  We got there pretty much right at the departure time but they were still loading people onto the bus so we figured we were fine.  When they saw us and all of our luggage (ok, MY luggage...still haven't quite mastered the arts of traveling light), they took one look at us and said, no way in hell (in not so many words).  We (I) had too much luggage.  They weren't going to take us, no way.  

Time to go to the register and change our ticket time.  Wait, what's that you say?  You have no more tickets until after Christmas and you don't want to give me back my money (Almost $200 USD).  

Oh.  hell. no.

Enter enraged gringa (me) vacillating between calm rational discussion and screaming concha tu madre at the saleswoman, who couldn't have been less helpful.  She sent me back to the mercado where I bought the tickets only to talk to another saleswoman who was nicer but equally unhelpful.  After two hours of arguing, crying and running (literally) back and forth between mercado and the bus station, I finally surrendered.  We paid to store our bags at the station overnight and bought two new tickets (110 USD a pop) with a different company (screw you Pullman) for the next morning.  I asked the vendor from the other company about the sobre equipaje (excess luggage) fee and, taking pity on me, he told me he would talk to the driver and make sure I didn't have to pay anything else extra.

Feeling defeated, we started walking home.  About four blocks from the station, I got a call from one of my best friends in Iquique who I had called to vent somewhere in the midst of the chaos.  He asked where we were and told us to stay put until he could get there.  The three of us made our way back to the bus station together.  I was doubtful anything good would come out of it but Luis was determined.  After five minutes, FIVE MINUTES, of talking with the same saleswoman I'd just spent the better part of the night with, Luis had the name of a manager and a promise that, if he came back the next day, he could get our money back.  Enter equally enraged (but knows when to keep her mouth shut) gringa.  If it was that easy, why couldn't we have got that settled two hours ago?

The next morning, we got the bus station earlier than I've ever arrived before a bus in my Chilean life.  There was no way we were going to risk anything going wrong.  A bus from our company was just arriving but it was still a good 45 minutes before our departure.  Paranoid (and rightfully so), I showed the man loading luggage on the bus my ticket and asked him if it was this one or the next.  Sure enough, he told me that it was our bus and started putting our bags on board.  We hopped on and, to our surprise, the bus took off within ten minutes...about a half an hour before departure time.  We thought it was a bit odd but were stoked to arrive in Valpo a little ahead of schedule.

When the guy came around to take our tickets, he gave us the ultimate stink face.  We were on the wrong bus.  Our conversation (roughly translated) went something like this:

Ticket Collector: You're on the wrong bus.

Irritated Gringa: Really?  Because I double-checked that this was the right bus before we got on.

Ticket Collector: (talking to me like I'm an idiot) Who told you this was the right bus?

Even-More-Irritated Gringa: (pointing) Ummm...your homie right over there.  I showed him my ticket and he said this was the bus.

Ticket Collector: Well, it's not.  We're going to drop you off in Bajo Molle (aka middle of the nowhere) and you can wait for your bus there.

Livid Gringa: Are you #$%@ing kidding me?  We're like five minutes from the station.  Drop us off here and we'll walk back for god's sake.

Ticket Collector: Nope, we're dropping you off in Bajo Molle.

Livid Gringa with smoke coming out of her ears: But I DON'T TRUST THAT!  Drop us off here!

Ticket Collector: Nope.  

So there we were, with all of our (my) baggage, in the middle of the dessert at 8 in the morning, cursing Pullman bus, Condor bus, and Iquique for plotting a mastermind plan to keep us trapped there forever.  Luckily I had the foresight to snap this picture as a lovely keepsake of our morning.

Twenty-something hours later, we finally made it to Valpo...but I've already told you all about that.  After Christmas, we headed back to Santiago where we spent five nights before New Years and then returned for Jeff's last two nights in Chile.  I'm glad that he had the chance to see a little more of Chile before setting off since his experience has been primarily limited to Northern Chile which is completely different from the central and southern parts of the country.

We did lots of typical tourist stuff; hiking up cerros de San Cristobal and Santa Lucia, tasting strange flavors of ice-cream at Emporio La Rosa, strolling down Pio Nono, shopping in the artisanal markets and stopping by La Piojera for some typical Chilean food and (of course) some terremotos.

 Chorrillana at La Piojera

 Terremotos: The National Drink of Chile

 Cerro Santa Lucia

 Cerro San Cristobal

Kenita and Jeff

On Calle Estados Unidos

In addition to all that "typical Santiaguino" stuff, we also took advantage of being in a city and indulged in some typical (north) American stuff.  Usally I try to avoid seeking out stuff from the US while traveling but it was good to have a little taste of home after almost a year abroad.  Iced coffees were sipped, muffins were snarfed and cravings were quenched...Sorry, not sorry.  Overall, we had a great time.  Yay for ignoring the signs and forging on ahead anyway, bad omens be damned.

Since Jeff left, things have been a little unstable (yes, even more-so than they were before).  I spent one night in a hostel in Santiago and then a few days with a friend while I was waiting on a response from my boss in Iquique about the position in the mine.  Sitting around playing the waiting game was starting to get me down so I decided to bite the bullet and by myself a one-way ticket south to Puerto Varas.  I already had an interview there so I figured it could either be a job opportunity for a fun little vacation.  Since then, I've been taking things (quite literally) day by day, going where the wind (and my very limited travel funds) take me and buying "solo ida" (just one-way) because God knows if and when the vuelta (return) will happen.

I have been more or less living with the bus company's website open, checking different routes and playing with different travel/work plans.  One awesome thing about the south is that the distances are much shorter between cities than in north of Chile.  In the past week I've had the chance to explore five different beautiful cities and with a little more time in the south, I'll be able to see so many more.  It's also getting to be about visa renewal time so it looks like a mini-trip to Argentina might be in order.

Meanwhile, my life, much like my new favorite website is esperando respuesta, awaiting an answer.

 A much-needed cold beer on a hot hot day in Valdivia 

(Kunstmann Torobayo to be exact, one of my favorite beers)

 Valdivia from the bridge

 Me, melting in the hot Valdvia sun

More beautiful lakes (in Valdivia)

 Sheep crossing our path in Caburgua

 At the dock in Pucón

 Park in Central Pucón

 Vocano View from Pucón

 Cabin in Caburgua

 Inside View

Me & Paula on our last day in Caburgua,

about to head to Temuco

 

Cumple doble en Peru

Oh heyyyy there, guess who just back from 2 weeks in Peru and is ready to tell you alllll about it?  Sit tight, this could be a long one.  Let´s just say our "cumpleaños doble" in Peru was a huge success (with a few minor hiccups along the way).  What hiccups?  Well, for starters my camera got stolen...at Machu Picchu...on the LAST day of our trek...before I uploaded a single pic on my camera.  Boo.  Luckily, I´ve scrapped together a few pictures and we didn´t let that ruin our experience in Peru.  

Ok, now let´s rewind back to the beginning of the trip.  We set sail (so to speak) on Saturday, October 13th in the wee hours of the morning.  We took a bus from Iquique to Arica, a taxi from Arica to Tacna and another bus from Tacna to Arequipa.  Simple, right?  Should have been but sadly, it was not.  When we got to Arica, a man working at a (reputable) bus company offered us a ticket to Arequipa for 18,000 pesos (about 40 bucks give or take) which seemed pretty legit considering we´d done no research into the prices.  We figured we skip the step of going to Tacna, finding a bus etc etc.  Turns out, the guy just taxied us over the border, walked to the ticket booth with us and bought us a 5,000-peso ticket to Arequipa.  Since the taxi ride across the bored is usually about 3-4,000 pesos, we basically paid $20 each to get our hand held to the ticket counter of a crappy bus company.  We ended up not even using the tickets because we weren´t familiar with the brand and really wanted something we knew was reliable/safe.  Ooops, rookie mistakes that someone who has been in South America for NINE months really shouldn´t be making...but C'est la vie.  

Finally, 6ish hours after we boarded a nice, SAFE (you're welcome mom and dad) bus, we arrived in Arequipa.  We were given a hostel recommendation from a friend and we really loved where we stayed.  We spent Jeff´s birthday doing a mountain biking tour of the Arequipeañan countryside (of which, no photos remain), exploring downtown and noming on all kinds of good (and super cheap) food.  For dinner we had some Peruvian delicacies.  Jeff tried llama (I, of course, refrained) and I had some delicious ceviche.  That night we had a few beers with some new friends at the hostel and the next morning we checked out of our hostel and did some river rafting.  

Later that night, we set off  to Cusco which was about nine hours by bus.  We arrived at 6:30 am which wasn't exactly ideal since we couldn't check into our hostel until 1:00 pm...but we made the best of it.  We wandered around the Plaza de Armas and the local market, ate a delicious breakfast and drank some coca tea while we waited to take a hot shower and a quick power nap and head out again.  Our few days in Cusco were great, complete with horse-back riding, rock-climbing and some lovely little strolls around the city.  After four days, we set off on our trek to Machu Picchu, the best part of our trip.

 

Day one of the trip, included a fairly-long ride in a van after meeting up with the rest of our group (13 in total).  I got pretty car sick while we were heading up a long and windy road into the mountains but was fine as soon as we got out and got some fresh air.  We did a four-hour bike ride (all downhill) through some gorgeous landscapes and then grabbed some lunch at a local restaurant.  Some of the group went to go river rafting but we sat it out since we had already gone once on the trip and wanted to save a little bit of cash.  As a group, we decided to mix up the regular plan of the trip and stay at a residencial family house in the mountains instead of the hostel in Santa Maria. Those of us who opted to the skip the rafting, hiked up to the house after lunch and the others came after their rafting trip.  The house was called La Casa del Mono (and yes, they had a pet monkey) and it was kind of a make-shift hostel/organic farm/educational station where they show the process of making chocolate and coffee.  There was an AMAZING view and it cut a few hours off our hiking for the next day.  

Day two was still a hike-all-day kinda day.  We had a few little stops along the way, including a dip in a river and crossing the rapids in a "cable car" (aka a 2x4' scrap of metal attached to a cable that goes over a river...eeek).  Our day ended in a trip to the hot springs in Santa Teresa (fabulous), dinner in the town afterwards and crashing out in our hostel to get up bring and early the next morning for zip-lining!  

Zip-lining was great and our hike (walk really) on day three was absolutely beautiful.  We walked about three hours to Aguas Callientes where we had our own room in the hostel and a hot shower for the first time in three days (yesss!)  

Day four was (of course) the most amazing view of all, Machu Picchu!  We got up at 4 am, hiked up (and I mean straight up) for a little less than an hour over about 2,000 stairs (not exaggerating) and finally we were there.  The ruins were covered with fog and it was an awesome (although partially obscured) view.  Eventually the fog burned off and we were able to explore MP with our trusty guide, Yawer who was really great the whole trip.  Unfortunately that is where my camera got snagged but we tried to make the best of things and thoroughly enjoy one of the Seven Wonders of The Modern World.  After we returned to Aguas Callientes, we grabbed some pizza and beers with a few friends and hopped on a train back to Cusco.

Day One

 

Day Two

 

 Day Three

Day Four!

Back in Cusco, we wrapped up the trip by buying a few souvenirs and grabbing some drinks with the friends from our trek before starting our long series of bus rides back to Iquique.  Thanks for such a great time Peru, it won't soon be forgotten.