She Left as She Came; in the Rain and with Too Much Luggage

Sunset south of Iquique (taken from the window of my bus)

After innumerable warnings about the quantity of rain in the south (supposedly regardless of season), I experienced exactly two days of it.  First there was the beautiful misty morning that greeted me upon my arrival to Puerto Varas.  Then, after almost a month of uncharacteristically high temperatures, the south of Chile granted me one more beautiful day of rain in Temuco before I set off on a 25-hour bus ride northward through the driest desert on earth. 

My decision to leave Pucón was a combination of push and pull factors.  For now, I´ll keep it classy and leave the details of those push factors off of the internet.  In all honestly, I really would have loved to spend more time in the south but, to put it nicely, the stars just weren't alined this time.  I will say that met some genuinely amazing people during my trip and I have no doubt that I'll be back to visit them before my time in Chile is up.  However, for the time-being, my place is in the North.

It seems strange to call a place home when, a year ago, I barely knew it existed.  However, upon my return to Iquique, there was no denying it; I was home.  I've done my fair share of running around since I left Iquique in late December and, after six weeks of being away (and 95 hours on a bus), it feels sweet to be back.  For all the things I love about traveling and being in new and exciting places, there's something undeniably comfortable about familiar places and faces.  After running into several friends on the street this evening and popping in to visit a few more, my decision to return to Iquique was reaffirmed.  It feels good to be with my peeps.  Some reassuring news from work also helped sweeten the deal.

For now, it looks like my near future will involve a little waiting and thus require a bit of patience but I've become pretty accustomed to that.  Unfortunately February is vacation season in Chile which means everything runs just slightly worse than usual.  Luckily, I have surf, sun and good people to keep me distracted while things get organized.  The picture is a little foggy but it looks like my career in mining will be taking off after-all. I, as usual, will keep ya posted.

On Family Life & Fleeing the Country

"Well, transience always carries with it an air of possibility" 

-T.H. Watkins

I snagged that little gem of a quote from a PBS special about the gold rush a few years back and am recently finding that it's becoming increasingly applicable to my life.  

One thing I've noticed about that so-called "transience" is that the speed at which it can change your day-to-day reality is remarkable.  Unknown landscapes become your backyard overnight and complete strangers become your family in a matter of hours.  After a few days, something that was so recently foreign to you, becomes the new norm and you slip seamlessly into routine, just in time for everything to change again.

That's a pretty accurate way to sum up the past few weeks of my life.  In Santiago, I spent 3 days with a friend of a friend and her roommate and daughter.  They were absolutely lovely.  I spent my days doing job research and load after load of free laundry (uh-may-zing after 3 months without a washing machine) and my nights eating onces with the family and talking with them until the wee hours of the morning. Their kindness and generosity overwhelmed me.  They not only put me up but also fed me and offered to help me find a job in Santiago, a place to stay in Valdivia and even to loan me money.  I didn't accept any of those offers but I did take them up on a suggestion to leave a bag at there house for the time-being and thank God I did.  Next time I go abroad, all I'm bringing is a change of clothes and a tooth brush, that's it.  Ok, maybe a stick of deodorant...maybe.  Lugging around all of this baggage has seriously been the bane of my existence on this trip.

And I've been doing a lot of lugging.  As I mentioned, I kicked off my summer in the south with a few days in Puerto Varas where I couch surfed for the first time.  If you're unfamiliar with couch surfing, it is an amazing site that connects people from all of the world.  Travelers can contact people who live in the areas where they're traveling and be hosted in those places for free (have I mentioned lately that I'm broke...pinch every peso!)  I'll admit, I was slightly sketched out by the whole thing at first.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't have my valuables hidden and my pepper spray handy upon arrival.  There's always that initial suspicion of someone who wants to do something nice for you for no good reason but it didn't take me long to loosen up.  

My second couch surfing experience in Caburgua was even more amazing.  The girl who hosted me was renting a lakeside cabin in Playa Blanca with her family.  I spent a couple of nights with them there and then went back to their house in Temuco (about an hour away) for one extra night.  The whole family was such buena onda.  I had an amazing time with them.  Not only was the place beautiful but the people were tons of fun.  Great location, awesome company, good food & drinks and all for free?!  Holllller.

To be honest, these random little encounters I've had with now four different individuals/families (in Santiago, Puerto Varas, Caburgua/Temuco and now in Pucón) have been some of my best experiences in Chile.  Hooray for talking to strangers.

Now, I find myself right smack in the middle of a completely different family; complete with a mom, dad, two small children (6 and 9), a few dogs and twenty-something foreigners from all over the world.   

After my night in Temuco, I bid farewell to my new adopted family and headed back to Pucón where I had landed a job at  La Bicicleta; a hostel/restaurant in the central part of this cute little city.  For now, my plans to work in the mine are off, or at least postponed for the time-being.  In the meantime, I'm going to take advantage of being in this gorgeous (although, right now, hot as hell) place and try to do all of the outdoorsy stuff I can.  Bring on the hiking, kayaking, rafting, canyoning, biking and whatever else you've got for me Pucón.  

Tomorrow I'm off to do an (insanely expensive) border hop to Argentina to renew my visa and earn my ninth Chilean passport stamp upon re-entry.  I'll be hanging out in San Martin de los Andes for the day (maybe day and a half) thus bringing my total bus time for the past month up to a record-breaking 58.5 hours (ew).  I'll be setting off around 10:30 AM and returning either later in the same night or the next morning depending on the bus schedule, available accommodations and, frankly, how I feel.  Who knows, if I really fall in love with it, I may never return.  Crazier things have happened.  I guess that's the beauty of transience, anything is possible.

Puerto Varas: Sweden in Spanish

 

Blame it on the fact that I've been stranded in a desert for the past nine months and everything green looks the same to me, but upon my arrival to Puerto Varas on Tuesday, I couldn't help but be reminded of my very first international adventure in Sweden, almost four years ago. 

Perhaps it was the lush vegetation, the quaint little country houses with streams of smoke pouring out of cute little chimneys or the lingering smell of waffle cones which seems to follow you freaking everywhere (or is that just me?) but there is something about Puerto Varas that left me feeling quite deja vu-ish.  Despite a signifigant difference in the blonde population, the two places are strangely similar.  Every so often, my reminiscing would be interruped by the shrill cry of "weon" reminding me that I wasn´t in Scandinavia but rather suprisingly in Chile; the same country where I´ve spent the past eleven months.

I arrived in Puerto Varas around 9:30 in the morning. The gorgeous green countryside was draped in fog and it was raining just the perfect amount.  I made my way to the house where I was couch surfing just in time for introductions and a quick breakfast before I dropped off my things and set out to wander aimlessly for a while, as (you may have noticed) is my tendency.  My trek lasted about two hours and wasn't unlike the walk around Värmdö from which this blog got its name.  

Later in the day, I had an interview for a language school.  At this point it looks like I´ll be returning to Iquique to work in the mine but I´m keeping my options open.  If I've learned anything in the past year, it is have a plan B.  The school was great and the owner was super nice but the salary is about half what I´d be making up North.  Womp womp.

I went out with my couchsurfing host and some friends of hers for a few beers (can you say microbrews on tap? ohhh yeaahhh) on Tuesday night and the next morning I went to the National Park .  Needless to say, a few hours of nature was just what the doctor ordered.  Since I´m a little crunched for time at the moment, I´ll  just let the pictures (below) speak for themselves.