Viviendo con los andes

My first adventure this week was on Tuesday when I decided to take a new route to my class at La Chile. I thought that instead of taking one bus and two metros, I would just take two busses. I looked up the route of the bus that stops by my house and it appeared to go along the exact route that I needed to get near the campus. Well, I did not know that yes, it goes along that route, but it does not stop during the entire middle section because it goes on the autopista (a freeway) for 20 minutes. When I pushed the button for the stop I wanted, a lady approached me and asked if I wanted to get off there. When I said yes, she said "Oh no, you can't get off for a long time now!" So I had to ride that bus for 30 more minutes and when I got off, the lady showed me where to get on to go back the same way. So after another 40 minutes heading in the opposite direction, I finally was able to find my way to the campus. The entire trip took me a little less than 2 hours, but luckily I wasn't late to my class because I had planned to go early to study. Now I know to stick to my original route!

On Wednesday my second class was cancelled so my friend Mary and I decided to

be tourists for the afternoon. We went to two museums: Museo de arte precolumbiano and El Museo Mapocho (which is an old train station). We were at the Museo Mapocho while the sun was setting and it was absolutely amazing behind the big glass windows. The first two pictures are of me inside the station. When I was walking, a lady came up to me and I'm not too sure what she was asking, but I know it involved the world "moneda." So basically, she was either

asking me if I could give her some money, or if I could tell her which way for La Moneda (Pres

ident's office and Chilean mint). Very unsure of which she was actually asking, I just responed with a "Lo siento!"

On Thursday, I went out with some friends (both from my program and Chilean). The funny thing is that I was with my friends Alice and Allyson, and we went to meet

Allyson's friend Allie (who studied here last semester). The Chileans like to shorten names so of course we were all Ali.

It was very confusing and made for some good laughs. Now they think most girls in the US have a name that can be shortened to Ali.

On Saturday, I went with 5 friends from my program to hike Cerro Pochoco. We took a bus from the city to the area near the mountain. When we got off the bus, we hiked for about two miles just to get to the bottom of the trail. The streets didn't exactly match Mary's directions so we went the wrong way for a while, but then found some people who gave us the right directions. We hiked up this intense staircaise which took us much closer to the trail. When we final

ly got to the trail, we decided to eat half of our lunch and save the other half for the top. The mountain we climbed was covered with cactus, which was quite strange because the surrounding mountains were covered with snow. The hike was about an hour, and once we got to the top there were amazing views of the city. The only thing that was quite unpleasant that we could see from above was the blanket of smog that covers Santiago. A stray dog (very common here), but with a collar that said Jesus, followed us from the city to the top of the mountain, stopped for our rest at the top, and walked all the way back down with us.

On Sunday, my friends

and I went on a trip for the day to Cajón de Maipo, which is a town outside of Santiago. We left Santiago at 9am and got on a bus to take us to the town, which took about an hour. When we got there, we walked around but really didn't know what to do. We went to a tourism office where they told us we had to go higher up to find things to do. Well the bus only comes once every hour so we walked around the town and bought fresh manjar (dulce de leche) which is so much better than what they sell in the stores in Santiago. We then got back on the bus and rode it up the mountain for another 30 minutes. When we got off the bus, I ran into a Chilean fri

end from one of my classes who was with her boyfriend. They didn't have any specific plan so they decided to spend

the day traveling with us. I think my friend Matías was very relieved to have other Chileans in our group. We decided that we wanted to climb the mountain which, unlike the one on Saturday,

was purely rocks, which actually made it easier to climb. We decided we wanted to reach the patch where there was snow and a waterfall. Of course, the climb ended with a small snowball fi

ght and sliding down the bits with the snow on our butts. The views were absolutely amazing so we stayed up on the rocks for a while before going down. When we got to the bottom, we walked along the road for a while and finally came to a restaurant that sells empanadas. They are cooked in ovens outside so while we were waiting we dried ourselves by the fire of the ovens. Well we ordered them quickly, but had to wait about an hour and a half before we got them! My Chilean friends didn't even get theirs after all that time so they decided to ask for their money back. So we left and went to another one further along the road that was much faster. Then we got back on the bus (I didn't enjoy this part being that it was very wind-y (as to not be confused with windy) and packed with people) but it was almost 8pm at this point and we were all very tired and needed to get home to do some homework.