El bicentenario: Una gran aventura en el sur de Chile

For Fiestas Patrias, which is the holiday for Chilean Independence Day, we had a week off of classes, so I went on a trip to southern Chile with six friends from my program. This year Chile turned 200. I've heard people saying bicentenario so much that I forgot what the word was in English! We left Santiago on an 11pm bus and arrived in Pucon at 9am the next day. The amazing thing about Chile is the diversity in the climates. The north is desert and the south is very wet and green. It rained almost every day on our trip, but because of it the scenery is amazing. Pucon has one main street and is a tourism-based town so it has tons of hostels and shops that coordinate outdoor adventures. We took a short bus to Pucon's lake and walked along the beach. As we walked, we came upon some wild sheep that decided to follow us. We had to walk fast to get away from them, as their baaah-ing was intense. We heard drum sounds from very far away, which turned out to be some hippies playing music on the beach. We think the sheep were confused and trying to follow the music because according to Chileans, sheep only flee from people. We we got back to town, we went to one of the adventure shops because we wanted to climb volcano villarica, which is a very popular thing to do there. The shop was run by French people and we got a good laugh out of their ability to speak Spanish in a French accent. We tried on all the clothing that we would need to use for the climb, but we knew that we had to wait for a weather evaluation to see if the trip could happen. Ecole, our eco-friendly hostel in Pucon, was a wonderful surprise. It had warm, comfortable beds and a vegetarian restaurant! Madeline and I shared their lasagne which was absolutely amazing. The next morning, we had to meet thehiking group at 7am. They still weren't sure about the weather conditions so they said we had to get our gear on and drive up to the base. Unfortunately, we couldn't climb because it wassnowing at the base. It was hard to be sad about that because I was soexcited about the snow! When we got back to Pucon, we took a bus toVillarica. This picture, from outside the municipalidad has a stoplight that tells people about

the condition of the volcano. If

the light is

red, it is erupting and toxic. If it

is gree

n, it is safe to climb. In Villarica we

went to a farm and had a guided tour of it by

this man that lives there. The fields were absolutely beautiful, and even though we had to climb through some barbed wire fences, it was definitely worth it. We saw cows (including one that was just

born) and sheep and visited a Mapuche family's cheese factory. We purchased some cheese to share which was delicious. Our tour guide then took us to the

Crater beer factory. The man who owns the fac

tory gave us a tour and explained the process. We laughed when he told us that he built all the mac

hines but has to apply the labels to the bottles with glue and a paintbrush. In the evening, we leftVillarica on a bus to Puerto Montt.

We slept in Puerto Montt and woke up early to head to Chiloe. The owner of our hostel in Puerto Montt made us a delicious french toast breakfast before we left for Chiloe. Chiloe is a large island off

of the mainland of Chile. Our hostel owner told us we could take a bus to Ancud, Chiloe from Puerto Montt. We weren't too sure how that was possible since Chiloe is an island, but we soon found out that the bus drives straight onto a ferry which takes the bus to Chiloe. When on Chiloe, the bus keeps driving to Ancud. It was such a fascinating experience to be on a bus on a boat! We went to Mundo Nuevo, our hostel in Ancud, which had beautiful views of the ocean. Our hostel owner arranged a tour of the penguin sanctuaries for us. Two taxis came to our hostel to pick us up and take us to the beach.

The drive was amazing because the island is basically green hills that seem to never-ending. The taxis drove us straight onto the beach where we were then given por-si-acasos (lifejackets, or literally just-in-case's). We then had to ge

t onto a wooden trolly type thing that two men pushed so that we could get onto the boat without getting wet. Once on the boat, the driver took us the rocks where we could see the humboldt penguins. They are very small and there weren't too many since it is not quite the season yet, but it was definitely worth it!

That night we went out to dinner for traditional

Chilean food. Some of my friends ate curanto, which is this huge plate of meat, chicken, seafood, and sausages. We the

n went to the supermarket to stock up on food

because the supermarkets close for three days for the holiday! The next morning we got on a bus to go to Castro, Chiloe for the 18th, the actual holiday. Along the way, a couple got

on our bus with a huge drum set that the driver had to fit in the passenger seat. In Castro we saw a typical fiestas patrias parade with Chileans in

traditional outfits and playing instruments. We

then walked through many artisenal fairs. Since most things were closed, we got on another bus to go to Achao because we heard that there were beautiful views there. Yes, the ocean was pretty but there was literally nothing to do there. We asked a family what there was to do there and the guy asked us why we would ever have gone there. So we headed back to Castro, had dinner, and then Martin, Allison, and I went to a fonda, which is the

typical Chilean family party for the holiday. It was fun to see all the families dancing the traditional dances together. Luckily, CIEE had an evening for us to learn Cueca, the national dance. We were glad we had learned before the trip because we were able to dance the cueca a

t the fonda, impressing the Chileans with our abilities.

The next morning, we went back to our hostel in Puerto Montt. We then took a bus to Puerto Varas. We explored the town and went to more Chilean fairs. We searched for chicha, the typical Chilean drink for this holiday. It is pretty much fermented grape juice, but not quite wine. The tourist office there told

us to go see the waterfalls. So we got on yet another bus and it took an hour to get there. When we arrived, the park had just closed, so we literally got off the bus, crossed the street, and got on a different bus to go back. We would have stayed to walk around, but since it was pouring rain, we didn't want to risk having to wait for the next bus. That night, we slept at our hostel in Puerto Montt and woke up early the next morning to get on the bus to come back to Santiago. The bus ride was definitely one of the most boring experiences of my life. Since we were further south than where we arrived in Pucon, combined with the traffic from the holiday, the ride

took 15 hours. The ride was too bumpy to read and the sound on the tvs didn't work. It was such a wonderful trip but after that ride, I was so happy to be back in Santiago!

Here is a short video clip of Allison and I dancing the Cueca!