The weekend of wine and Mr. Hugo.

Mate. Malbec. Bikes. Mountains. Snow. Rafting. Real Coffee. Street Bizzares. Gelato. Carne. Friends.

A mi me encanta Argentina. (I love...)

Argentina and Chile probably share more border crossing than any two other countries. Living in the shadow of the Andes in Santiago, I decided to take advantage of that this past weekend. However, despite the proximity of Little Chile (its name, as I've been told the wine capitol of Argentina is known as by Chileans) Mendoza is a full work day's distance away. The reward, however, of spending additional hours in transit is sublime and breathtaking with vistas of the Andes that one will never forget.

But, after a surprisingly short (in my perspective) 8 1/2 hour bus ride, we arrived in the smiling sun (flag) country of Argentina. We were greeted at the bus stop with badgering vendors and darkness. Our night (or rather day) was just about to truly begin... after a month of living in South America, I can now say that I have adjusted to the late night lifestyle. After sunrise at 8:00 a.m. we finally rested our bodies for a few hours until we woke up for our true intent of coming to Mendoza. Bike riding around the hundreds of vineyards that encircle Medoza. 80% of Argentina's wine is produced in Mendoza. We rode out of the city to the Maipu region. While Mendoza may disappointinly have a Wal-Mart, the small pueblos that populate the Maipu area, certainly do not. The character of the dusty towns is vibrant with mom and pop shops and more vineyards than I ever saw in California's Mapa Valley, although it may not be as green and developed.

The cab dropped us off at Mr. Hugo's bike shop where we were handed a map and a red bicycle. We stirred, sniffed and slurped our way through more wine than should be considered a "tasting," I am certain. It was the last vineyard, a six mile ride from the center that we found the perfect vineyard with an even more impressive asado (bbq). If Iowa is known for its corn, Argentina is known for its steak and mate. That day I had both and I couldn't have been happier to be a carnavore with a caffeine addiction.

With the sun shining and stained wine teeth, the seven of us gringos were happy, full and content. None of us expected then that in 12 hours, a few inches of snow would blanket the valley that receives rain only five days a year and we would be in wet suits rafting a class III whitewater river, (only be kicked out 3o minutes later because of the intense cold.) With frozen hair and numb hands, we declared ourselves hardcore and vowed then to return again, later, when it's much, more warmer. Another perfect(*) day in Argentina that ended with endless sips of mate shared with new and old friends.

Two places at once.

Into the Andes.

After you cross the Chilean government security in the high Andes, you enter no man's land. It's neither Chile nor Argentina, just sheer mountain beauty and a random, abandoned ski lift.

IC in Santiago.

Sometimes home is never too far away.

In the Barrio Bellavista neighborhood last night, after a more than amazing dinner of homemade pasta, fresh shellfish, top-rated vino and oh-so-good dessert, my roomies and I continued with our dinner guests to the Revolver promotion party two blocks away. Revolver is the online English language zine for Santiago's arts, culture and music scene. An hour before the quaque (Chile's national dance) competition began, I met a fellow Iowan, hailing from Iowa City. He's been living in Santiago for five years now, his time has included a stint at Santiago's English language newspaper, The Santiago Times. We talked briefly about journalism, the glory of Iowa City, and the Picador (?). Actually his first question was this, you're from Iowa City, do you go to the Picador? I suppose in some people's opinions, whether or not you go there is a clear indicator of one's character. That being said, I'm still not really sure what that says about me in the first minute of meeting. However, I think my attempt at dancing the quaque, a two-step foot pounding, cat-chasing-the-mouse, with a flailing scarf dance, from what I observed, said much, much more. I'm not sure if the Chilean that told Joe, my roommate, and I, "Son fantastico, really!!" was being truthful or playing an awful joke on our rough imitation.

Netherless, it's always nice to have reminders of home, especially now that I've officially been living in Santiago for a month! How times flies...

Bikes, rust, and the Pacific.

Joe, Lena and I rode the long bus to the south, along the coast, for the Independence holiday. Don't judge the bikes, they were free from the hostel.

Surfing in the winter with a penguina.

Despite the blossoming purple, pink, and white flowers in Santiago's streets, in the Southern hemisphere, it's still winter here.

That, however, won't stop me from jumping in the Pacific and attempting to learn to surf, especially when I was in Pichilemu. An international surfing spot and one of Chile's finest locations of tube-producing waves.

In a smattering of Spanish and English, Joe, Lena, and I, the terrible trio, (we're still searching for a proper name), struggled through our surfing lesson. But in our thick second skin wetsuits, we looked more like floundering sea lions, than graceful surfers in the foamy sea. I managed, in a miraculous feat, to stand three times on my board, although each lasted mere seconds. I'm not sure if a blink of an eye or my standing presence on the board was longer. Netherless, in my mind, it counted.

As did the penguin, Lena and I spotted swimming in the sea three arm lengths away from us. I noticed it earlier and found the bird curious, but due to the numbing feeling of my body and the throbbing feeling in my head, from my board bopping me from a wipeout, I cast the bird out of my mind. I've never seen a penguin in its natural habitat, so naturally I never thought it would be bobbing in sea next to me. Without surprise, our surfer instructor confirmed its presence, a penguina, of course.

Guachos--The Chilean Cowboy, in all its glory.

I'm not a vegetarian. I eat meat and usually I don't feel any guilt when I do consume an occasional chicken, but like the words of Anthony Bourdain when he visited the underworld South of Chile, in its rowdy, spur-clad gang of cowboys, rodeos here just make you sad. After the agonizing chase, the calf is beat with a hefty club, in Bourdain's words, its like watching the night's dinner being tenderized right before you. The rodeo I attended, however, was on a much smaller scale, in terms of brutality, size, and excitement.

Joe, Lena and I arrived at the dirt road turnoff at 12:15, fifteen minutes after the supposed rodeo was to commence, according to the Pichilemu City festivities for Independence Day weekend. We saw the cows waiting in the pin, a lone horse waiting by a large Chilean flag, and a small handful of Chileans milling around taking pictures of the empty arena. "This is a Chilean rodeo?" both Joe and Lena exclaimed with shock and dissapointment. But once again we forgot, we're on Chilean time, which means things start appox. three hours later, if you're lucky.

We asked around, ultimately landing with the old man sporting a large black cowboy hat, he seemed to at least look like he was in the know. Between his thick rural Chilean accent and my lack of Spanish knowledge, I discerned that the rodeo wouldn't be starting for another, well, few hours. Chileans never give you a straight answer and even if they don't know the answer, they'll tell you what they think you want to know. For example, asking directions on the street, you should expect to ask three others because Chileans will make up an answer instead of just telling you they don't know. However, in the humbling kindness that almost all Chileans exude, our friendly cowboy told us we could wander the fields surrounding the valley, including the farm up the dirt path.



From a distance, I spotted a few pinned up llamas and ventured in that direction before voicing my desire to my friends. I'm not sure why, but I have an obsession with llamas. This also includes Alpacas, I'm giddy with excitement for Peru for this reason. But more enthralling, as it turned out, was the house beyond the furry creatures. The real cowboys were getting ready and preparing for the apparently real rodeo. We snapped photos, after asking first, and in turn, the pack of "rowdy" men shared vino tinto in a carved horn with us. It was much more exciting than the actual rodeo that started an hour later. We left after the break with a couple from Santiago. "Foama," he said in regards to his opinion on the rodeo. English translation, boring. They were stopping through Pichilemu and agreed to give us a ride. In Chile, hitchhiking is the most common mode of transportation for students and for three study abroad students in the rural south, we'll take advantage of that.

September 11th: A day to Remember--in Chile too.

Yes, Friday was September 11th, but the U.S. wasn't the only country to mourn the disappearance of lives on this tragic anniversary. Chile has a dark past too. It's a touchy subject in Chile and one I don't want to lament about on my blog, you can do the research on your own if you are truly curious. But what I do want to comment about is my observations of the day. USAC cleverly removed the students from Santiago, the capitol and political front runner of protests and demonstrations on September 11th. The day reserved to protest any frustrations with the government, according to our Chilean neighbor, Jorge. Foreigners, I've been told, are dealt with severely for any interaction with protests.

Despite our avoidance of Santiago, in the port-city of Valpraiso, we observed a small group of 30 protesters waving signs and chanting for justice. Firefighters lined the downtown city corners, their purpose was veiled with donation cups, but I believe differently. I returned to Santiago on Saturday to find out that three people died in the city that night as a result of the protests.

In respect and generally curiosity, my roomies and I wandered to the small city of Cementeria. It's not a city, but it could be as expansive as it is. We visited the monument for the people that disappeared during the dictatorship of Pinochet. Next to the picture of one man read the sign, "?Donde Estan?"

Studying in the shadow of Lincoln.

For my mum and dad, a picture of the Museum de Bellas Artes, just 10 steps from my apartment to the front door entrance of this magnificent building.

A block away, in Parque Forestal, Lincoln's head creates a welcome distraction. I had no idea he was so loved down south.

Pomaire.

Lesson of the day.

(Isla Negra, pictured are my roommates, Joe and Lena.)


Grocery shopping in Chile:

Like the expensive jewerly, purses, etc. that are locked in glass cases in department shoes in the U.S., in Chile, the goods valued at the grocery store include chocolate bars, coffee, and ice cream. I'm still trying to figure this one out, but it does stop me from buying those guilty pleasures.

My other Chilean grocery store secret, they don't sell peanut butter. This killed all of 3B's plans of making a peanut butter/coconut stir fry. We improvised with soy sauce, however, and it was just as delicious.

Futbol-Brazil v. Chile...a rumbling.

Being abroad means taking your chances with ailments in the form of: oh no, what did I just eat because I am so not feeling very...wait...........................good. Wednesday night, it was my turn. While the Chileans were rumbling from the intense futbol match with Brazil, apparently it was a close 2-2 game for most of the rally, except in the end when Brazil scored two seemingly impossible goals, my stomach was making noises that rivaled the neighbors' groans. Hopefully I'm over that for the rest of the trip, or at least while I'm still in Chile.

Change of plans: excursion numero uno.

The original plan for the weekend was Mendoza, Argentina. Wine, biking, and rafting. Life doesn't get much better than that, right? Especially when it's only a three hour bus ride over the border, however, with such a short weekend because of our USAC excursion on Friday, Lena and I postponed our mini-adventure for another weekend for a more extended stay.

This Friday brought Isla Negra (yes, black island, but no, not actually an island, as it turns out) and Pomaire. The latter is a dusty, pottery village an hour south of Santiago. Comprised mainly of indigenous potters, it's difficult to imagine life in Pomaire, except visions of red clay and tourists. While there, we experienced pottery in the making and empenadas baked in the brick oven. Before two hours were up, we herded back into our tour bus for the primary home of Nobel Peace Prize winning poet, Pablo Neruda. Sitting on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Neruda's home in Isla Negra is beautiful without even looking inside, however, after stepping into the interior, the rooms are just as enchanting as the sea beyond. I was not familiar with Neruda's poetry before, but without knowing anything about him, I can guess from his many collections of shells, ships, mermaid statues, globes, pipes, paintings, and more, that he was quite the character. Outside, beyond his final resting spot and his rusted iron chain fence, lies the head of Neruda, atop a large rock looking out into the endless sea.

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside of his home, however, I did take a few pictures of the vista.

Here's a sample of Neruda's poetry.

Fleas interest me so much
that I let them bite me for hours.
They are perfect, ancient, Sanskrit,
machines that admit of no appeal.
They do not bite to eat,
they bite only to jump;
they are the dancers of the celestial sphere,
delicate acrobats
in the softest and most profound circus;
let them gallop on my skin,
divulge their emotions,
amuse themselves with my blood,
but someone should introduce them to me.
I want to know them closely,
I want to know what to rely on

Rednecks?

Oh communication can be so difficult at times. While trying to buy my ticket to communication (a telefono for contact within Chile), I couldn't communicate with the cajas in the phone store. Como??? Oh shit. Why is my Spanish so awful sometimes?

But around the corner came a bilingual Chilean, like a saint sent from above. Oddly enough in his translating process, he noticed the words stitched on my jacket. "Iowa?" he asked. Apparently the guy lived in my home state 25 years before in the city of Fort Dodge. He described the town in one word, rednecks.

Como?

It really is a small world, after all.

Blah.

It's pouring outside my apartment window. Oh another grey day in Santiago. What do I miss most about home right now? The sweet warmth of summertime and those blue skies that generally accompany it and of course, all my friends and family. Yesterday was a pretty big day in Hawkeye football, I've heard. As of today, in the southern hemisphere, I've been living in Chile for a few days short of two weeks, however, it feels like much longer than that. I'm still trying to adjust to the huge amount of smoke that fills the bars and restaurants. It seems every Chilean smokes, despite the fact that printed on the bottom of each pack sold, it states: Every year X number (I can't remember the exact number at this moment) of Chileans die from smoking. You could be next. All in Spanish, of course. While watching the Chile v/s Venezuela futbol game last night, I felt like I was in a hot box. My eyes were watering and I could just feel the smoke permeating my skin cells, hair, and clothes.

As homework becomes assigned, my new home is starting to shake that "vacation feel". Still, with only three hours of class each day, excluding Tuesday when we are grooving in our Dances of Latin America class, I have ample free time. Last Thursday, my roommates and I explored the Mercado Central (the fish market) and the block rows of thrift shops. Joe, my roommate, found a sweet Egyptian-inspired, blue-sequin vest, perfect for Halloween. Because some traditions, no matter how far away you are from home, must live on.

Futbol!!

Estoy lista!

(I'm ready) for some crazy futbol action. It's a home game here in Santiago and Chile is kicking the grass against Venezuela. If I return from the pubs tonight with a swollen eye and a broken leg don't be surprised. Just kidding, however, according to another kid in my program, last year's game ended with riots and upturned cars. Bring it on.