Meeting Chile......the north and Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

Ok........so basically there is so much to say that I have no idea where to begin. I also have no idea how much detail to give...I´ll give the trip highlights in greater detail i think.
So...the first good story is the morning that I left. I was already for the airport transfer to pick me up between 6 15 and 6 30 (sposed to be at the airport at 6 40 for the hour ahead rule). Well, at 10 to 7 when the transfer still had not arrived, we called several times (to no avail) and then Mema woke Braulio to drive me. The van was supposed to be in the shop, so I was extremely lucky. We got to the airport at about 20 after 7 (flight leaving at 7 40) but its fantastic that punta arenas is a small airport, because i was in my seat about 7 minutes later.
I arrived in Santiago and took a transfer to a Rotarians house, who a few hours later took me to the house where I was staying overnight and for the days inbetween my 2 trips. They were fantastic!!! The exchange student in the house is from Hungary, and understands some english, but doesnt speak it. I was happy, because it meant i didn´t speak english. The host mom lived in Canada for five years..so speaks english (mostly in edmonton, calgary area, but also spent a bit of time near cambridge i think). Three daughters..and a son and daughter off on exchange.
That first day, we went off to explore an area of the city that Cintia (Hungary) had never been to. We explored for a bit, and then she called some friends of hers and we hung out with them. (I kind of wanted to explore more, seeing as my santiago time is quite limited..) That night, we went up to see Santiago at night..which is gorgeous in a oodles of light pollution type of way. (City of 6 million, 1/3 of chiles population). The next day, we went to the centre of santiago, with Cintia´s friend to be on the safe side. I saw La Moneda (the parliament, but not much of it) and the plaza (cathedral, etc). We didn´t have much time tho... a bummer.
We went to meet the bus at 9 pm. It was a bit overwhelming to be in a huge group of other exchange students, something like 35 of us.. but cool at the same time. I met a girl who I had talked a lot with at the grand rapids conference and we talked a lot more at a rest break. We also had a good Canada chat with fellow canucks. We drove through the night.....
Our first stop after breakfast (gorgeous cathedral..i took pics) was at the old house of a famous Chilean poet...Gabriela Mistral I do believe the name was. (Someone has to send me the pic of the sign) We also visited two pisco factories, having a tour of the process of one. If youdon´t know..pisco is pretty much the national drink of Chile, a wine fermented farther pretty much. I know its made of grapes. The vineyards for the grapes were gorgeous, the contrast of the green against the barren mountains. We were allowed to buy from the factory store (a funny concept, since half the exchangees arent 18, and there are strict rules against drinking.....) Both factories had little towns (more cathedrals to photograph).
That evening, we arrived in La Serena. We were given our cabin assignments, and settled in quickly as we then headed down to the beach. The water was very chilly..so I was not planning on going in..but you know how that works..the waves got me and soon I was swimming about in my clothes (bathing suit underneath) I made an exclamation as to the saltiness of the water, and got teased a bit about that..cuz I had completely forgotten that we were in the ocean. Silly me..... The next day, one of the guys got sent home to canada because he had gone out the night before when they had told us not to,and he had broken some rules before as well.. The rest of us got in some mini buses and drove for a long time (altho getting out to take some pics in the mountains, with cactuses). I had bought pineapple at the grocery store..and the container leaked in my bag and thenall over my skirt..but it was definitely worth it seeing as i hadn´t had it in soo long). Those pics have big wet blobs on my skirt....
We arrived at a gorgeous little seaside town, put on some oldschool lifejackets, and then hopped in some fishing type boats (very authentic looking..but with motors)and then started our tour of a national reserve. We saw pelicans (which have a big wing span), tons of sea lions, and penguins. The sea lions had a terrible odour..but were very cute. We got out on Isla de Damas, which had beautiful clear water, but it was too cold to go swimming. The water was a gorgeous color..described by one girl as acid green..but it depended where you were. We ate at a little restaurant on our return.. of which the parking lot wasnt gravel, but shells. That night, we were chilling out by the pool at our hotel, and 2 girls jumped in fully clothed. I still had my bathing suit on..so took of the clothes and joined them. They had lied when they said it was warm!!! I ran quickly back to my hotel room and discovered that our hot water didn´t work..so ran downstairs and used their shower to warm up. (Ps...sorry this will be super long..i know that there are some ppl who will want to hear everything..ie mom and dad..and i have the genes to tell detail...)
The next morning, I went for a run with a girl from the states after breakfast (which was brought to our rooms) which felt fantastic. As we were returning from the run, we got some yells from 2 guys on the beach playing soccer...we had plans to play soccer with guys from our group so told them we´d be back in a sec. When i was cooling off in the pool..i noticed that our friends were playing near our hotel...so the yells had been from 2 randoms....weird! We went to a market in the townfor a few hours in the afternoon. It was such a cool experience.....stuff hanging from the roofs, and oodles and oodles of stuff! I bought some candied papaya, which is famous from La Serena. We spent until the last secondoutside...because we were starting a 16 hour bus ride....rough!
We arrived in Iquique the next morning. At first sight, the outskirts and more industrial part..i thought the city was ugly, but my opinion changed completely when we reached our hotel. It is gorgeous. After some shower time...we went to the center for lunch. I wasn´t overly happy with where my group went, but afterwards noone I talked to was pleased with their lunch really.....We spent the afternoon at the beach. Me and another girl amazed some people with the fact that we changed into our bathing suits on the beach...thank you to skirts and general skill). In the evening, we went to a presentation at the theatre. the presentation wasn´t all that interesting...so I´m pretty sure they took us just to see the theatre which was gorgeous. After dinner...I went to bed. The next day, we went to a market which was full of odds and ends, and in general quite cheap, altho we were only given 45 minutes so didnt get to explore much. It was the type of place where we didn´t bring cameras, notmuch money, and definitely stayed in groups. Then we got taken to the Zofri (duty free zone..the other zona franca) i wasn´t overly excited... and we were given too much time, so had some good chats outside. In case your wondering...the whole no english didn´t work overly well...That night, we went to the disco for a few hours to celebrate one girls birthday. It was the first time for some people..but we left early, before many ppl were there (being 2 am...)
The next morning...we got on the bus again to start going back south. We stopped at a Chilean ghost town which was pretty interesting, its in the middle of the desert. There was a little market there (going for the tourists) and I bought a little bowl thing made of cactus. Not entirely sure what to do with it...but i thought it was cool that it is made of cactus. That night, we arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, a small town in the desert and mountains. It was super cool, and a lot of us loved it. The way the streets were and the setup of the town was what a lot of us thought of when we imagined Chile. Due to the beauty, the town was very touristy. That night, we went to a bit of a festival thing for the town anniversary, staying til about 12....and then having to be ready for 4 the next morning to go see geysers. That was really cool..and worth the lack of sleep. We ate eggs boiled in the geysers and our milk was warmed as well. It was frigid tho.....On the way back we saw tons of llamas. We had the afternoon to explore the towns shopping. In the afternoon, we went to visit the Valle de la Luna. Which is hard to explain, but phenomenal. The name means valley of the moon which should give you a bit of an idea... Lots of pictures taken there...
Next day was a free morning again..and after lunch we went to see the Parque de los Flamencos..a national park for flamingos. Again...pictures. It was crazy to see flamingos there, in the desert....there was water, but it has a very high salt content. We went to a little village farther into the desert, where we gave books to a school and wandered around there. A bell tower had a door made of cactus..
We drove to another city in the afternoon. We had a bit of a bbq for dinner....but we didn´t start eating til probly 11 30. it was scrumptious and we ate too much... the next morning...3 of us girls went for a run, and then picked up seashells from the beach. this wasn´t hard..seeing as how about half of the beach was purely shells!! We didn´t get much time there...a bummer cuz it was gorgeous, and packed up and went to the center for an hour to get food. I spent most of the time in a little feria near the gorgeous plaza. We had dinner at a skeckyish restaurant that we had been to before (lets just say the sign that said servicios higenicos for bathrooms was lying when it said the higenic part...)
Our final stay for the trip was Bahia Inglesia....which was as gorgeous as I had been told. We headed down in the morning.....a bit bummed by the grayish looking sky but it turned into beautiful sun. We had a soccer game which was a blast (definitely miss playing). There were some crazy burns from the afternoon in the sun, playing volleyball, lying on the beach. An international school in Santiago was there for their end of year trip. we talked to them for a bit, and they played some american football, altho we left before much of that got underway. And then....we got on the bus for the overnight trip to santiago. It was weird to arrive and say bye to people..with the possibility i may never see them again. At Cintia´s house, we unpacked our dirty clothes and showered. I talked with my mom a bit on MSN. While Cintia slept, I hung out with her host sisters in their pool. The next day..we packed up our stuff and then went to the mall to replace the sunglasses I had lost and for cintia to buy a new bathing suit. Bed was fairly early, as we had to get up at quarter to 6 to get the transfer for Easter Island. Upon arrival at the Island (about a 5 hour flight), the 19 of us (15 students) were greeted by Rotarians and given flower necklaces..and then another necklace by the hostel where we were to stay. After lunch at the hostel, we went to the beach, which has a bunch of Moai in the background. (Obviously..lots of pictures) The water was warmer than the ocean on the Chilean coast. That night, we went to an event to raise money for disabled children....which was cool. It was like a bbq....except that the meat was cooked under a tarp with hot rocks and covered in banana leaves. It was delicious!! There was 2 dance shows..one of younger kids/ teens and then a professional group called Kari Kari that was fantastic. They did all sorts of traditional dances. Afterwards, a group of us were dancing away and some of the girls started to teach us how to do the hip movements..which is hard by the way! the next day, we learned a lot of island history. It wasn´t the best weather ever..but the rain wasn´t cold. We saw the outlines of native houses, moai (obviously...), the 7 explorers (the only moai that face the see), some caves where people also lived..especially in times of war, and an old water hole with petroglyphs surrounding it. In the afternoon, we went to a volcano which is where the moai were made. We saw tons and tons of them, some fallen, some with disfiguration, and some never finished and still in the mountain. A lot of them didn´t look that big....until we realized that we were only seeing the head, so the actual moai is like 12 metres high, the rest being underground. The next morning, Julie and I went for a run, and when we arrived..noone was there. We were a bit upset wwhen they returned from an adventure, because they had told us it was free time. We had had an adventre of our own tho...running in the pouring rain, and getting kind of lost so we ended up running for a long time. We didn´t know the name of our hotel or street or nething....to be hoest, i never saw a street sign. That afternoon, we had lunch and a bit of a presentation to the rotary club of Rapa nui. Without them, we woudn´t have been able to have the trip. We met the first girl from the island to be going on Rotary exchange. We told the club about the program and then a few of us showed them the dancing we had learned the night before in our hostel. There was a husband and wife who drove us around alot of the week..and the wife (Gabriela) taught the girls to dance. Next morning, Julie and i went for another run and then went to a market with Jesse (guy from the states who we hung out with a lot on both trips) and when we returned were again alone..altho the others had just gone to a different market, so not a huge deal. That afternoon, we went to the beach again and it started to rain on us, but it didn´t make a difference while we were in the ocean. While we were waiting for our vans to come get us, we drank some coffee from a little cafe (over priced due to the location) and talked to some locals. Oh..earlier (during the sunlight) Jesse found a coconut on the ground so we had a bit of an adventure opening that and enjoying athe freshness. There was a skin on the outside that was very thick and i had never seen before. Upon the return to the village, a few of us rented bikes for an hour and went to explore. They had wanted motor bikes, but I was glad that we couldnt do it due to a lot of ppl not having licenses. Julie and I went off and she had a bit of an accident...but not terrible. I got the wheel moving again after the accident... We went to try see the museum, but it was closed. We were on our way to a part of the island called colonia when we had to turn around to get back intime for dinner. Later we found out that in Colonia is the high school which is apparently gorgeous.....bummer. That night, a few of us danced a bit more....a mixture of traditional with crazy fun dancing.
After a quick run the next morning....we went to a scuba diving place!!! we got suited up and had a practice session breathing, learned the signals, and also a very important piece of information regarding pressure and pain in the ears. We were also super excited to go out!! I was the last person in my boat to enter the water.....and unfortunately..had the whole pain in the ear and huge amounts of pressure..so was unable to go to the bottom. No matter what I did..my ears would not pop. I was super bummed....but still got to see lots of cool stuff, and did a bit of snorkeling without the snorkel (also meaning i breathed..being used to having the tank....oops, that was not a nice feeling to breathe insalt water..) While we were waiting for the other half....Lars (Germany) and I were chillin by the water, and saw a huge sea turtle!!! It was so cool. A few minutes later, we saw a baby one, and then later one a different big one. The first big one hung around for quite awhile..but we couldnt get good pics. After the scuba adventure, we were walking back and ran into some locals that invited us to go surf (some of the girls had talked to them before) but we had to go to lunch. After lunch,we decided to go try surf to see if we could meet up with someone who had told us the day before that they would teach us. Two of the girls went to find him when we arrived at the beach, and Julie and I went straight in the water. We were playing around inthe awesome waves..when one guy came up and asked if we wanted to learn to surf. Julie wasn´t keen at first..so I hopped on and got just went in a wave. After I went..Julie wanted to try but buddy said she had lost her chance..hehe. About 10 minutes later, whole bunch more local guys came out with a few more of our girls and we had some surf lessons. I managed to stand up 3 times..but not for very much time. We went back to the hotel to get ready to go to a different volcano..but couldn´t go because the rain made it dangerous......Instead we went to the rotary club there (interesting building, an old military fort), took pictures, were all given banners, and then headed back for dinner. After that, 4 students and 2 of our chaperone women went to see the Kari Kari group again. Most of our surf instructors were in the group...so itw as cool to be watching our friends dancing and playing guitar. I got called up by my prof during a time when they picked ppl from the audience to dance. It was fun... Later, they had another of those times and another one of the guys (who hand´t been in the room the first time) came to the back of the room and grabbed my hand. I told himi´d done it already and tried to get one of the other girls to go..but ended up going back up. I got sandwiched between two of the dancers....super fun and I laughed a lot. After the show, the guys came to our hostal (friends of the girl who lives there) and we hung out for a few hours. I went to bed at 3 when it started to pour!! The next morning, we woke at 9 and were told we had a half hour to eat breakfast and pack our suitcases. Rush!!! We then went to see the volcano we had missed before, saw the town from the mountains, stopped at an artisan place (which i think was actually a jail where the people make wood carvings...) and a few other places before heading to the airport. Our new friends were waiting for us to say goodbye. We were given shell necklaces because we coudln´t bring our flower ones back, and then boarded the plane. All of us were trying to give our tickets away,not wanting to leave!!!! Back at Cintia´s house, I talked a bit with my bro, sis, best friend, and a friend inSantiago..finally heading to bed around 1 30. i also posted pics to my facebook..taking advantage of the good internet. The next morning, I had breakfast and repacked my stuff while Cintia was still sleeping. Her host dad took me to see the universities where he works and when we returned.....I left within 5 minutes to go to the airport to catch my flight to Punta Arenas. I left my rotary jacket in Cintias room by accident....Oops. i took a transfer to my house here, and talked with Mema and then went to meet Julias parents from Australia. The Rotary counselor came to pick up Julias parents for the meeting. Julia had a dinner for her school and therefore unable to stay for the whole meeting, so I went with her parents to the meeting to act as a translator. I felt weird being in jeans and a t-shirt because the meetings are very formal. The food was good tho :) I returned and headed to bed almost right away (altho not before my host dad had bought our airline tickets to brazil!!!!) Yesterday, i slept til 12 30..exhausted from the travels. Mema and I went for an almost 2 hour walk inthe afternoon and then in the evening i went to see James Bond at the theatre (first time I had ever beenthere). And now....pretty much since I woke up this morning I have been writing this entry...which makes it insanely long and congrats if you made it this far!!!
Oh....and the debate group i was helping not only made it to the finals in Santiago..they were second!!!! One of the guys in the group was the best male speaker!!!! Yay Contardi!