My travels, adventures, discoveries and joys in Chile!
A year has passed…
I have now been in my home country of Chile for an entire year.
So much has changed since I arrived here. Looking back at the first entries of this blog, it is hard to imagine how much has unfolded in my life since coming to Chile.
I spoke to my birth mother and heard her voice. I have yet to meet her, but I know she lives in Santiago, which is now only an hour and a half away from me.
I live in a truly beautiful spanish style house with french doors that open to Ascensor Reina Victoria. I have a beautiful kitten named Chloé. My roommates are wonderful, I adore all my new friends. I adore Valparaìso, it has become my true home away from home. I think pictures will speak louder than my words:
Chloé :3
How tiny Chloé was when I first got her! She is double the size now :)
I learned how to make Pastel de Choclo with Maria Paz.
The view through my french doors.
Outside my work, this particular photo reminds me of my favorite movie, The Dreamers. It made me feel like I was back in Europe.
Foggy morning view from my balcony.
Flower clock in Viña del Mar.
Beautiful castle on the sea in Viña del Mar. I love the way castles look on cloudy days.
Outside my friend’s work. I adore the mosaic work here :)
I watched a Hollywood movie being filmed outside my house. It is due to be released next year, directed by Eli Roth. I ran into the directors and actors a few times, but didn’t recognize them, I even got upset at the director because their set was blocking the entrance to my home. I now wish I had gotten their autographs or a photo with them, but I do have video footage of the film. Aftershock is due to come out in 2013 starring Eli Roth. It is about a group of friends in a mental institution that get out when the devastating earthquake of 2010 rocks the country, and the chaos that follows the quake. It looks bloody and violent, but entertaining.
Ascensor Reina Victoria, during the filming of Aftershock. There is a bloody scene where the two main characters are trying to get into the Ascensor to escape the tsunami threatening the coast.
Another shot of the filming of Aftershock. The bloody scene outside of Ascensor Reina Victoria.
I watched extreme mountain bikers fly down the hills of Valparaiso and then take off into the air out of a flower shop at the end of my street.
Here is a video link to the amazing downhill competition:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81Payz-A2O8
I have tons and tons of photos from the race, but the mid-air shots are definitely my favorite.
In all honesty, I don’t know how I would relate where I used to live and here. This place saved my life in so many ways. It awakened the artist in me that was quiet for years, reignited a passion in me. It is hard to not feel influenced by this city, the beautiful blue-green ocean, the European architecture, the art on every surface, the dancing, the music, everything that I was missing. I miss the states in many ways, but I know when I move away, it won’t be for long. I know I will return to this magical astonishing place. It captures you in such a way that is hard to describe unless you have spent at least a week here. There is still so much I have to see, there are not enough hours in the day. I will forever be in love with Valparaìso. I will continue this entry soon…
Travels to Ritoque
While on my first trip to Valparaiso, I took a day trip with a couple friends to the city of Ritoque, which is about an hour north of Valparaiso. It was mostly washed away by the Tsunami that hit Chile after the big earthquake of 2010.
The beaches were incredibly beautiful even though I got my leg hurt on the rocks getting to the private little beach, it was well worth the blood shed.
Our own private beach, surrounded by high rocks all around.
Ocean rock hopping is one of my new favorite things. It requires a lot of balance and being able to go into some complex yoga positions to get from rock to rock without falling in between :)
Ivey found a Heliaster microbrachius! It is a type of Sun Starfish found from Central to South America and is common along the coast of Chile. It was pretty strong and when you held it you would feel it hugging your hand.
Sara holding the starfish up to the sun!
Having fun with the starfish B)
Can’t beat that beautiful ocean!
Very important sign.
My favorite picture by far. On our way back, our taxi driver was so kind and kept stopping on the side of the road for us to take pictures. This picture shows Concon, Viña Del Mar and Valparaiso. I had to set my camera on the wall and let it take a 30 second long aperture shot (the aperture of the lens was open for 30 seconds) which is a long exposure time, but I really love how it came out!
Valparaíso, the paradise of Chile.
I haven’t posted or written in this blog for a long time, but I am going to begin again now that I have internet in my new home. Here are some photos I took on my first trip here to Valpo a few weeks ago:
This is a really beautiful bed and breakfast hotel with a full view of the ocean.
Some of the city at night.
There are so many beautiful cats in Valpo. I gave some of them my salmon avocado sushi. I like that the one in the middle is sticking out its tongue.
All of the houses are brightly colored!
This photo isn’t enhanced, the ocean is ALWAYS that beautiful color. The only other time I have seen the ocean that beautiful was when I went to the Florida Keys and went snorkeling. Absolutely beautiful.
The bright beautiful hotel.
One thing I love about Valpo is that you can look up and see houses built above you. My mother, who is from La Paz, Bolivia, said it reminded her a lot of La Paz. Valparaíso was mostly designed by Europeans from Germany, England and Spain. You can see the German and Spanish influence on the buildings easily. The city went through a golden age, before the Panama Canal was built, it was the major port of the world. I believe around 1930-1980 or so, the Europeans left the city, and the Chileans sort of gave up on it. It just became a plain city with a port. But then in the 1990’s a huge artistic wave swept through the city, splashes art and color on every building. Writers, artists, poets, songwriters and musicians flooded the city. You can always hear music wherever you go, and you can’t avoid the art, it is everywhere. I have never seen a city so artistic and full of passion and beauty. I personally feel very at home here.
I should also mention my grandmother on my mother’s side was born and raised in Valparaiso. She moved to Bolivia after some of her relatives passed away. But she would tell my mom how she missed Chile and her home. She was a very elegant, beautiful artist. We have a watercolor painting she did and it is so lovely, it really influenced me to become a painter. I never met her, and I am not blood related to her, but I have always felt a closeness to her.
As a surprise, I am going to do a painting from this picture as a gift to my Mom :)
Wasn’t my grandmother glamorous?
Back to the Valpo Pictures:
I am not kidding when I said art is everywhere.
Bright, beautiful city.
Like I said, don’t forget to look up.
Armada de Chile - Chilean Navy Headquarters. The building matches the sky and sea. Quite beautiful building to see!
The boats in the harbor. For 2000-4000 CLP, you can get a boat tour of Valparaiso and Viña del Mar.
Thinking about doing a watercolor of these boats :)
Some of my favorite wall art!
This beautiful bird is right next to a bar that specializes in Fruit Wine! You pick any two fresh fruits (my favorite is kiwi and apple) and pick the type of wine and they blend and mix it up for you for only 3000 CLP a bottle! Well worth it and it is a very cute bar.
A close up, look at that detail! So pretty!
Bright stairs everywhere.
Piano Stairs!
More amazing wall art.
Top of the hill where my friend lives, looking down at the beautiful city of Valparaiso.
Many more entries to come later today :)
Fin Al Lucro
So I don’t know if it has reached the news in the States, but there have been quite a few protests and marches in Chile for free education. A lot of these marches have had up to 50,000+ students, mostly happening in the bigger cities like Santiago.
And while a lot of these marches and protests are pretty harmless, there has been some serious violence done more than a few times. August 24-25 were the two big days where students gathered nation-wide for protests and marches. We live about a block and a half away from UDEC (Universidad de Concepcion), so normally when there is something brewing, we can hear it from our apartment and look out the window to see the many cop cars and army-like vehicles storming down Chacabuco Plaza Peru-bound.
I was looking out the window on the 25th in the afternoon when a cop van pulled into the middle of the street on Chacabuco. I pretty much figured they would have the road blocked off for marches. But then some kid came running down the street and threw a large rock at the van. And cue the large military-like vehicles. I grabbed my camera and ran downstairs to the action.
View from our apartment.
Police lined up and ready.
Military vehicles arriving in Plaza Peru.
After students start throwing bricks/bottles/whatever onto the military vehicle, they break out the water gun and start blasting the crowd.
A large fire is started in the street in front of UDEC blocking the road.
Damage done to local buildings.
Banners hanging off the school.
Banners on apartments near Plaza Peru
The rest of the march from Plaza Indepencia heads towards Plaza Peru. I decide to run to Santa Isabel and pick up some groceries before the store closes for the protests.
I take the groceries home, comfort Penelope (because she gets a little scared when she hears all the noise outside), and get ready to head back out when I hear more commotion outside on the street:
Now I would like to throw in my 2 cents in saying that I am very AGAINST bringing animals into situations like this where they can and most likely will get harmed. I have found some videos on youtube of horses being injured in these recent protests. In one video, all the students surrendered once the cops came in riding horses because they were against harming the animals. It is one thing to have the tanks and vehicles and police but quite another to bring innocent animals into this. Later on, they actually used these horses as weapons and I was almost trampled.
So after I saw this, I ran downstairs and broke out the camera again:
Cops waiting outside on the street in from of our apartment.
Military Vehicle ready to charge students.
Students with rocks in hand. Note also all the destruction done to the local buildings and businesses.
The students tore down all the street signs in an effort to block off the street. They are also prepping with wine bottles and rocks.
Moving the signs further up Chacabuco.
They move the signs about one block further up, almost meeting with the military vehicle.
The vehicle charges and they start to run. At this point I realize that the fearless photographer in me has gotten WAY too close to the action.
This is by far my favorite and most daring shot. I had to hide behind this glass bus stop while students threw bottles and rocks at this jeep. I don’t really know how I didn’t get hit with something. I am lucky. All the paint on the vehicle is from the students by the way. This jeep was later set on fire.
And then I started hearing what sounded like gunshots. But instead were flaming rocks that were being shot at the crowd that exploded into clouds of tear gas.
I can honestly say I have never felt such severe pain in my eyes before. It got so bad that I had to sit down and shut my eyes. One kid gave me salt to put around my eyes to protect from the tear gas, but it didn’t help. Another gave me a tissue and I was able to rub and blot away enough to be able to see again. Just in time, because the police came in on their horses and tried to stampede us. I tried to run as fast as I could, but there were about 500 people there and the horse was catching up fast. The cop made it stand and it nearly landed on me. People yelled at me to take a photo of this, but I was more concerned about not being squished under a horse. This is what I am against, using horses/animals as weapons and also bringing them into tear gas filled air without any eye protection. It’s inhumane and wrong.
The cops then started grabbing people and arresting them, so I ran to a group of women. An elderly woman yelled to a young girl not to run or else they will come after you.
More horses are brought in.
Cops start arresting people. This is around the point my camera died.
So I ran back home with my eyes still slightly burning and a small sneeze from the pepper spray. There are many videos online of the protests, just look up “UDEC Protestas” on youtube. But again, I cannot express how angry I am with the abuse towards the animals. Here is a link to a video of what happens to them in these protests:
And here is a video of when the jeep was set on fire:
And here is how much they love to use tear gas in Chile:
It’s pretty ridiculous, putting innocent lives at risk. But no worries, we are safe, and are careful. The worst seems to be happening up in Santiago.
In other news, it feels like spring has finally sprung!
recent travels
So the past two weeks, we have been to several different places.
First, we had some INCREDIBLE seafood (finally!) in Lenga (which for some reason I can’t find on any map, but it is a small town along the ocean near Tome). I ate delicious Reineta Pescado which was breaded and fried and served with french fries and lemon wedges. And because I have too much time on my hands while downstairs waiting for movies to download, I made a little map of our recent travels:
After Lenga, we went to Cañete and browsed the markets. I ate this very interesting meat/bread pudding dish for lunch.
The countryside.
We then went to a Mapuche Museum. We learned a bit about the history of the Mapuche. The museum was actually very impressive and modern.
Monkey Puzzle Trees outside the museum.
A Ruca outside the museum. The entrance always faces the sunrise. There are normally Mapuche inside this ruca cooking or weaving, but not today, unfortunately.
After the museum, we went in search of delicious pizza in Contulmo, an hour south of Cañete.
I tried to get a good picture while in the bus, but it wasn’t easy. There were some pretty mountains on the way. This is when my camera ran out of batteries, unfortunately. Contulmo was very very beautiful. The architecture was mostly wooden and warm colored. The pizza was delicious, but we almost got stuck in Contulmo as our bus back to Cañete left without us. So, we took a cab back, which drove so fast that we got back in less than 30 minutes. When we got back, we couldn’t find a bus back to Concepcion. We pretty much thought we were going to be stuck in Cañete for the night, but then we talked to a bus driver heading to Santiago, and he said he would drop us off in Concepcion (thank goodness). We got home around midnight, safe and sound and happy to be home.
A few days later, we went to Chillán. We were hoping to go skiing and to the Thermal Hot Springs, but heavy snowfall blocked the roads and we couldn’t go. But we enjoyed the city, bought some pretty presents and ate some delicious food (Pastel de Choclo might be one of my new favorite things… I think I was too intoxicated with its deliciousness to take a picture of it). Pastel de Choclo normally has beef, but I was lucky to have mine with chicken in it. It was soo sweet and filling in a clay bowl, absolutely delicious!
Menu
Delicious Hot Peppers at the market. They get really hot if you let them age in the cupboard. I found that out the hard way…
All the delicious veggies and fruits at the huge Fresh Produce Market in Chillan.
More of the market. (and Megan!)
My two favorite countries meet! A Chilean-Canadian Hotel!
Blockbusters, they still exist!
A blurry pic of a beautiful gothic church we found (actually, we saw its reflection in another building, and had to search a bit for the origin).
I really loved this particular city, and we are going to try to go skiing and to the thermal hot spring next week hopefully and stay overnight.
That is all the traveling for now, our trip down south to my home town will have to wait until the summer, it is way too cold to travel south right now.
6.2 earthquake
So I felt my first major earthquake here in Chile, registering at 6.4 (although now they are saying it was a 6.2). The epicenter was 61 miles southwest of Concepcion at a depth of 9 miles. Nothing got damaged, but it was enough to make the building creak, the blinds shake, and the floor wobble. The first one hit around 8:55am and then the aftershock hit about 20 mins later.
So far there hasn’t been a tsunami warning issued. I live on the 13th floor of an apartment building, so it was strong enough that it made my floor wobble. It was also strong enough to make our little cat Penelope run under the bed for the first shake, and then under the couch for the “aftershock.” (I am now reading that the aftershock was 5.3 and the shock was 6.2 lasting for 1 minute which is a very long time apparently.)
Here is a link about the quake: http://earthquake-report.com/2011/06/01/m-6-earthquakes-…-2/
Although it wasn’t damaging or major, it definitely made my heart drop. It wasn’t huge, but I don’t take earthquakes here very lightly… It is probably because I have watched WAY too many earthquake videos online of the quakes that hit Chile last year (8.8 magnitude). I guess the reason I fear them mostly is because I haven’t ever really been through an earthquake (well, until today) and the fact that they can happen any minute of any day without warning is a little unsettling.
Also, probably because I went to see the building that fell in my city last year (see 2 entries back).
So, truth be told, I don’t feel bad about getting scared of a 6.2 earthquake, because it was only last year an 8.8 hit this city: (turn off your sound if you want to watch the video, because the music is obnoxious)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEEE39cYhlQ&feature=related
But we are safe, nothing was damaged and no one was injured :)
Wine tasting in Guarilihue, Chile :)
We had the wonderful opportunity to go to a private little winery in Guarilihue, Chile.
We tried different varieties of red and a delicious golden-colored wine.
Giant barrels where the wine is kept.
The delicious wine :)
:)
Earthquake Photos
Here are some photos I took of a huge building that fell down during the massive earthquake last year…
The building is very haunting to be next to, and I felt my heart drop once I saw it. You can get very close to it, even touch it… but I wouldn’t.
My heart dropped once I saw this behind the gas station.
I find it very interesting that so many windows remained intact.
The bottom or top of the building… not sure which.
A car (that red lump of metal) next to the building.
Full view of building.
This USED to be a white Toyota.
Closer view of building.
Tons of garbage and possessions from inside the building scattered everywhere. I even almost stepped on a flower bar soap that no doubt came from inside the building.
Full view with “car.” It made me very sad to see this… To think of all the lives affected by it. And I shudder to think of what it sounded like when a high-rise fell to the ground.
Photos from the mountain next to our apartment…
Last week Megan and I hiked up the mountain (well, very very large hill…) and I got some good pictures of beautiful mushrooms and the forest.
It was the ideal day for forest pictures, there was a haunting feeling with the fog and humidity hovering over us, getting thicker and thicker as we climbed higher.
See for yourself :)
Amanita Muscaria
Slimey Mushrooms :P
Megan near some ruins near the top of the mountain :)
A Mushroom’s view
Megan and a tall mushroom
The beautiful forest <3
