(Transl: Two weeks in the life of an exchange student in Santiago)

Que tal Guapo's?!

So this time my adventures continue in Chile, more specifically in Pucón! This town is famous for its Villarica Volcano (which is active for the moment) and for all kind of extreme sports. As the weather was bad the day we arrived, Vincent booked an afternoon of hydro-speeding for us, which I was not to keen on doing. The sky was grey, water temperature not above 10, and my energy level very low! (because I barely slept before and after hiking up the Lanín volcano) One hour later I found myself in a 7mm wetsuit and some kind of floating device swimming down a white-water river and almost drowning in every rapid we encountered. I just did not manage to enjoy the experience, but Vincent was over exited afterwards! Sadly we could not ascent the volcano and the forecast was not any better, so we decided to leave the same day for Santiago to look for the two Belgian girls we travelled earlier with! They were squatting at a friend of theirs who is doing an exchange program there, so we just joined in.

The first week we did some city-trips around Santiago to Valparaiso(Valpo), which is an amazingly colorful city with total anarchy in its architecture and urban planning at the sea and was considered home to the famous poet Pablo Nerduda. Earlier on my trip I met this American girl who is studying in Valpo and we could crash at her place for the night. There was this intimate party going on where a guy was playing some guitar. It was so good, but eventually it came out that the guy is actually really famous in Chile and he was just hanging out with friends. (His myspace: www.myspace.com/chinoysite)

After Valpo we were told that the weather finally had improved in Pucón, so we took an overnight bus to arrive there early in the morning and immediately hike up the volcano and the same day come back to Santiago, but yet again the weather would only be perfect the next day, which made us wait one more day in town. With hydro-speeding already done, the only thing that could move me was the thermal baths. I think I have never been soaking for such a long time (about 3-4 hours) in warm water! Afterwards my skin looked like I was close to hit 100 years of age! The organization with whom we were about to hike up the volcano was friendly enough to pay our night in the hostal, because we had kind of 'lost' a day in Pucón.

In the early morning we got to the base of the volcano and geared up with some flashy fluo outfits, ice-axe, crampons and a helmet, ready for a mass-hike up! We were in a group of about 10 people or more. Luckily for us, they were all young and fit so our ascent went quite good! Closer to the top we started to smell the toxic gasses filling our lungs! (Only in SA you can probably hike up active volcanoes! In Europe it would probably be forbidden due to health reasons!) After a couple of hours we found ourselves standing around a crater and taking millions of pictures of an empty crater spitting out smoke signals. Suddenly the crater started to make thunder noises and there it was: a massive lava explosion right in front of us! You could feel the sudden heat-wave and the horrible smell afterwards. With a picture from this on our flash drives, we had to start walking back down, because of the melting snow.

The fun part was still to come: bobsleighing down on our asses with these plastic shelves! We hit incredible speeds and the breaking system, which was our ice-axe, did not work, so we regularly crashed brutally into each other. One girl sadly ripped her knee-tendons in a group-crash.

Back in Santiago the next day we organized our next city-trip to Mendoza and San Juan (Argentina) to visit the closed-on-Sunday-wineries and the amazing Valle de la Luna! Mendoza was not that exciting, but luckily the moon-valley was! The weird thing was that about every 200m there was an Argentinean flag in the park, so this is the short conversation between Vincent and the guide:
Vincent: Why are there so many Argentinean flags along the road?
Guide: (proud) The President is coming next week to visit!
V: But why is there one every 200m? Does she get sad and homesick when she doesn't see a flag every 30 seconds?
... Silence ...
G: Because we want to show that this park and natural beauty belongs to Argentina!
V: But she would notice that she crossed the border if she did, and we are far off Chile, so it it obvious that we are in Argentina?! If you tell her that she is in Argentina once, she will remember for the whole tour, doesn't she? Unless she meets a border post, which she will not!
... And then the guide shut up and started talking about the nice colors in the rocks.

Again, back in Santiago Vincent had to catch a plane and the Belgian girls left us in Mendoza, so I ended up in the student house with no idea what to do next, so the girls in the house invited me to some party's and eventually I stayed for a week and a half more! Because I was severely underdressed at an after-office party, (I don't have fancy clothes as a traveler) I could not get in, but one of the girls went to the guy who was responsible for the entrance and told him I was the son of the Dutch ambassador and she had to take me out, so the guy immediately went to the bouncers and told them to let me in! (That's how easy it goes in South America) This story continues when the organizer of the party came 15 minutes later to me and apologies for what happened at the doors and hands me and my friends VIP bracelets! Apparently afterwards I got to know that that guy is THE guy to know in nightlife Santiago, because he organizes about all the good party's! (We even got VIP entrance at the MOBY concert in Santiago!)

Two days later he saw me again in a club, and yet again I got VIP and he paid me some drinks. Then because he was worried I would feel lonely because I did not know too many people, he introduced me to all the prettiest girls in the club. So how do you want me to hate Santiago and get my things together and leave this city?! During the days I profiled myself and went eating out with some managers that I met during the nights, in case I would one day considering a job in Santiago.

Because I was sleeping in a student house, I also made some good student friends and went to some finance classes at the Universidad de Chile, which was good to make me realize I still know a lot from my own courses!The good times kept coming, but eventually I had to make the decision: do I stay in Santiago and find myself something to study at the famous winery university, or do I pack my stuff and continue my travels.. The decision was hard, but I had a slight feeling that option one would not be appreciated back home, so two days ago I jumped on a bus and headed further north to La Serena where I spent the last two days.

Yesterday I went visiting a Pisco (this is a famous Chilean/Peruvian alcohol) distillery up in the mountains during the day and at night I went staring at the stars in one of the many observatories the region has. Because the air is dry and we are in a desert, the sky is the best in the world to look at the stars. With your naked eye you can see up to 4000 stars!

Tonight I am taking a bus to San Pedro de Atacama, a kind of touristy oases in the middle of the Atacama Desert and a jump-off point to the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia. This is the driest place on earth with no rainfall registered since 1570!

I'll be off-radar again for a while, normally I should be in Cusco in about two weeks! I heard from a girl in Santiago that there is a new Inca site recently discovered by a french expedition near Cusco and is supposed to be bigger than Machu Pichu! It is not yet open to tourism, so it is now my duty to be a pioneer Indiana Jones and go look for that hidden site! I hope I can bring you back some exclusive pictures! Who knows..

Take care and see you soon for another episode in the-so-exiting-life-of

G. on the road!

PS: I am going to volunteer for a month at a project in Trujillo (Peru) in June/July! More news about this to come!

Picture updates:

Hitchhiking Carretera Austral and Ruta 40: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=162410&id=634868429&l=5bf021132f

Summiting Volcán Lanín: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=163368&id=634868429&l=50e91f5ee1

Borderhopping between Chile and Argentina: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=167541&id=634868429&l=afe0f5273a

La vida de intercambio: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=167629&id=634868429&l=fc13fae2ad