jorge_travel

recollecting from Austin

2007-01-03T06:53:15Z

All things come to an end -- as have my South American travels. Now, as I repose among the collection of backpacks, dirty laundry, souvenirs, unsent postcards, empty plastic bags and general squalor that is my living room I find my mind drifting off to the last few days of my trip.

Alas, I never quite prepared for this trip nor did I prepare for my return (neither physically nor mentally) and now, at its end, things have become rather a blur. Seemingly, in one moment I was packing, the next I was there, and the next I was back. This morning, as I awoke, I spent a few moments collecting my thoughts before I finally decided that indeed I had returned to Austin and, worse still, I needed to go to work.

Enough lamentation. Let me try to pick up where I left off.

Following the actual house-building portion of our Habitat commitment, our group transitioned quickly into R&R mode. The setting for this was 'Los Cascadas de Animas' (or 'Waterfalls of the Spirits') -- an impossibly beautiful resort and private nature preserve set among the Andes mountains and along the banks of an expansive canyon, and at the bottom of that, the Rio Maipu. After an unduly stressful apportioning of cabin rooms (read: no one wanted to be near Ron) we retired to the resort's own in-house restaurant for lunch. Whatever stress had been accumulated in the preceding moments was quickly washed away by the lovely atmosphere, the jaw-dropping views of the canyon and mountains beyond, and by hard liquor that we unanimously decided were in good order.

Cascadas de Animas was quite a place. I felt like I was living in some fantastic inverse world of what we'd become accustomed to over the past week: everything was green, everything was tidy and everything was well-manicured. It was a resort in every sense of the term. I did (and still do) have some serious qualms about the fact that portions of my (and other people's) donations went to fund our stay at such a place.

Regardless of any moral reservations, I took full advantage of our stay by employing several of the resort's offered excursions (for the ethicists among you, we payed additional money for each added activity, out-of-pocket). On day one, after sobering up from lunch, several of us (myself included) crossed over the canyon on a metal zip-line and then hiked among the waterfalls in the preserve. Almost everyone who did the zip-line agreed that the experience was underwhelming -- except for me; due to my amazingly low threshold for entertainment, I was able to enjoy the experience to its fullest.

THE PUMA

One other thing that should be included here: we saw a puma living with three dogs in a cage in someone's backyard. In a confluence of coincidence that I never expect to fully understand, the puma had been given, by the Chilean government, to said person as kitten, and she had raised the puma kitten as a dog. Now the puma lives in a kind-of large containment with his dog-family, and everyone is happy... almost. Actually, the puma is becoming more assertive as it matures and doesn't like re-entering its cage after it's daily walk. Also, the puma is huge and could bite your fucking head off if it wanted to.

RAFTING

The next day we went white water rafting. I know nothing about rafting, but I've been told that this was some pretty darned good rafting. I don't know. But, I can tell you that we went through class four rapids and that, for about fifty minutes, we never really seemed to enter a place of non-turbulence; it was pretty much full-bore white water the whole way. I can also tell you that I immediately knew this was going to be a good trip. I knew this because the first words out of our guide's mouth were "Hello. My name is Alejandro... My English is not so much." Also, Alejandro was a total bad-ass. He sat in the rear strapped-in with two oars while I sat directly in front of him with my paddle. In one instance a large-ish wave had me flying out of the boat -- along with Vince and Marcos who were both holding on to me -- and Alejandro grabbed my life jacket and pulled all three of us back into the boat in one swift move. I can still here Alejandro barking out commands... "RIGHT TURN!!! LEFT TURN!!! ALL FORWARD!!! NO STOPPING!!! VERY GOOD!!!"

After that I could have gone horseback riding. But I felt I had accomplished enough that day and went to the pool instead.

That night we had a campfire and roasted marshmallows. A random dog appeared and befriended Marie. The dog didn't sound too good. Tim's medical experience was employed to inspect the dog's respiratory system, but in the end I think they just decided to let the sleeping dog lie, so to speak. That was the last night we spent together as a group.

The next day we went back to the airport and split up into our fragmented groups -- some to return to the states and some to continue on to ever-more fabulous destinations.

CHILOE

We went to Chiloe. More on that when I get around to it.

Encounter at Valparaiso

2006-12-27T14:24:54Z

Yesterday I visited Valparaiso. The heretofore funniest event of the trip occurred there. Here, to the best of my recolection, is what transpired:

Note: all dialog was conducted in Spanish

[I enter a small family-run mini-mart in a quaint, slightly delapidated hilltop neighborhood of Valparaiso. An elderly man sits in a chair near the entrance. He is apparently doing nothing. A woman can be heard speaking on the telephone in the back of the store. For the purposes of this story, this woman will be known as "Shelly".]

ME: Hello good sir!
OLD MAN: Good day to you as well. [Then, yelling towards the back of the store] Shelly, get out here, you've got a customer.
ME: [motioning towards an already sliced-open gourd in the middle of the shop] What is that?
OLD MAN: Its a gourd. [Pause]. [To the back of the store] Shelly!
ME: Can you eat it like that or do you need to cook it?
OLD MAN: You need to cook it. [Very short pause]. Shelly! Get out here! This guy has got questions about the gourd and he doesn't understand Spanish.
ME: Oh, no, I understand quite well what you are saying. In fact, I understood what you just said to the woman in the back.
OLD MAN: What? How much of the gourd do you want?
ME: Oh, I don't want any of the gourd. It's just that I've seen them in many stores and I've always wondered what the were. [Then, walking towards the cooler and selecting a bottle of water] I am fine with just a water, thank you.
OLD MAN: [pause]
ME: [pause]
OLD MAN: [Yelling] Shelly! What the hell are you doing back there? There's a guy out here asking all kinds of questions and he doesn't understand what I'm saying!!!

[Shelly appears]

SHELLY: [In English] Hello. You want to buy a gourd?
ME: [In Spanish] No. I only want a water. I was asking about the gourd because I was curious what it was.
SHELLY: [Pause] [In spanish] You speak Spanish?
ME: Yes. Well, actually just a little, but I understand everything that has been said so far.
SHELLY: Oh. Do you have more questions about the gourd?
OLD MAN: Don't bother speaking Spanish to him, he doesn't understand anything you are saying.
ME: Ummm. Does it go in soup?
SHELLY: Yes.
ME: Then I think that I ate some for dinner last night.
SHELLY: That's very possible. It is often served with corn and potatoes. [Pause]. You speak very good Spanish.
ME: Thank you.

More Habitat

2006-12-16T00:41:40Z

As we approached our designated meeting spot in the Santiago airport (a slightly-nice cafe near the international arrivals) we encountered almost the entirety of the remaining group. There was Maribeth -- our second fearless leader also from Costa Rica, Eric -- a taciturn Michigan-born Alaskan who builds and maintains trails outside of Ketchikan, Alaska (and who looks exactly as you would expect a person who builds and maintains trails in Alaska to look), Ron -- a slightly overly-excited Seattle-based self-dubbed travel fanatic, Jenisse -- a very amiable physical therapist with just about the best posture I´ve ever seen, Lee -- a retired school teacher from Illinois who held the title of ´most expensive camera´ and always had something interesting to talk about, Duane -- an also former school teacher from Illinois with a passion for inventions unparalleled by anyone I´ve ever met, Tim -- a Havard-employed nuero-scientist who would soon be digging septic systems for five days (more on that to follow), Harper -- a South Carolina-born Brooklyn girl who had just quit her job and spent the trip reading a book entitled ´What Should I do with my Life?´, Vince -- a young Brazilian-born, raised in Florida, lived in China and now lives back in Brazil (or something like that) with whom I would share a room. The remaining members we would eventually encounter one way or another: Elysia -- a fully-fledged New York girl who lent a unique perspective on American culture, Terry -- the soul Canadian of the group who was actually of Indian decent and spoke with a London accent, Marie -- I never found out much about Marie.

Together, we formed a team of experts who would solve any problem who came their way; namely, digging a septic system (more on that later).

In waiting, we swam about the molten group dynamics. Figuring out who was who, what everyone was up to, and trying to square any assumptions that we had made based on each other´s photographs and write-ups with what we were now seeing (and hearing) before us.

Hearing the familiar name ´Ketchikan´ I turned and asked Eric if that was indeed the location of the proposed Gravina Island Bridge (aka, the Bridge to Nowhere). Eric immediately responded ¨That bridge is the stupidest thing I´ve ever heard of¨. Eric and I were immediately friends (a friendship which had us traveling together until yesterday near the Southern-most extents of Chile). Meanwhile, Duane swirled about the table armed with pictures of a ´hurricane-proof house for poor people in Haiti´that his friend ´invented´. Ron seized the opportunity to flatter (or attempt to flatter) Amelia with stories of his prior travels through New Zealand. We sat for nearly two hours waiting and talking. Lastly, no description of this meeting would be complete without mention of the fact that a jackhammer was in-use not fifty feet away (indoors) for the entire duration.

Boarding the bus we exited the din of the airport and headed out to home-away-from-home: the Los Andes hotel in Los Andes, Chile, about one hour northwest and about fifty years back in time from Santiago.

When we arrived, the previous Habitat global village trip was packing up to depart after a week of building. We ate dinner together at the hotel and then hit the town. We ended up a the finest establishment in town (which, no joke, was a quite nice establishment). We drank pisco sours and discussed what they had done. On more than one occasion, I was informed that ¨most of the digging had been finished¨. This was not true.

They told us about the families and the worksites and the in´s-and-out´s of Los Andes living. Afterwards I somehow ended up where, in talking to one of the former week´s volunteers, I discovered that one of them went to high school with Amy McKenna.

That night we bed them farewell and we never saw them again (until last week when Eric and I sat next to one of the girls while traveling on a bus to Punta Arenas and then spent 5 days hiking with her through mind blowingly-beautiful Patagonia, but more on that later).

The next day we drove out to Portillo and it was great (I am going to limit details on this so that I can actually get around to writing about the volunteering before the cybercafé dude kicks me out). It was cold and the wind blew my hat into the lake and despite the best efforts of the local fishermen to hook my hat and reel it back in, I had to strip down to my underwear and go out into the water for it. We hiked up the mountain to find a patch of snow. Our Costa Rican companions had never before seen snow.

The NEXT day we began work. About the place where we were: Los Andes is the town we stayed in, San Vincente is the farming community in which we worked (about twenty minutes outside of Los Andes). Los Andes is a sprawling town which is slightly boring but with a vibrant pedestrian-friendly city center which is alive with people from 6pm until the wee hours of the night (and whose culture, incidentally, is threatened by two Walmart-like big box retailers who were opening the week we arrived -- sorry). San Vincente is a post office and a church (neither of which I ever saw open). Mainly, though, San Vincente is a farming community nestled up against the Andes mountains. The prevailing colors are the light brown of the soil and the green of the vegetation. Occasionally there are small houses, silos or warehouses (all of which look rather dilapidated, especially the latter two), but mainly it is pastures of plants or occasional grazing areas for cows.

There were three worksites. Two were on one property and the other on a second. Here, I am slightly ashamed to say that I was never quite clear on the family relations of the would-be homeowners. That is not to say that I never tried to establish the relationships, but that ever time I thought I had a handle on it, someone would tell me something (always in Spanish) that would shatter all of my previous assumptions (probably due to a combination of my bad Spanish and the intricate relationships among families in that area -- just about everyone seemed to be related somehow).

Regardless, the first site was a subdivision of the land owned by the grandfather of one of the families. Essentially it was his backyard and he had given the land to his children on which to build there homes. This land already contained the grandfather´s house (a very modest place with an attached kiosk that seemed to have no relationship to the family). Behind the house was a small farm that held four horses, feral chickens, an attention-starved goat, assorted birds and the usual accoutrement of german sheppards. Alongside the site ran a substantial stream (which was good for cooling off in) and spotted about the area were nectarine trees. The other site was across the river and was abutted against a field of fruit trees (mainly peaches and apricots) which we occasionally raided (the fruit here is excellent).

Indeed a lot of digging had already been done. The three foundations had already been dug out (except for one which contained a faulty concrete foundation which needed to be dug out).

THE SEPTIC SYSTEM
I now consider myself rather an expert on septic systems. I am not sure how then work, of what they need to be lined with, or how to hook them up. I do know this though: you need two holes about four feet by four feet, one big hole about 6 feet by 6 feet and a really fucking large trench that goes at a diagonal to the house.

This more than anything else was the task with which we were charged.

At first sight, the existing holes (ostensibly dug by the preceding group) were substantial and impressive. Nevertheless, Manlolo (one of two ´maestros´who guided our work) handed me a shovel and, pointing to one of the holes, said ¨trienta centimetros más¨ (30 centemeters more). I set to work. 90 minutes later I was done. I emerged triumphantly from the now-three-foot-deep hole only to discover a suspicious-looking 6x6 foot chalk outline in the grass. ¨Aqui tambein¨(Here also), I was told.

I (and several others), spent most of the rest of the week in that same 6x6 foot plot and did not emerge until the hole had extended approximately 7 feet into the ground.

THE PEOPLE
Along with the digging the experience extended to the people we met along the way. Along with all the group members there were lots of additional personalities. Everyday the grandfather of the family would come out to visit us. He and his assorted daughters seemed to provide us with a constant supply of snacks (ranging from chicken sandwiches to fruit to cookies) and a constant supply of smiles (awww....). At 2pm we would break for lunch. Lunch was served at a long picnic table were we all sat (including the maestros). Lunch was usually some type of stew with a salad and a desert (and always included bread and pebre -- their local version of salsa which is simply wonderful), and was prepared by the daughter of father. We never went hungry. On the other site, we met Carmen, the homeowner for that house-to-be. She was a grandmother-aged woman who exuded kindness and gratitude and always came out to say hello to us. In the afternoons, the children of the family arrived home from school and a few of the youngest children were always around. Lastly, Don Marco, an gentleman around the same age as the grandfather and a Habitat employee would usually come by once a day to say hello, play his harmonica and speak Spanish (seemingly unfettered by the fact that whomever he was talking to usually didn´t speak any Spanish).

MORE WORK
Later in the week, when the holes neared completion and when the faulty foundation had been removed, we began pouring the new foundations. Concrete mixing was via small-scale cement mixer. 1 bucket of water, 8 scoops of rocks, 12 scoops of sand, 2 scoops of cement -- all into the mixer, wait 30 seconds, pour the concrete into the wheel barrow and run it over to the waiting maestros who would point at the hole in the ground and say ¨acca¨. On the last days the work tapered off and I spent more time in the river, eating fruit and talking to the families as best I could. Eventually the 6x6 hole extended down to the pea gravel -- the stopping point that the maestros had agreed upon, and the huge trenches were declared huge enough.

On the last day we had a farewell ceremony where one of the youngest grand daughter´s and one of the neighborhood boys showed off the local traditional dance. The families took turns handing out certificates and small tokens of appreciation to the volunteers. Don Marco played his harmonica and we all ate some local treats. I drank maté with the great grandmother of the family and showed her pictures of my friends and family back home. When I turned to the page of pictures of Taylor, my baby niece, every woman in the family (about 10+) came running over and flocked around the pictures pointing and saying things in Spanish.

We got on the bus and the families waved to us as we pulled away. It all went by very quick and we were sad to leave.

Habitat

2006-12-08T16:25:54Z

The Habitat portion of my journies begain aspiciously when, while eating breakfast in my hostal, I encountered one of my fellow volunteers. Keep in mind there are only 15 of us in the whole world, so I took this as a good sign.

Her name is Amelia and she is a 2nd-year architecture student who attends school in Wellington, New Zealand, and she was my first introduction to the eclectic group of volunteers with whom I would spend the next week. We finished our breakfast together and traveled to the airport where we encountered Marcos, a seemingly 16-year old (though claims of 20 years abounded) slight-framed Costa Rican who was in charge of our trip. Marcos greeted us and escorted us to the airport cafe where we met most everyone else from the trip.

Hello Chile

2006-12-08T16:11:32Z

Hello from Chile!

Well, its week 3 of my trip so I figure it´s about time to actually write one of those journal entries that I´ve been talking about for so long.

Week one was spent in Santiago taking language classes, week two was spent building houses with Habitat and now I am in Chiloe -- an island midway down the coast of Chile. Here´s a few things that seemed interesting to me over the past few weeks:

SANTIAGO
I arrived in Santiago on Sunday morning and spent the day walking around the city. Immediately, I was struck by how modern and safe the city was especially when compared to my previous South American experience: Quito, Ecuador. Most of the cities old architecture has been destroyed by earthquakes, so what exists now is a combination of small slightly-old buildings and large modern high rises. Through the center of town runs the river (which is quite filthy and often rancid, so the city makes an attempt to hide it, or atleast ignore it -- i.e., this is no San Antonio Riverwalk) along which runs the main road through town. As the main road runs through town the median splits open to contain a large park that runs for a mile or so. On Sunday afternoon this park was filled to capacity with families, young romantics and a wide assortment of young bohemian punks selling a wide assortment of used books, clothing and other assorted crap of unknown origin. The park opens up to inclose a large museum in front of which sat an array of jugglers, musicians, a community drum circle (whose single song lasted for as long as I stood there, and may still be in progress for all I know) and a huge crowd of spectators taking in all the entertainment that was to be had.

Also, there are lots of dogs.

LANGUAGE SCHOOL
I began language school on Monday morning at 10:20am -- exactly 15 minutes after I called the language school to ask if classes were beginning and exactly 20 minutes after my class had began. Initially I was enrolled in group classes. The group was huge: 7 or 8 people; and the class was a bit dull. We covered material with which I was already familiar and the exercises consisted of some very uninteresting topics: where are you from? Do you like swimming? What color is your uncle´s Toyota?... With all this, I began remembering why I dispised so much my high school Spanish classes. After lunch, I spoke with the program director and insisted on 1-on-1 classes (at an additional cost, of course). He agreed to the terms and conditions, and he even offered to spend 2 hours a day teaching me himself. Woohoo!

Over the remaining 4 days of the week I slowly drove my instructors crazy by constantly derailing there lesson plans in favor of extemporaneous conversations whose subject matter focused mainly on things that I had read in my latest copy of National Geographic, Spanish edition or the latest developments of the local telenovellas. Eventually, I think they understood that I had no goals of any kind of certification and that all I wanted was to enjoy the learning process.

LIFE OUTSIDE SCHOOL
Life in the hostal was a mixed bag of emotions. On one hand, the place was filled with over-priviledged, young backpackers who were midway through their year-long South American vacation and who scoffed at the notion of spending *only* 6 weeks down here. I stayed in a dormitory for the week and I began questioning why I, an employed professional, was living under those conditions and why I was sharing a room with a 20-year old kid whose sleep schedule seemed offset from mine by 8 hours. On the other hand I met some very nice people as well: a girl who works at Yosemite and runs extreme marathons, a young professional from Costa Rica who met his every goal in life but still is searching for something to make him happy and three guys from Los Angeles who were on a 10-day whirlwind tour of Chile and Buenos Aires. Also, the staff at the counter and the cleaning staff were very nice and made an effort to help me practice my Spanish.

In the evenings I would go out with my classmates or friends from the hostal. The area I stayed in, Barrio Bellavista, was bustling at night and filled with great restaurants of varrying cuisine. My vegetarianism has subsided in the past few weeks and, though I tend to stick to seafood, occasionally a mis-translation will have me eating a big plate of bird or some mammal. One of the nice things about the area is that was not just a tourist destination. Plenty of locals also dined at the same restaurants.

The local quisine is quite good. Lots of beef, fish and chicken; the vegetables are fresh and the wine is great -- as is the de facto national drink: a pisco sour (a coctail made with distilled liquor, lemon juice, sugar and -- I just found this out -- egg whites). Without a doubt, the highlight of any meal is pebre -- a cilanto-heavy salsa that is served with bread and butter. They bring out the pebre as an apitizer, but really, the rest of the meal takes a back seat to pebre.

OTHER RANDOM SENTIMENTS FROM MY FIRST WEEK
I could not get over the contrast of Santiago as compared to quito and Guayquil. The city was so safe and clean and prosperous. On one afternoon I took the cable-car to the top of the local hill, Cerro San Cristobal. The view was fantastic; the city spreads out in every direction for as far as you can see or at least until interrupted by 14,000 foot mountains. Quito had a similar attraction (complete with a similar, but much stranger looking Virgin Mary statue) but in Quito the place was practically a war zone -- the guide book made it clear that you will get mugged if you go to the hill alone. Santiago was just the opposite: there were families and tourists and even cyclists and joggers running up and down the hill. On the rear of the mountain were an assortment of gardens, playgrounds and a public pool (which was quite a hit with the ladies of my language school).

The flight in

2006-12-01T00:00:50Z

I flew into Santiago two Sundays ago. The flight was long and uneventful. The frills that accompany a trans-Atlantic flight (i.e., free drinks) were absent, and I took that as some type of profoundly significant social commentary, but perhaps they just don´t do that type of thing anymore. The 10 hour flight was followed shortly by a 30 minute wait to pay $100 reciprocity fee to the Chilean government and then a 1 hour wait to pass through Chilean customs. The wait was made quite more interesting by the guy standing next to me, Sven, who despite the viking-like name was 100% pure Texan: overly friendly, overly-obvious southern drawl and more than slightly larger than anyone else around. He worked for an oil-services company -- traveling and training operators all over the world for extended periods of time. He regaled myself and my fellow line-standers with stories of oil-services trains in lands afar: Alaska, Nigeria, Angola, Saudi Arabia, and Israel (to name a few). For a moment I doubted the veracity of his tales, but the heavily-stamped, signed and stapled passport proved otherwise.