Most of the time, I
prefer to be organized when it comes to planning something like say, a weekend
trip to a city 400 kilometers north of where I live. But that was far from the
case as we gringos boarded an overnight bus to La Serena, Chile, last Wednesday
night—the 14th, for you few keeping track. I hope this is one of, if not the
only, entry where it’s more chronological and journal sounding, but if you make
it to the end you may read about our possible encounter with the best soccer
player in the world today. Again, I will try to make this as less of a diary
entry as possible. So,
Dear diary!
We wanted to go
somewhere this weekend as we had four days of it. Thursday was the feast of the
Virgin Mary’s Assumption in Chile. Coupled with the fact that we don’t have
classes on Fridays in the first place, our long weekend was in place. You might
ask How can you learn or study in Chile
if you get long weekends all the time? And if you are a certain duo of
parents back home in central MN you might also be asking yourself something
like Why are we helping finance our son
abroad if he just gallivants around the country on weekends? I can’t answer
either of questions, but I can tell you about this weekend that easily was the
most random one yet here in Chile.
‘Plans’ started to
move faster than I would have preferred. A friend of mine bought some of us bus
tickets the night before, this before we even had lodging for the weekend in La
Serena. We attempted to reserve a cabin, but that fell through a mere four
hours prior to boarding the bus, for reasons still unknown. Thus commenced what
some in our group (surely not I) affectionately call gringo shitstorm. At this
point, there were 17 of us from CSB/SJU with tickets on a bus for six hours
north with a return on Sunday, yet still no place to sleep those three nights. A
flurry of Facebook messaging ensued, continuing for over two hours before I
finally just reserved a room at a hostel with 6 beds in it and said first come
first serve. After a while, everyone seemingly had places to stay. But after
our previous cabin debacle, everyone was wary of reserving a place to stay over
the internet. But hey, it was the eve of the Assumption, why not make a few
assumptions ourselves??
La Serena translates
into calmness or tranquility, adjectives we earnestly sought to emulate as we
grumbled exhaustedly through the streets of the town with the same name at 5:30
in the morning. In an effort to do so, we thought it was best to attempt to
yell directions to one another over the din of the ten or so street dogs that
had steadily joined our group and were now barking at the top of their lungs.
After an hour or two of getting lost and going in circles (if you’ve ever seen
Balto, you’ll understand why I wanted to start scratching tree bark off at this
point) we finally found the hostel where the rest of the group would stay. We
then wandered around for a few more hours before noon, when our small group of
six was able to check into our hostel, Hostel Andes (the mountain range, not
the owner of Woody and Buzz). After a nap and a bite to eat, we were informed
that the other group had already commenced consumption activities usually
reserved for later in the evening. Feeling thoroughly left out, we decided to
nap again to make ourselves feel better, followed by dinner, card games, and an
early night.
The following day
started off as no more exciting. But we made plans to go to the Mamalluca
observatory in nearby Vicuña later that night, and after a wonderful home cooked
meal of spaghetti with a hint of sauce (our one packet failed to go as far as
hoped) we were on our way. After our rickety drive, we were soon taking turns
looking through large telescopes at various planets moons, stars,
constellations etc. What was almost more impressive were the shots my friend
Craig was getting with his camera that made mine look like a Kodak disposable
(he said with pride). Since Vicuña is in the boonies there is little to no
light pollution, leaving ample photo opportunities that awed us as well as an
Australian couple nearby who by nights end I concluded surely had found some
local cannabis stash. Either that or everything I said that night must have
been hilarious (I’m sticking to the latter though). Following this was a presentation
in the planetarium about our expanding universe, in which our presenter ended
by zooming out further and further from the earth into universes and galaxies
we will most likely never know. We could not have felt more insignificant as
human beings after this night.
The next day (17th) we were up
early for a tour of Valle de Elqui, an area near the observatory that is known
for its vineyards that produce the grapes used in the Chilean alcoholic drink,
pisco. Our driver to the brewery was also our tour guide, and while we were in
the drinking and party room of the man who founded the place, he explained that
the trap door in the middle of the room was used when the wives of the party-goers would stomp over to this building, knowing their spouses to be there. But after
hearing her knock, the men would hide the sought after husband(s) in the trap
door before the front one was unlocked, then proceed to convince the wife that
her husband must still be out in the field. This left many of us, Bennies and
Johnnies both, shocked and anxious to add such a secret room to our future
houses. What made this whole day much more of an adventure was that there was a
man on our same tour who looked exactly like Lionel Messi, but seeing as we
never asked we will never know. But, I’ll still tell my children I met the best
soccer player in the world when in Chile.
If you stuck this one
through to the end, I’m sorry to have made your Monday worse.
And if you’ve ever
watched the Red Green show, I’m pullin
for ya, we’re all in this together.
Have a good week.
JJ
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