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Exchange: Universidad Católica de Chile
Studying at the Universidad Católica de Chile was to achieve a goal I had set myself some years earlier and together with my travels in South America, it was a life changing leap into independence and greatly improved my Spanish.
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La Nieve
Hay una primera vez para todo! Hay donde esquiar en Australia, pero son pocos los lugares y lejos de las ciudades y sobre todo, son caros. Esto me hizo resolver hacerlo en Sudamérica cuando estuviera estudiando donde iba a pasar el invierno en Santiago muy cerca a la cordillera que tiene pistas de esquí cercanos y…más o menos baratas. Pero ¿cómo hacerlo? Durante la orientación de la UC a la que asistí, un grupo que se llamaba ‘CAUC’ (Comisión de Acogida de la UC) nos presentó qué se proporciona de actividades para hacerles sentir más acogidos los extranjeros de intercambio en la universidad. CAUC organiza actividades como viajes a lugares conocidos en Chile, fiestas, toures y otras actividades durante los semestres. Creo que la mayoría de los de intercambio se inscribieron! Yo lo hice y una vez que vi el enunciado ‘La Nieve’ reservé un cupo al tiro para participar en eso. Fue un día en la nieve que incluyó el arriendo del equipo de esquí, clases para aquellos que las quisieran (como yo), acceso a las telesillas, una comida y transporte de ida y vuelta desde Santiago. Pero no incluyó la ropa así que fui a una tienda de ropa americana a comprarme pantalones para la nieve más unos guantes baratos y ya estaba listo para arremeter este nuevo desafío! La gente se veía tan linda y elegante bajando con tanta facilidad como si fuera la cosa más natural de la vida, todo veloz y bajo control, un baile líquido de libertad en un mundo congelado. Pero fui muy principiante y si bien las ganas me ayudaron, tuve que ver a los europeos del grupo CAUC...
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Las Fiestas Patrias
En septiembre de 2013, Chile cumplió 40 años desde que se instaló la dictadura encabezada por Pinochet mediante un golpe de estado y el bombardeo del Palacio de la Moneda. Cada año se reconoce esa fecha dolorosa, marcada por el incendio de micros en las afueras de la ciudad y otras delincuencias, sólo una semana antes de que Chile pare para celebrar las ‘Fiestas Patrias’; la celebración del nacimiento de la nación el 18 septiembre de 1810. El dolor se va disipando, reemplazado con un sentimiento sumamente diferente; la alegría. Ser australiano frente a esta patria afiebrada que comparte la gente chilena me impacta conmueve muchísimo y me exige mantenerme callado respecto a mis ideas acerca del patriotismo. Soy un huésped de esta cultura y, mi amigo, ‘¡ya viene la semana de los asados, copete, carrete y las ganas de pasarlo bien!’ Ahí se junta la gente … y junto con la música que alcanza en algunos momentos a un nivel ensordecedor, empieza a ingerir carne y alcohol. Durante cinco días se transforman los parques grandes y conocidos de la ciudad, transformándolos en fondas enormes; lugares de comida y baile tradicionales de Chile alojados en marquesinas amplias. Ahí se junta la gente, pagando una entrada según el parque de su gusto y su ubicación en la ciudad, y, junto con la música que alcanza en algunos momentos a un nivel ensordecedor, empieza a ingerir carne y alcohol. De las opciones alcohólicas hay dos consideradas más ‘dieciocheras’ que otras: la chicha chilena y el terremoto. La primera es un trago hecho del jugo de uva fermentado pero no tanto como el vino. Queda dulce y fuerte y un...
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El Chaltén
Coodinates: 49°19’44” South 72°55’48” West C haltén is this little hamlet 90km off the famous Ruta 40 that traverses western Argentina, crossing thousands of kilometres of bleak and windswept Patagonia in its southern reaches. For seven months of the year Chaltén is locked in snow and idles with a skeleton crew off the tourist map lying frozen and forgotten beyond the boundaries of mobile phone coverage. For five months each year this world of moraines and glaciers opens to the droves to tourists – mainly Israelis – who plough the standard route from Torres del Paine in Chile through El Calafate to Chaltén and the north. It is a world renowned destination for mountain climbers who wait weeks for windows of clement weather in which to pit their spikes against the rock faces and challenging summits which abound in the area. But El Chaltén’s primary attraction is the spectacular Mount Fitz Roy, a truly breath taking series of rock towers which surge to over 3,000 meters which, when not covered in cloud, can be seen from numerous different angles for many kilometres around. The morning light on the sand coloured stone etched the rugged and weathered face of the rock into sharp relief against the blue sky while the bank of cloud behind the Torres glowed a brilliant white sending tongues of white fire lapping at the base of the Torres. To save money, I hitch-hiked from El Calafate to El Chaltén, a distance of some 220km and waited only 10 minutes in total before a family en route to Río Gallegos took me from El Calafate to the crossroads of the Ruta 40 where after...
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Glaciar Perito Moreno
Coodinates: 50°29′ South 73°03′ West El Calafate as a town has not one touristic attraction. Its raison d’etre is to support the tourism to the nearby Perrito Moreno glacier in the National Park ‘Los Glaciares’. They say it’s one of the worlds remaining ‘healthy’ glaciers experiencing a consistent ice flow progressing at about 1.5 metres per day. The glacier itself is an impressive construction standing in parts at 70 meters high it’s a moving, wrenching, cracking, ever-changing wall of ice disintegrating at its outer edge as slabs of ice – often weighing many tons – break off from the superstructure and plunge into the water below. If you’re waiting on one of the many platforms for about an hour you have a very good chance of seeing this happen. There are many boat tours and mini ice-trekking adventures which one can do to accompany the visit to the glacier but I chose the most basic option – to walk the platforms for several hours and indulge in the almost hypnotic action of staring at the glacier, listening to the enormous rending sounds as the ice grinds against itself in some battle of the forces of nature. An explosion, only strung out over a geological time-frame. When listening, I would hear this great cracking sound and quickly scan for the source of the commotion only to see is relatively small chunk of ice fall from above and splash into the water below. Somehow the size of the sound belied the small ice-flow which ensued however on occasions much large sections of the glacier would break away and these were awesome to behold. One always hopes to...
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Ushuaia & the Tierra del Fuego
Coodinates: 54°48’26” South 68°18’16” West There are a number of couchhosts in Ushuaia but only about 2 that are actively participating so I count myself fortunate to have had my request accepted by Carlos within about six hours of sending it. I always read the profiles of those to whom I send requests and I remember a unique detail about Carlos’ profile which caught my attention. He had expressed a wish to visit Pripyat, the modern day ghost town abandoned hours after the explosion of reactor 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in April of 1986. Show nuclear rant Photos show this soviet era city disappearing behind an advancing tide of green vegetation which is reclaiming the paved roads and public squares, softening at first gave the lethal legacy which lies silent and deadly in the corners of the hollowed out shells of buildings, or in pockets beneath scraps of debris. In the background the colossus of the abandoned nuclear power plant lies in a sarcophagus of concrete enclosing the melted remains of what before Fukushima had been the world’s worst industrial accident. Before the accident, Pripyat had been a modern and prosperous Soviet city and was home to many workers at the nuclear plant which, up until that time, had had a ‘stellar safety record’. The modern day zone of exclusion extends to a radius of 25km from the plant in every direction where radioactive isotopes in dangerously high concentrations which had been splattered into the ecosystem and thrown up into the atmosphere from the blast, will keep it this way for at the very least many decades to come. Shortcuts in the plant’s completion...
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Torres del Paine
Coodinates: 51°00′ South 73°06′ West Right from the beginning of my trip I’d been harbouring the idea of visiting Torres del Paine, the famous national park in Patagonia in the far south Chile. Part of my initial trip to the south had been with that destination in mind but by the time I’d spent a month in Bariloche and March was marching by, I knew I would have to delay or risk some very poor weather. Rather than make my way south from Bariloche and El Bolsón, through to El Chaltén, El Calafate and eventually Puerto Natales – the gateway to the Torres del Paine – I booked a flight for Buenos Aires and left the far south for another voyage. Before my trip I would have been frantically planning, organising groups and packing too much stuff for the trek in the national park but by now I knew that this was: a) pointless b) difficult c) likely to change anyway You just can’t coordinate effectively with groups who have different schedules after the semester unless you’re all part of the same program. I also don’t have Facebook so spur of the moment gatherings and organising isn’t possible for me through that channel, it’s a price I pay for not being part of that social cluster-frak but one I decided to pay years ago. I was gonna wing it. I did wing it from Santiago to Punta Arenas and on the flight I met by chance Paulette, also from la Católica and participant in the CAUC program of activities for primarily foreign students doing exchange at the uni. I’d spent a day falling over in the...
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Villarica & Pucón
T his was another ‘CAUC activity’, one of the last if not the last for the semester. The outline was something of an organised, activity-filled dash around the Araucanía region in the south of Chile. Both Villarica and Pucón are lakeside towns, happily situated in the rolling greenery characteristic to southern Chile and both offer spectacular views of the Andes and in particular the tall, snow-capped, faintly smoking cone of the Villarica volcano. After a 10 hour overnight bus ride from Santiago in which no one slept well, we were blinking in the cold morning light of the bus station in Villarica, waiting for our guide to arrive. Once he did we were whisked off to the Villarica campus of the Universidad Católica for a breakfast and a tour before piling into another bus bound for the Villarica national park. Despite the lower level of functionality that comes as a result of little or no sleep, the view of the volcano and surrounding bush and countryside was refreshing after months in Santiago. The south of Chile is great for all things outdoors with its lakes, forests, mountains and ocean all nearby. Araucaria trees soared above the Coihues littering the ground with their spiky leaves and kernels of seeds, the piñones, or ‘nuts’ along the path. Every now and again the snow-capped cone of the Villarica Volcano came into view among the trunks, a fierce white under the late morning sun. Our guide informed us of the names, cultural and gastronomic significance of the flora and fauna along the path to the indigenous people of the region before the arrival of the Spanish. The primary indigenous influence in Chile and...
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Valparaíso & Viña del Mar
I lived 22 years in Australia and never once visited New Zealand for many reasons but most likely it was because of money and the fact that half my kiwi family was living in Australia and that I was just a kid so unless we had some family holiday planned it wasn’t as though I could pipe up and say, ‘Oh and by the way, I’m going over to New Zealand for the long weekend.’ It is however a close neighbour and therefore gets the ‘Oh I can do it anytime, s’pose cos it’s juz a hop over the drink!’ I tended to treat Valparaíso in the same way, ever deferring when people asked me if I’d been and what I’d thought. When I was travelling I was like, ‘Sure I want to go, but I’m waiting until I’m studying in Santiago to visit those place close by but for now I’m taking advantage of my travel time to go further abroad.’ Such lovely rationalisations that are just so….rational and just so….not how it works. Two months into the semester that didn’t work anymore so I confessed to a friend and we decided to make a weekend of it. I finally made the major minor leap next door. Fittingly Pablo Neruda had a place here. The boat-loving though decidedly landlocked Chilean wordsmith fashioned himself a characteristic abode filled with an eclectic mix of ship artefacts salvaged from dumps or antiques shops, auctions and sales and crammed lovingly into a narrow, poky four-story villa with enviable view. The name ‘Valparaíso’ could be traced back etymologically as a conjunction of two words: valle (valley) and paraíso (paradise). Paradise Valley. It...
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Arequipa & the Colca Canyon
I deferred northward travel from Cusco, preferring to remain in the city an extra week exploring further the winding streets, restaurants and activities – one of which didn’t happen, and the other of which was not worth it – but I still enjoyed myself immensely. Arequipa is another tourist destination in southern Perú and I passed through it, staying a few days, on my way south to Santiago to begin studying. A plush overnight bus from Cusco left me without one night’s sleep, blinking in the early morning light. As with Cusco, the central part of the city is the tourist attraction, with old buildings built of a light volcanic rock, a walled monastery and elegant main square. Just as in Cusco, the bus terminal is nowhere near the centre of town, a requirement for maintaining a lucrative taxi industry to which I have paid my dues. Apart from an expensive French creperie, some expensive fine-dining restaurants lining the cities popular pedestrian walkway, an elegant colonial style main square and building and a wonderful (and typical) Peruvian market, I really didn’t see much of the city, being present and conscious just one afternoon and two evenings. Most come to Arequipa to see the Colca Canyon, which isn’t near the town but some 150kms northward, in the direction of Cusco. The canyon is quite long, beginning in Chivay and continuing north-westward past the town of Cabanaconde 60kms distant. Tourism used to be higher they say, before the Colca Valley authority doubled the tourist ticket entry price to S/. 70, S28 but my bus was full. The most trodden paths into the Colca Valley begin and end in Cabanaconde, but just...
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Cusco
‘¡Masaje, masaje, amigo!’ ‘Massage, my friend.’ ‘Machu Picchu tour!’ ‘¡Te doy un buen precio, amigo!’ ‘¿Foto señor?’ ‘¿Anteojos de sol?’ ‘Llévate uno, amigo. Un recuerdito.’ ‘Baby alpaca, señor. 100%’ ‘¡Tourist information!’ ‘¡Gorras, chompas, guantes!’ ‘¿Una monedita señor?’ ‘¿Menú señor? Pizza a la piedra.’ Pheeep! Beebeep. Weeoo-weeoo. Beeeep. ¿Masaje? Cusco, Peru’s tourist Mecca and economic engine of the southeast is a thriving regional centre. Launching place to the world famous Machu Picchu and Sacred Valley of the Incas, Cusco is ready to host you, feed you and sell you any number of tours and souvenirs. Hiking, biking, horse-back riding, paragliding, river rafting, arts and crafting, endless asking: ‘¿Masaje, señor?’ When you go ‘Ooooh, South America! Look Brandon, they offer return flights to Peru with accommodation in Cusco and a guided tour of the Inca trail ending at Machu Picchu. We could do that after Asia. You know? I mean, it’s $x,598 but looks really amazing!’ The Llama photoshopped into the image of Machu Picchu underneath the price tag of four digits has awakened an excitement in you to ‘discover’ South America. Well, good on you, Cusco is well worth it. I’ll leave you with my impression of the city, that is to say my impression of the touristy, old section because the majority is actually an unamazing sprawl. An inspection of the city of Cusco reveals a city of three cultural layers – that of the Killke pre 1300 AD, followed by the Imperial Inca as part of the old kingdom of Tawantinsuyu and finally that of the Spanish conquerors. Before the arrival of the Spanish, Cusco was the centre of the entire Inca Empire, a site of great importance...
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Machu Picchu
The words ‘Machu Picchu’ have reached mythic popularity in the west, driven by a powerful tourism industry. It’s the poster image of Peru and arguably South America, if you had to choose. I love the way we did Machu Picchu, sort of stumbling our way towards this iconic destination. Steve and I had just worked our way through the Sacred Valley and lucked onto a late bus from Ollantaytambo to Santa María where we dozed in a squashed stupor until 2am when we tumbled out into a waiting taxi for the next leg to Santa María. Now this one of those WTF moments, when I, squashed into the boot of a taxi gazing at the canopy passing in silhouette before a bright starry sky, began reflecting on my experience as a whole between potholes and sharp banking left and right. It was all visible, the ruins, the river, the valley where it was 25 degrees and humid up to the snow on the higher mountains. People rave about Machu Picchu, but on a clear day it is all just ridiculously amazing views. RSI of the shutter finger material. Santa Teresa was not our destination – but rather the hydro-electric plant some 30 minutes further. Consistent with our current level of planning, we’d assumed there would be some form of accommodation at the hydro plant. Well sure! For workers! It was like 3am or more and we had no were to go but on! The gorge had narrowed now and the feeble light of the clear starry night did not pierce the pitch black of path which followed the rail. After holding the taxi driver to his quote...
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Sacred Valley, Peru
The city of Cusco was the centre of the Inca imperial empire but it is in the nearby Sacred Valley that many of the ruins and places of interest can be found. Walking around the city of Cusco, one is offered endless tours mountain-biking, horse riding and trekking from or to Machu Picchu. There are also day tours which carry bus-fulls of tourists from one site to another in the Sacred Valley within 9 narrated whirlwind hours. After having done the ‘City Tour’, which includes nearby sites in the same manner, I was loath to repeat the experience in such a special place as the Sacred Valley. I was not alone in these deliberations. Steve from Canada, who I had met on the boat to the Isla del Sol in Lago Titicaca in Bolivia, and who had travelled on the same schedule to Cusco, was of the same opinion. Having bought our ‘Boleto Turístico’ or ‘Tourist Ticket’ in Cusco, we had access to many of the sites in the sacred valley. We decided to do our own tour, be our own guides and take our own time, so we took the bus to Písac to view the ruins on the hill above the town of the same name. Písac Moray Salineras Ollantaytambo Chincheros People advised us to take a taxi to the top and walk down, saving a long steep climb up. I would reiterate the advice. For the not so special price of S/ 20 (20 Nuevo Soles) a taxi will take you from the town to the top of the ruins letting your walk your way back down to the town over 2.5 hours....
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Copacabana & La Isla del Sol
In this order Bolivia revealed its natural wonders to the world: Lago Colorado, Salar de Uyuni, Lago Titicaca y La Isla del Sol. And in that order I visited them! In a natural progression I wound my way north through Bolivia, beginning in the south with the Salt Flats tour, bending east and north to Potosí and Sucre before the jump north to La Paz. On route from La Paz to the north and the border with Peru lies Lago Titicaca, the highest lake in the world and at its centre the Island of the Sun or La Isla del Sol. Three thousand years before the Romans were nailing Christianity’s messiah to the cross, the indigenous Tihuanaca of the Isla del Sol were slicing the hearts out of women from the neighbouring island of Isla de la Luna (Island of the Moon) in a sacrificial offering to Gods of the Sun, Moon, and Pachamama, the Earth Goddess. Aside from this human butchery, the Tihuanaca of the Isla del Sol were adept at cultivating the dry slopes of the island, producing barley, corn, wheat, legumes and potatoes on elaborately terraced hillsides that remain to this day, transforming the bare slopes of the island into a myriad of curving stone swails. The micro-climate and water catchment qualities of the swails were well understood by the Tihuanaca and its modern equivalent is undoubtedly Permaculture. On the bay, the light changed from the rich hues of pink, red and orange, to the deeper shades of crimson, indigo and Prussian blue. Soon the land was nothing but a black silhouette while above the cloud-streaked sky still burned with the last fiery rays of...
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Camino de la Muerte, “Death Road”
I‘ve been busy doing tours in Bolivia, so although they say it’s cheap; when you’re taking four day four wheel drive tours through Andean landscapes or three days hikes from the eternal snow of 5,000 meters down to the jungle… it still is very reasonably priced for what you’re getting! After the Choro Trail and a night in muggy misty Coroico, I returned to La Paz to cycle Death Road, a famous Bolivian high-mountain descent on bicycle. The infamous road gained its name and reputation from the numerous fatal accidents that occurred along its many kilometres of torturous turns lined by sheer cliffs and that fall hundreds of meters to the forest covered valley below. Until 2006 this road was the only connection from La Paz to the towns to east, handling all through traffic despite being only a narrow dirt road. Over the past years Bolivia has undertaken massive civil works in road construction in some of the most difficult and mountainous terrain on earth. High quality highways now cut, carve and climb their ways to the high passes connecting the major cities of La Paz, Oruyo, Potosí, Sucre and Cochabamba dramatically reducing transit times. Such a highway now replaces the infamous Camino de La Muerte (Death Road) which now remains as a popular tourist cycling attraction. I applaud the government’s efforts in investing in national infrastructure like roads and the newly announced intention of connecting to the South American Fibra Optic Ring as a means to bring Bolivia out of the stone age of internet connectivity – being notably the worst in South America and as such, among the worst in the world. Waking in the freezing...
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"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. - Wendell Phillips"
El precio de la libertad es la vigilencia eterna.
About
This is a travel blog. A place where I can offer in a random and whimsical fashion those things which make my life so much more interesting at this time. A diary, you could call it. Although lacking in the day-to-day details that make personal diaries so tempting in their banality.
It presents small snapshots in a larger experience, lights along a path if you like, providing others a small window into my wanderings and is to me a snapshot of the road travelled.
General Region
The exchange has finished and this is now the mad dash to visit the country in which I had initially planned to study … Colombia.
Who I Am
A veinteañero student from Australia who took time out to travel around South America for six months, then studied on exchange in Santiago de Chile, then continued travelling before resuming his studies in Australia. Bitten by love in Colombia he returned to South America to live and teach English for 18 months in Medellín and now really has to return and finish his degree.