All Aboard!...for real this time

As I was saying earlier...

The point of bringing up the pub in the first place was to eventually get to all the wonderful details of my 2 weeks of vacation. If you are wondering what I am talking about, it is becuase this blog lists entries in order of chronological publication. Thus, to hear about all the stuff leading up traveling in Perú, go back one entry. To see what is behind the creaking door, turn to page 7. Otherwise, just keep reading.

Following all the craziness of town anniversaries and marching in parades and the opening of Corwatt's Corner on the back of our house, I last left you at the bus stop at 3:30 in the morning, Monday the 14th of July. The original travel plan from this point was to arrive in Antofagasta by 8am, buy my ticket North to Arica (northern Chilean border), take care of some financial stuff when the banks opened, and head towards Perú. Unfortunately for me, a whole lot more South Americans use the bus system than North Americans, so the bus from Antofagasta to Arica routinely gets full well in advance. I couldn't find a bus company around in which the trip wasn't agotado (that is, booked straight up). Not catching the bus meant that I would be a day late in my travel plans, and miss meeting up with the crew of volunteer friends in Arica (i.e. traveling alone through foreign parts in Chile and Perú). A great way to start vacation, right?

As frustrating as it was, things actually turned out alright. After taking care of my bank stuff, I got a hold of Mike Krax--another volunteer living in Antofagasta--and was able to hang out with him for most of the day. We took a walk up one of the hills that backs Antofagasta and got to look out over the city and the sea. Not the most impressive thing to look at, as people don't bother so much beatifying the outsides of their homes in Antofa., but it was a welcome pleasure to kick around talking philosophy with Mike. Later we went back to his house and shared a meal with his family. It was so pleasant to get a glimpse into the life he has there in the big city, and especially nice to spend some time with such a great Chilean family. When all was said and done, Mike's host-dad took me to the hostel we routinely use in Antofagasta and I settled in for the night. The next day I was up bright and early (ticket in hand this time) to catch the 6am bus to Arica.

Arica is one of the northernmost cities of Chile, and sits right across the border from the Peruvian entry-point of Tacna. The plan, at this point, was to stay in Arica that night with a teacher from the school where I work who was taking his vacation there with his family, and then leave the next morning to cross the border into Perú. This plan started off working splendidly. I got into Arica around 4pm, had time to be given a tour and see el Morro (giant rock outcropping/old fortress overlooking the city. I was routinely informed that if your boyfriend/girlfriend left you, this was were you came to end your misery), and also to enjoy a beautiful meal at el Pollón (which I think means "the chicken-lover"). You see, the Chilean food I had been eating at my house for the past 6 weeks was wonderfully nutritious, and I was always more than full--but I had rarely been satisfied by it: Just different taste buds I guess. When I got to el Pollón though, where instead of Double Whoppers or 1/4 pounders you order 1/2 or 1/4 Chickens to eat, I suspected things might be different.

Yeah, they were.

My quarter-chicken (breast and wing) came out on a bed of french fries, and accompanied by an avacado salad--topped off with an Inca Cola and condiment assortment. Super-delicious.

So then it was to home and bed and the next morning to cross the border. I had a 12:30 bus to catch and my fellow teacher sort of chuckled at me because I insisted on getting a collectivo (kind of a group taxi that runs a specific route) to cross 3 hours before my departure time, for a trip that he said would take--at the very worst--2 hours from start to finish (see how responsible I was being Mom). Little did we anticipate that on the feast day of Chile's patroness, Maria del Carmen, three-fourths of the country's northern population would decide to try to cross the border into Tacna and celebrate their day off. Suffice it to say that my border crossing took slightly more than 2 hours. In spite of our drivers best efforts to hurry things along every step of the way, I got into the bus depot in Tacna about 40 minutes too late, thus missing another bus. Though slightly frustrating, this pattern of delays became something of a serious adventure, making my journey to Cuzco--if not completely enjoyable--at least really exciting and educational. I learned all kinds of things about navigating South American bus and hostel systems (like how to carry yourself in a manner that makes the three million or so independent, questionable taxi, collectivo, or bus agents that fill the stations not interested in trying to sell you a fare). In all the long days, strangeness and confusion, I feel I also grew a bit interiorly.

At last I made it on board a bus from Arequipa to Cuzco, where I arrived after 4 days of travel, 2 missed/booked buses, 2 unplanned hostel stays, and a ride or two with the Flores bus line (Flores: 1970's hippie-daisy decor., and really heinous on-board 80's music videos for no extra charge). The unpleasantless of the trip was alliviated by chatting things up on the 10 hour ride with a really sweet Peruvian girl named Anghela who was passing through Cuzco on her way home for her own school break. I am coming to believe more and more, also through my time by the sea and some beautiful literature, in the power of beauty to help life make sense.

In Cuzco I stayed with my buddie Max and his buddy Connor who is renting an apartment there. Connor was more than gracious, and refused to accept any cash for his pains--said having people come through kept things from getting boring. After a couple of days in Cuzco, I booked my trek to Machu Picchu: 5 days in the Peruvian mountains, food, equipment, entrance fees and all that goodness to the tune of $170. Pretty sweet deal. The trek itself was, due to sickness that hit me on the last day, actually more enjoyable than the final destination. There happened to be 5 kids from Santiago there, and since I was the only one from the U.S. I was able to split my time pretty pleasantly between the Chilean college kids and the English-speaking folks from Ireland, Australia and Sweden. The Chilean kids were a pleasant and refreshing surprise as I haven't often run into people raised in such a similar environment as myself. That is, these kids had gone to a Christian school (Catholic, in their case), all came from really strong Catholic families, and prayed the rosary together on the trail everyday. Seriously, I felt like I was hiking with a group of kids from Alleluia. So that was nice, and it was easy to feel comfortable with them.

As far as the trek, just being out hiking after such a long absence from the woods was nice enough. The end of the first day found us camped in a rugged little valley, carpeted with oliv-green grass, staring up at two gigantic glaciers in the distance. Sometime after nightfall, when the temperature was starting drastically to drop, and we all emerged from the dining tent, we were dumbfounded by a view of the two glaciers turned a glowing, irridescent blue by the rising moon, which hung over the shoulder of one of the ice-giants. The next day was the most challenging, having some of the toughest ascents (and therefore, in some ways, the most enjoyable). There is something to fighting oneself all the way up the long switchbacks and straight climbs of a mountainside that gives its own reward regardless of whether any spectacular view is achieved at the end of it. Luckily enough, this particular fight also bestowed its visual benedictions--we passed through two small and really enchanting little meadow-valleys, run through with streams, and eventually arrived at the knees of Salcantay: one of the two giants that looked down on our campsite of the previous night.

At times, at least for me, it seems we arrive at something we expect to be powerfully beautiful or moving, without the feelings or responses we expected to have. I think this can be scary, or at least bothersome. We're like: this is the flipping Grand Canyon, aren't I supposed to feel some unimaginable sensation right now? It seems the best thing is to enjoy the thing as you can and rest assured that you will probably have some really profound experience of beauty in the near future--like maybe when you are walking down a dull street not looking for it at all. At least this seems to happen to me. Salcantay and the mountains were amazing though. I can't say that I often felt majestically connected to the divine presence, but I was still pretty blown away--for instance--by how the glacier overwhelmed my field of vision. You could just sit there admiring a whole view, and then turn your head 30 degrees and have another whole powerful vista. Looking back at the pictures now I a even more amazed. It was also pretty neat to see some snow capped peaks with clouds drifting across them further down our path.

So as I said, the trek was pretty great. I also remember a really beautiful spot where two rivers made a noisy collision and ran together as one larger flow. It was nice just to marvel at the force and shape of so much water shoved together over lumbering rocks in some spots. We also we able to see some very pretty waterfalls--often falling right next to the trail. One day, in fact, our descent from a ridge kept offering glimpses of this beautiful waterfall, till the path wound down right past it and I was able to take off my shirt and be one with the water for a few minutes. That same day we later hiked into Aguas Calientes along a set of railroad tracks, singing in Spanish and English and forcing ourselves through the last hours of a very long day.

Just to tie things up now. After four days of hiking we had arrived in Aguas Calientes, the tourist depot at the base of Machu Picchu. In conjunction, I believe, with my decision to stay out till 2am dancing and imbibing one night and waking up at 5am the next day for an 8+ hr. hike (which apparently didn't phase my Chilean buddies, who were among the first up Machu Picchu a day later and in great spirits), in conjunction with that example of rather poor judgment, the old body got rather sick and feverish the night before going up to the Inca ruins. I was more than thankful to purge myself before the porcelin goddess at about 2am, and get another 2 hours of marvelous sleep before pulling out the flashlight and heading up the ancient steps at 4:30 in the morning. Suffice it to say that 2 hours climbing 700 yr. old steps at a serious incline didn't do a lot for my recovery: I spent my first two hours on Machu Picchu camped out half-asleep on one of the terraces that the Incans used, eons ago, for farming...willing myself not to feel like absolute crap. I did have one of the best views of the ruined city though. After waking myself up, snapping some photos, and having a soda with a friend from the trek, I decided I wasn't quite up to going back inside for the guided tour, or even just to walk around. Even if I hadn't had quite the experience I had hoped for in Machu Picchu, I had at least been able to move my body into the ruins, carry it up some stairs, force myself to have a good look, and gladly fork over $7 to take the bus back down to the bottom.

So the rest is pretty much uneventful. Well, at least relatively speaking. I was able to have a really beautiful last day in Cuzco. I got back Thursday night (the trek included a train and bus back down), had 8 hours of sleep, and woke up 300% better. Friday was super chill as I was able to snap some photos, visit a couple of really pretty museums and re-visit the enchanting sections of the city before catching my 8:30pm bus back towards home. The journey back to Taltal was the direct of opposite of the previous adventure. All tickets pre-purchased, no delays, no missed buses or surprise hostel stays, and I arrived safe and sound Sunday about noon with a full 1 and 1/2 days to recover before classes started again on Tuesday.

That was all ages ago by now. We've been back in class for a full three weeks since then. I still love the teaching and am beginning to really love my kids--looking at ways to make the little time that I have with thems more effective, linguistically and as a mentor.

This past week we hunkered down for some serious English debate training as next week begins our regional competition. The kids from Liceo Juan Cortes surprised themselves last year by coming in third place in the region, so we have quite a legacy to live up to and not as much time to prepare. Meanwhile Alfredo is here telling the kids that third was nice, but we want Gold this year. Interestingly enough, I was informed early in the week that we would have debate practice all afternoon, every afternoon this past week. Which is to say, in my school they don't think twice about kids missing a whole week of afternoon classes to focus on one particular extra-curricular. Things just run differently down here. It was really good for the team though, as there was (and is) plenty of preparation to do. So maybe the next blog will cover our English debate exploits, which will include at least two trips to the regional capital (usually quite an enjoyable trip for me) and surely many more mini-adventures. By the way--the regional debates: they take place on two consecutive Tuesdays, meaning another 3 out of 5 days missed two weeks in a row starting Monday. Gosh, they do things differently down here.

Well, until I write again, I wish all the best to all you guys.

Peace,
Billy

P.s. Still no pictures!! What's your problem Phillips?? Okay, so pictures are such a pain for me. I am going to try to make the next entry just a bunch of photos with captions dealing with the Pub opening, the Vacation, and some other adventures. For those who have asked, sorry it takes me so long to get these things up. Much love, Billy

P.p.s. A little section I cut out that I include here for those who still actually care:
....So, when I arrived in Arica (at the beginning of my trip), I was eventually met by my fellow teacher, whom everyone back in Taltal calls Cipe. Cipe, I learned, is actually his last name, which it was no use calling him since I would be spending the next 18 hours with a whole house full of Cipe's (they too, are Catholic, and believers in the wonders of procreation). In fact, more than one of his brother's is named Sergio, so sometimes first names weren't safe either. Luckily he is the only Ivan....

¡A Bordo!....(almost)

So today saw me back in the classroom after a two-week absence spent navigating my way through the Peruvian mountains and the equally challenging system of buses, terminals and transportation in general in Perú and Chile respectively. My first night of vacation was unexpectedly spent in a hostel in the city of Antofagasta becuase I had failed to purchase my bus ticket from Antofa. to Arica ahead of time, thus forcing me to wait 24 hours in a city only 4 hours from where I live.

In order to aviod chronological dimentia, lets begin at the beginning though. Some blessed day in the second week of July brought the news that the mayor of Taltal was requesting the presence of the students and teachers in a parade on July 12th to celebrate the town's anniversary. This was welcome news, not only because I figured it would be pretty neat to participate in the desfila, but also becuase it meant the mayor was obligated to tack on an extra day to the two-week-long Winter Vacations which would commence immediately after our marching duties were complete.
Score.

Thus I would be free to roam about the continent from the 14th till the 28th of July, giving a little more breathing room to my travel plans, and my pilgrimage to the famed Inca ruins at Machu Picchu. As it turned out, I needed all the breathing room I could get, but more of that later. In order to get to missed itineraries, border delays and floral pattern buses, I first have to tell you about the pub.

You see, Alfredo--my co-teacher in the Ingles Abre Puertas program, and also my host-uncle-brother--seems to be a bit of a dreamer. For a long time now it seems that he has been nurturing one dream or another involving building a quaint beautiful little hotel, restaurant, snack-shop, what have you, in a quaint enchanting location somewhere in Taltal. One such dream took root on La Puntilla, a little point that forms one arm of the Bay of Taltal (once a major trading port in the saltpeter era). It included lodging, food services, and even some sort of building stationed on a rock about 50 yards off the point. Suffice it to say that the Puntilla dream never materialized; however, the same weekend we began our vacation, another vision--that of opening up a pub on the back of the house--did become reality. El Rincón de Corwatt (Corwatt's Corner) has now taken its place as arguably the most happenin' bar in Taltal. And no, that's not because it is the only bar in Taltal (there are actually 3 or 4 others). What makes this place so great--other than the fact that it is located on the back of my house--is that, number one, it has an amazing view of the ocean. Two of the four walls consist largely of window glass and open directly out onto the ocean, a little beach, and--if you are there at the right time--one of the best sunset views Taltal has to offer.

Alfredo's grandfather, Alfredo Cordero Watters, owned the main ship trade and customs-house back in Taltal's heyday. The restobar, as they call it (they open each day as a restaurant for Almuerzo--a heavy lunch, and the main daily meal for most hispanics--and every evening but Sunday as a bar), is fittingly centered around said grandfather and the shipping trade. Trimmed out and panelled in beautiful woodwork, the bar is super-enchanting with everything from a giant model sailboat, a large portrait of Corwatt, a topless mermaid and a bar shaped like a boat (complete with a mast which supports a cross-beam/glass rack).

All that was lacking on the Thursday afternoon before we opened was tunes and customers. The former was installed at the last minute, and the latter showed up later that night for the inaugaración. Having had previous table-waiting experience, I was enlisted as one of the garsons, and even got a sweet apron out of the deal. The first night was, of course, pretty chaotic. I may have written here somewhere about the non-linear thinking of most Chileans (and probably South Americans in general). At any rate, at least in my family, things are not generally planned out in a hyper-organized and regulated way. Life is sort of encountered, and then responses are made to fit the situation. For instance, no one really thought of the fact that a restobar would need a storage room until about three days before the place opened. Thus, three days before opening, the carpenters were levelling ground and pouring a slab for the bodega that would house all our back-inventory and also serve as a prep-room.

In keeping with such non-stratified thinking, a nice little snack menu and list of drinks/cocktails had been printed up and laminated for the bar, regardless of the fact that no one had bothered to list, quantify and purchase all the requisite materials to prepare said food and beverages. Luckily for everyone, one of Alfredo's favorite sayings is: don't worry. Some of the guests were a little worried because there wasn't anything to eat except peanuts and potato chips, I was a little worried because I had to tell a lady that we couldn't make either of the 3 drinks she asked for, but Alfredo, and most of the family/management weren't really that worried. And with good reason apparently. That whole weekend, from Thursday night through Saturday night, the place was pretty slammed from 10pm till 4am. Oh, that reminds me. You know how in the States last call is about 2:00 - 2:30am, and 3 o'clock is a respectably late night? Not so in Chile. Like in Spain, normal kids don't even get together to hang out until 11 or 12 at night, and a 5 or 6am return is looked on as normal. One night we closed at 5am.

Suffice it to say I had a fairly busy weekend before heading North for my Peruvian pilgrimage. In the midst of all this, I got to march with my kids in the town anniversary parade on Saturday, which was highly gratifying. Sunday I spent sleeping, catching mass, and stuffing my things into a bag before catching about 2 hours of sleep previous to my 3:30am bus departure the next day. I am afraid this entry has run a bit long, so I'll insert a pause now, and if you feel like reading on about travel adventures, feel free to read the next installment.

Peace,
Billy

P.s. I'll put some accompanying pics. in this post when I can
P.p.s. Details about the trip itself to follow in a couple of days

To the Desert!

In order to address certain conerns that have been voiced, I have not recently been kidnapped (though it IS a joke among the gringos here in Taltal that we have often been secuestrado, that is cajoled, convinced or carried off in various ways to attend events with our host families). In the sense of guerrilleras with M-16s and scraggly beards though, there has been no such activity. There has been a lot of activity in general though, so Í'll do what I can to fill you in on a little of life in the past weeks here in Chile.

Its so strange to say "past weeks." Wierd to think that I have been in Chile for over a month. Thankfully, I spent the last of those weeks actually doing something productive. But more about that later. First you need to know where exactly I have been while I have been doing nothing and how it is I got there, why it was I was idle, and what I did with the downtime.

The last entry here left Max and I getting back the hostel in Santiago just in time to hustle our stuff out of the storage room and onto the bus heading to Antofagasta, the capital city of Region II. In Chile, rather than states they have these regions (13 in all) which people usually refer to by their numbers. Roughly, the numbers start with Region I in the North, through XII in the far South, with the Region Metropolitania--the capital Santiago, near the middle of the country--thrown in numberless for good measure. As far as I gather, Santiago was designated as its own region about the same time as they decided to officially switch from numbers to names like, "Los Lagos" (The Lakes), "La Region Atacama" (named for the desert), and our own Region II: Antofagasta (named for the aforementioned principal city). And it was with good reason that they gave the capital its own regional status. Something like 6 of the 12 million people in the country live there. Like I said, in spite of the less formulaesque names, people still widely use the numbers to refer to regions, even the high school kid who took us on a hike today up the cerros (hills) that surround our town.

Orientation in Antofagasta with the other 16 volunteers stationed
in my region, and our director Carla Fuentes (2nd from left).

As you can guess, being in Region II puts us pretty far North. That meant a 20 hour bus ride from Santiago to Antofagasta. 20 hours on a bus in South America probably does not sound like anything anyone would want to do, but the bus situation is actually really nice in Chile. They use the buses much more than in the States, so maybe because of this, and because Chile is one of the most economically/politically developed countries in S.A., the bus system is pretty advanced. For our marathon drive, we took a "salon-cama" bus complete with almost-full-tilting seats, footboards, headphone jacks to get audio for the movies they played, 3 "snacks" and 1 "meal," and a ticker that buzzed whenever the driver exceeded the 100km/hr (60mph) speed limit set, I think, by the bus company.


Thus riding in style, I plugged my phones in and spent the majority of the waking part of the trip watching movies--a pleasure I rarely get to indulge in. Apparently I missed some nice scenery, but most of the time all I saw out my window was dusty brown flatness punctuated by dusty brown hilliness. I kept wondering why anyone would want to live near this sort of life-sapping landscape. The main answer is minerals. Apparently when the Incas were dominating the continent they decided there wasn't really any reason to come past what is now the Northern border of Chile. By the early 1900's however, when man had discovered heavy machinery and saltpeter, Northern Chile became a hot commodity. Beneath all that dead looking dirt and rock, you see, there were all kinds of minables waiting to be tapped and shipped over to England and Germany for lush profits. This is actually the source of a lot of the stories associated with the pub that is opening on the back end of my house...But the pub and stories will have to wait because we still haven't even gotten to Antofagasta!

What I saw outside my bus window

When we did start the approach, I figured that maybe--since at 250,000 people Antofagasta is the biggest city in the region--the blankness would be broken up by well-cultivated, enchanting civilization. I thought about my visit to Spain, where it seems like most cities employ half their labor force in sweeping and washing the streets and sidewalks; where 30 minutes after the raucous gay-day parade that passed through Madrid, the little Street Zambonis were busily brushing and scrubbing all traces of human activity from the pavement. So Antofagasta will be really nice, right? Not quite. Everyone seems to agree (even the natives) that Antofagasta is pretty fea (ugly). It seems like the dust of the desert blows right up to the ocean, giving the city a dulling tint no one bothers to wipe away.

The ocean helps a little

The lack of scenic satisfaction didn't stop a few of us from taking a jog along the coast, or all of us from enjoying the regional orientation with Carla Fuentes--our regional coordinator. And I have to confess that it was pretty awesome to go up to my 5th story hostel room with a bottle of beer (Cristal--the Budwieser of Chile) and spend my evening relaxing on the top bunk, tooling around on my buddy's computer, with the sound of the waves playing right outside my balcony.

View from the hostel: so not everything in Anto. is ugly

The next afternoon we boarded the 4 hour bus for Taltal, where we arrived at about 8pm. I have to confess that my first impression, and the one that stuck with me for quite some time, was quite similar to my first impression of Antofagasta. I remember a Sunday about a week later playing "baby futbol" (roughly equivalent to smallbox) with some kids and looking around at the same blank pale brown and thinking, "Man, this landscape cannot be good for personal interior development."


Back in the bus though, something was happening (qeue corny dramatic music). I don't think I had felt seriously nervous about anything to do with my trip until we pulled into the station that evening and I had gathered my stuff and was moving to the exit. We could see that some of the people there were waiting for us, and this sensation that had been coming on me gradually, got really strong "You will be spending the next six months of your life with one of these families. Are you going to get along with these people? Will they like you? Oh man. This feels a lot like jumping into a cold mountain river or giving blood. Stand up straight. Good first impression. Oh man. Go!"