Tales of an accidental backpacker

I´ve been wearing the same shoes every day for nearly six weeks. A pair of hiking boots. When I tie the laces a puff of dust releases into the air. These boots have crossed the world´s driest desert, squashed through muddy jungle, sunk into pampa swamps, braved the frenetic streets of South American metropolises and trekked around some of the world´s highest mountains.

In the past 40 days I´ve learned that it´s possible to live with only two pairs of jeans and two T-shirts. I´ve gotten used to the way my face looks without make-up. My daily routine no longer includes body lotion and perfume. I´ve forgotten how my hair feels when blown out long and smooth with a hair dryer. I´ve gone days without encountering a mirror. Or checking my e-mail or logging on Facebook.

My eyebrows need tweezed, my hair is desperate for a conditioning and my cuticles are a disaster. My back aches from lugging around my heavy backpack, which contains my current livelihood and I therefore protect at all costs. After weeks of traveling between 2,500 and 5,000 meters above sea level, I´m used to gasping for breath. My once oily skin is dry, and my once voluminous hair is almost flat in the thin, dusty air.

Yet through all of this I´ve never gone to bed without washing my face, brushing my teeth, and God bless my orthodontist, putting in my retainers. Sometimes that meant splashing river water on my face, getting out my toothbrush in bus station bathrooms splattered with vomit and diarrhea or scrubbing my retainers in a possibly snake-infested jungle fountain. And, may my dermatologist read this, I never stepped out into the oppressive mountain sun without lathering myself in sunblock and even donning an embarrassing safari hat I bought in the black market on the streets of La Paz before a spontaneous jungle expedition.

I can´t remember bathrooms with toilet paper and soap or with doors that even shut, besides lock. I sigh with relief if water actually flows from the faucet, always cold. I´ve accepted that sometimes baño means a hole in the ground with two footprints in front. I automatically hold my breath when I enter a bathroom and come out breathless like I´ve just finished a sprint. I´ll have to train myself to flush toilet paper again instead of tossing it in an overflowing basket.

Hot showers are a luxurious surprise. A hot shower with good pressure is an extravagance that I´ve encountered only once on this journey. I try to recall what it was like to drink water safe from the tap or buy produce from the market without fearing for my health. Or to accept change without worrying that it´s counterfeit.

I´ve learned to wash my socks and underwear in hostel sinks. I´ve discovered that almost no price is ever fixed, whether it´s a hostel, tour or earrings. I´m now wise enough to request a seat toward the front of the bus after suffering nights bouncing over the wheel on unpaved roads with cold air and exhaust fumes blowing in from the iced-over window that wouldn´t close. And I´ve found out that even if I have my bus ticket, I won´t be allowed to board unless I´ve paid for the right to access the terminal.

I wake up between 6 and 7:30 a.m., sometimes as early as 3 a.m. if an excursion requires it. I go to bed between 9 and 10 p.m., sometimes as early as 7:30 p.m. if I´m exhausted and there´s no electricity. My typical breakfast is bread and jam. My budged lunch and dinner usually consist of soup followed by rice, potatoes and chicken. (However, I tried llama in San Pedro de Atacama and ate lots of fried bananas in Bolivia.)

Every meal is served with coca tea, made from the same leaves as cocaine but sharing none of the illicit drug´s affects. (The people in this part of the world have been planting, chewing and drinking the plant for thousands of years, believing it to possess dozens of medicinal benefits essential for the hostile, high altitude conditions.)

I shake my head at the realization that I´ve been traveling through South America with a backpack for more than a month. It will be 42 days when I fly back to Santiago. Eighteen of them alone. I´ve been in three countries, 12 cities, 14 beds and one tent. I´ve suffered bone-chilling zero-degree temperatures with blustering winds on desert nights and steamy, 90-degree jungle days. I´m 1,667 miles from my home in Valparaíso, Chile with more than 900 photos on my camera´s memory card. I´ve had conversations with people from Sweden, Bolivia, Austrailia, Peru, New Zealand, Chile, Austria, Canada, Germany, England, Poland, France, Scotland, the Netherlands, Spain, Finland, Japan, Belgium, Argentina, Columbia, Mexico, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Israel, the Czech Republic and Brazil.

I crossed the world´s driest desert in a jeep. I went into the jungle. I traveled down the world´s most dangerous road. I´ve seen geysers, volcanoes, lakes of every color, deadly mines, ancient ruins, pampas, some of the world´s highest mountains and deepest canyons and the world´s largest salt flat. I´ve rafted on canyon rivers, trekked in the Cordillera Blanca, canoed on tropical lakes and mountain biked in the Andes.

I visited villages where electricity and running water have yet to arrive, where mules are used for transport and radios for communication. Communities where Spanish is a second language, if spoken at all, and Aymara and Quechua peoples still hold true to their pre-Inca and Inca dress, food and faith.

In six weeks I´ve had no less than five adventures of a lifetime. Please don´t think I´m bragging. I´m just in awe of my blessings. I´m fully aware that I´m utterly unworthy of any of this -- I´m not especially daring or outgoing. I wear makeup and love shopping and read fashion magazines. I don´t know East from West and bought my first big backpack on the street in Chile two days before I left.

Nothing was planned. This has been an unanticipated, undreamed of gift, the most spectacular trip I´ve experienced thus far, just in time for my quarter-of-a-century birthday.

And now I´m left the unrelenting urge to tell you all about it.

A weekend in El Norte Chico: The mystical Valle de Elqui

En el valle de Elqui, ceñido
de cien montañas o de más,
que como ofrendas o tributos
arden en rojo y azafrán

I turned in a 10-page analysis on Gabriela Mistral’s poetry the week after I explored the Elqui Valley where the Nobel-Prize winning poet grew up. The narrow slice of paradise protected by looming desert mountains on either side inspired dozens of her poems. Although Mistral left behind her humble beginnings in rural South America to travel the world as a foreign diplomat and live in Madrid, Nice, Naples, Lisbon and Santa Barbara, she insisted that the grand azure sky, oppressive sunshine and voluptuous figs of her childhood home would always define her.

The Elqui Valley is in Chile’s Norte Chico, or “Little North,” about six hours up from the port of Valparaíso. In the lush basin farmers harvest a mouthwatering list of produce including avocados, papaya and olives. The sunny skies drenching the vineyards make for the sweetest grapes in the country, ideal for the production of the national drink, pisco (similar to brandy).

 
The air in the sleepy towns of Pisco Elqui and Vicuña smells sweet. The fragrance drifts from the tiny, juicy grapes drooping down the terraces and the mandarins adorning the trees. Coral and amethyst blossoms and golden leaves punctuate the rugged, sandy panorama. The strong sunlight casts a warm glow on the rugged landscape and the rustic steeples. And speaking of steeples, the buttercup yellow church with aqua trim in the flourishing main plaza of Pisco Elqui is storybook perfection. I found myself comparing the tranquil and mystical atmosphere to New Mexico -- The two regions share colonial and adobe architecture, lots of cacti and a majestic mountain panorama. 

In both towns my friends and I, an exchange student from South Dakota and a couple from Versailles, France, lingered over the spread of artesenia in the markets, boutiques and sidewalks. I'm currently obsessed with stocking up on woolen winter accessories hand knitted with fleece from Chile’s sheep farms. But instead of cold weather gear I picked out a pair of delicate lapislázuli dangles, the semi-precious gem mined in Chile similar to turquoise but royal blue. I resisted the urge to buy a jar of papaya marmalade or manjar with walnuts but finished off a half-kilo bag of raisins, which were mouth-puckeringly sweet dried grapes just plucked from the vine, stems and all.

The region’s clear skies (averaging more than 300 sunny days a year) make it a choice destination for the highest-tech U.S. and European astronomical observatories, where astrophysicists make the majority of current discoveries. We toured the Mamalluca site because it offers night stargazing to the public. It's the most visited facility despite being one of the oldest and smallest because of its accessibility. The big-time observatories open occasionally for daytime (No looking at stars! I was so disappointed when I called.) tours that must be booked months in advance. 

 

Our little guide left us all dumbfounded with a Powerpoint presentation on the vastness of the universe and the mortality of our solar system, making me nostalgic for my two semesters of honors astronomy with my genteel NASA-employed physics professor. Then he made Star Wars Jokes after we climbed upstairs to take turns peering into the telescopes for glimpses of Saturn’s rings, galactic clumps and details of the lunar surface. Outside we shivered in the damp night air and contemplated the unfamiliarity of the Southern Hemisphere sky. I'd just spotted the Southern Cross when we had to descend the hill early after a veil clouds suddenly concealed the stars.

Our last day we toured a garden-like pisco factory deep in the midst of beige, leviathan mountains with snow-crusted peaks in the distance before returning to our home base La Serena two hours away. La Serena is a pleasant colonial city known for Chile’s oldest, most elegant churches and breezy beaches. That night on the overnight bus trip home our bus broke down. We were stuck from 4 to 7 a.m. in the middle of a desolate nowhere, with rugged coastline on our left and sandy hills dotted with cacti on our right. 


... Now that I'm reading up for my upcoming trip to Bolivia I think the delay was a warm up for the misadventures to come in the true Third World.

Falling for Chile

El Cajón de Maipo -- outside Santiago. Whenever I have a rough day, I look back on these past (almost!) three months and remember why I can't stay mad at Chile.

Welcome to the World of Rotary: Service Above Self

The gray-haired Chilean man with round glasses stepped down from the podium and thrust the microphone in my face. I sat in the front of the ballroom of the Hotel Militar Coraceros, behind a long table with a plate of half-eaten noodle casserole with breadcrumb topping in front of me. I nervously tapped the binder of class notes at my feet. A visiting Rotary International director from Tucson was set to present a complex earthquake fund proposal heavy with Rotary jargon. He wanted me to translate. I looked into the crowd of men in suits and gulped. “Gracias,” I began. 

My Rotary host counselor Dan Luis Martinez invited me to the Viña del Mar club lunch meeting a week earlier. I’d prepared a photo-heavy PowerPoint presentation, which I'd saved it to my Macbook. I’d toted the laptop on the wild bus ride and up the steep hill to my class in Sausalito that morning. Several of the students glanced at me when I walked in the classroom that morning dressed in black pants, ballerina flats and a pink sweater that stood out among the Chilean college student uniform of distressed jeans, destroyed sneakers and bomber jackets. 

I slipped out early to walk down the hill to the Rotary meeting conveniently located 10 minutes away in a hotel on a quiet leafy street in Viña, a new location due to earthquake damages in their traditional meeting spot. I entered the lobby and tracked down my counselor in the crowd of mingling men in suits. I quickly realized that I was the only woman present among the dignified men, average age 75. 

 

A waiter passed around a tray of drinks, and I passed up the pisco sour for what looked like a fancy latte. The circle of men surrounding me quickly warned me that it contained alcohol. While the men sipped their drinks my host counselor introduced me to the president of one of the many clubs in Valparaíso. The gracious gentleman invited me attend one of his club meetings. Next the district governor handed me his card and offered to help me with anything I needed during my stay in Chile.   

The friendly Rotarians dialed up their hearing aids and practiced their English with me, asking me where I was from and what I was studying. They wanted me to meet the Rotary International director  visiting Chile from Arizona. All the while I engaged in the Rotary custom of exchanging cards with everyone I met. (Thanks to my Charleston sponsor club for giving me a stack of beautiful, professional business cards!)

Some of the Rotarians suggested I get in touch with the Valparaíso Rotaract club. I actually made contact with the group, a Rotary sponsored served organization for young people, before I left the States. I’m looking forward to meeting with them Friday evening and adding a Rotary-affiliated service project to my current volunteer activities at La Católica. 

After the three-course lunch the members stood to sing the solemn Rotary anthem. The meeting commenced with a presentation on community projects from the youngest member present. Afterward they asked me to stand and briefly introduce myself before the other American's presentation.

I thanked them for the invitation and expressed how grateful I was to finally get in touch with Rotary and how blessed I feel to be given this opportunity to study in Chile this year through the generosity of Rotary. In conclusion I presented them with the club banner from the Charleston club (I must say I’m proud of the pretty and colorful design depicting Broad Street).

After the two-and-a-half-hour meeting I was running late for my next class, but one of the hospitable Rotarians offered to drop me off at the university on his way into Valparaíso. Traveling between the two cities via car instead of jolting bus offered a new experience. As we sped on the highway I gazed out the window watching waves crash against the rocks below the castles and resorts of Viña as the sun glimmered and ships sailed on the cobalt sea. Thank you Rotary, I thought.

Life unexpected: La vida inesperada

I planned to spend my final week in Chile's elegant capital Santiago exploring the Museo de Artes Visuales, the ritzy outlying neighborhoods, and the Parque Forestal, the last sites on my to-see list. I mentally prepared to leave my leafy and sunny Providencia neighborhood and the comfort of my bustling host family for a new city -- Viña del Mar.

I'd made finding an apartment my mission, having arrived to a foreign continent with only four weeks to locate housing in a city two hours away with no prior knowledge of price ranges, neighborhoods, transportation or lease contracts. After weeks of frantically searching through Internet postings and interrogating professors that culminated in a rushed visit to the resort city of Viña, I'd found an apartment in a new tower (by an artificial lake!) half a block away from the beach. With a pool, a gym and sweeping ocean view from two generous patios, everything about it was luxe.

The Feb. 27 earthquake didn't severely affect anyone I know -- I only heard stories about co-workers and cousins whose families had lost everything in the South. However, after the natural disaster I soon realized that my year in Chile wouldn't go as planned. My host family insisted I remain hunkered in the house during the following days. Even though that seismic night passed without any panic or tears on my part, I've felt like I'm carrying a heavy backpack ever since. I'm grateful rather than fearful, but living with a family dealing with post traumatic stress and the constant flow of damning news reports took its toll.

Four days before my planned move to the coast of Viña del Mar to start classes at the Universidad Católica de Valparaiso I got the news that I'd have to look for another place to live. I felt so incredibly alone. I now had to find a room in an apartment with strangers, in a hectic period when shaken-up residents in apartment towers were scramming to move into solid houses and residents of older houses were quickly renting modern apartments; when the few students who hadn't solidified their housing plans months earlier had returned home to be with their families rather than staying in their university city to show their apartments to potential roommates.

But I made it my life's goal to move myself to school on time, spending my days staring at the computer screen and making bus trips back and forth between the two cities. I visited some houses that should have been condemned, with putrid, horror-movie worthy rooms, but I also met some of the most hospitable people I've ever encountered. They'd offer me a bed in their house until I found a place. After I told them I wasn't interested in their apartment they'd still insist in showing me around the city to the other rooms on my list. And they all gave me their phone numbers in case I ever needed anything.

Monday (only two days late) I moved into an apartment, not in the modern beach city of Viña del Mar as planned, but in the gritty neighboring historic port city of Valparaíso. The apartment is small but comfortable and modern. The terrace with the bay view and the familiar American kitchenette sold me. I'm eagerly waiting for my Chilean roommate to move back in next week. The surrounding neighborhood is not a place I should ever be walking through alone at night, and that's disconcerting. But the main highway connecting Valparaíso to its sister city Viña is right outside my front door, with transportation at all hours. I'm hoping that the earthquake repairs in the building happen soon because I miss hot water and more than one functioning elevator would be convenient. But I can't complain when half of the city went without any water the past three days, and further south people are homeless.

I'm still soaking up Valparaíso. The surrounding hills I've explored (so far I've opted to climb up the impossible staircases and vertical streets instead of paying for the antique elevators, an indication of masochistic tendencies, perhaps?) have confirmed the adjective 'breathtaking' that I've read in every guidebook. The spectacular views of the bay and the ramshackle city built on the surrounding hillsides are bewitching. The quirky and colorful neighborhoods spilling on the hilltops are World Heritage sites, and besides their official historic value they have a bohemian charm and energy like no other place I've traveled. These are streets with proper multi-colored British mansions with flower boxes lined near hippie-ish cafes. Streets with elegant restaurants on steep slopes that end in a flamboyant graffiti wall murals leading to 19th century Anglican churches or eccentric castle-mansions turned museums. And did I mention the views?

As far as the center of Valparaíso, well it's grungy, compatible with the disagreeable image the average North American has of a South American city. Ugly modern (Valpo was the epicenter of the devastating 1906 quake and before that victim of a Spanish naval attack) buildings stand beside decrepit Victorian palaces from the port's glory days. My favorite guidebook cliche, "crumbling grandeur" was written for this city. There's too many abandoned warehouses, stray dogs and litter for my taste, but maybe this jewel (in the rough) of the Pacific will win me over before the year's up. For now braving the streets isn't a pleasant stroll. My wrist is sore from clutching my bag so tightly. The maniacal buses, called micros, are a third-world experience. But on a brighter note, my daily routine now includes a trip to the intimidating  city market to stock up on the rainbow mountains of gleaming produce on sale for mere cents and a stop by the bakery for fresh bread.

Sometimes I wonder how I ended up here. I have the next nine months to figure out why.

El terromoto de una vida

Last night I waited in the lobby of a restaurant bar in the Bellavista neighborhood of Santiago, where I was spending time with my language school classmates, including my two closest friends who were set to leave the country the next day. I wanted someone to share a taxi with me back to our Providencia neighborhood. Meanwhile my Brazilian friend Betaña started to tear up thinking about how we might never see each other again. I tried to comfort her, feeling shaky myself, from exhaustion and the recalcitrant illness I'd tried to kick all week, annoyed that I'd wasted my $2,000 pesos on that Red Bull I'd ordered earlier.

That's when the floor trembled. I noticed the vibrations that rattled the building right away, but my professors and host family had told me that minor temblores are common in Chile, one of the most active earthquake zones on the planet. However the trembling only intensified. With the passing seconds we could hear the building shaking, bottles breaking. The lights went out. I grabbed my Brazilian friend Evan in a death grip hug, and we didn't let go. They say the quake lasted less than two minutes, but that's a long time when the earth beneath your feet is bouncing, when your mind is racing to recall earthquake safety protocols, whether you should crouch under one of the empty tables or run outside in the street so not to be crushed alive in the building, when suddenly news reports about thousands dead, missing or trapped in Haiti seem all too real.

It was 3:30 a.m., and you might ask why I would be out and about at such an ungodly hour, but you must understand that for Chileans this a perfectly reasonable time to be out on a Friday night, as the proper dinner party at my host family's house yesterday didn't start until nearly 11 p.m. I can assure you that the neighborhood was packed with (mostly) respectable citizens.

Afterward I had the urge to cry but couldn't. Without any taxis or buses, we walked home with the full moon serving as our only light most of the way. We didn't encounter any panic or chaos, but it was a long two hours before I made it back to my house. We maneuvered the sidewalks littered with broken glass, fallen telephone poles, broken bricks and caved in walls. Even crossing the street without stoplights was tricky. It was chilly, I was desperate for a bathroom and a drink of water, and my bronze flats weren't made for distance walking. The ambulances wailing and car radios blaring news only added to the state of emergency atmosphere. Evan offered to walk me to my house, which is 20 minutes away from where everyone else lives.

(As I'm writing this I felt another mild temblor, or replica as they call them here.)

It was so dark that we couldn't read the street signs and ended up lost. Occasionally someone would pass us in the shadows, and my heart would race as I imagined a looter taking advantage of the situation. I finally arrived at my candle-lit doorstep to find my host family and seven children and two dogs huddled in the living room. "Te hemos llamado mil veces!" they explained. Although most cell phone communication had been interrupted, they'd entered my room and stepped over all my belongings and the broken glass strewn in the floor to find my mobile phone box with my number on it in a drawer.

We didn't go to bed until dawn. The Chileans I was with were in a deeper state of shock than I was, with reason. They had babies and small children and other family members to worry about. Some of them lived on the 13th floor of an apartment building, and they'd felt the tower sway, breaking their windows and knocking over their flat screen TV and lamps. They could only huddle under a doorway while they clutched their three daughters.

Our lights didn't come back on until the next morning. The electricity grid in Chile is programmed to automatically turn off in the event of earthquakes above 6.0 on the Richter Scale, and this one was an 8.8, 100 times greater than the 7.0 quake that devastated Haiti in January. In fact it was the fifth largest earthquake since 1900. But so far in Chile about 400 deaths have been reported in comparison to the 250,000 in Haiti. This has a lot to do with the advanced engineering and strict earthquake-proof construction codes here along with the organized relief infrastructure. Bordered by the Andes cordillera, Chile is one of the most seismically active places on earth (funny how I don't remember ever reading that before now). The strongest earthquake ever measured occurred here in 1960, a 9.5, and another disastrous quake hit in 1985. In fact three of the 10 most powerful earthquakes in recorded history have occurred in Chile, today's disaster included. Chile is a developed nation with its own disaster fund rather than an impoverished, overpopulated state, so the two recent earthquake situations aren't comparable.

Although the TV news shows images of fallen bridges and a church with a collapsed steeple here in Santiago, everyone I know is safe. Our house only suffered one crack in the wall. South of us in Chile's second largest city Concepcion, which is closer to the earthquake's 22-mile deep epicenter, the damage and suffering are on another level, especially in the poorest areas. This evening we sat around the table in the patio to say prayers for those in the south who have lost so much and to give thanks that we are all safe.

And the excursions begin: El Cajón de Maipo

I laced up my hiking boots, stuffed my big camera into my bag and whipped my hair into a Lara Croft braid at 6:30 a.m. to power walk the 30 minutes to the metro station Saturday. At 8 a.m. I climbed into a rickety van with a spacey Canadian construction student, a Norwegian senior Hydroelectric engineer with some impressive eyebrows, and a teeny Brazilian woman who studies at my school for a one-day trekking excursion into El Cajón de Maipo. "We have to use an old vehicle because the road we're taking would ruin a new car," our guide Alejandro said.

After an hour and a half of driving away from the capital we stopped at the village of San José del Maipo, a world away from modern Santiago. A grocer in a hair net made us jamón y queso sandwiches that we packed for lunch. We continued into the wilderness for two hours, where the road soon dissolved into a dirt trail with the sort of bumps and curves I've only seen on SUV commercials. I felt my organs bouncing inside me and avoided looking down at the steep ledges and thinking about blown out tires and other vehicle malfunctions. The dust our van stirred up was so thick I could taste it. The path is impassable in the winter due to avalanches, so the few goat farmers that live in the area move away during the dangerous season. No one bothers to make a real road because it will inevitably be destroyed every winter.

We stopped at El Embalse del Yeso, a glass-like, deep-turquoise-colored lake with snow capped mountains in the background on our way to El Parque del Valle del Yeso. It's a giant private reserve beside Argentina (it's a three-kilometer, one-day trek over the mountains to the border) lacking any tourist infrastructure or marked trails. We acclimated to the altitude at Las Termas del Plomo, thermal glacial springs fed by a waterfall cascading over an orange rock wall. Our hike took us deep into the valley, so profound that it's name, cajón, is the Spanish word for box. Low green shrubs spotted the desert mountains, where Alejandro stopped to point out lizards, wildflowers, and the rock piles of fossilized oysters and snail shells (one monster mollusk was perfectly intact) from a prehistoric era when ocean covered the valley.

The wind blew and the sun beat on us as we climbed along a waterfall up a mountain. (Despite repeated applications of SPF 30 my nose is now so red that it glows.) I had to use my hands to crawl up at times, and we all stopped every five minutes to adjust to the altitude. Nick the Canadian guy, who periodically paused to chug his liter of Fanta, lagged behind and heaved with exhaustion.

After nearly two hours of climbing we came to a clear, turquoise lake at the summit. It's a secret that Alejandro said his father found as a mountain climber -- I believe him because I couldn't find anything about it (or the park) listed in my guidebooks. The water flows from the glaciers above and is pure enough to drink. "Es el agua de los dioses," Alejandro said. Still, I only had the nerve to take one sip over lunch. (How can it be so clean if it's floating over dirt?) Stein from Norway listened to Pink Floyd on his smart phone as he took in the view, and Nick the Canadian smoked a cigarette while I snapped away on my Nikon. The steep walk down was even trickier than our ascent with the loose dirt and rocks. I couldn't take my eyes off my dirt-encrusted boots.

On the drive home we stopped at a small goat farm. Inside the shanty-like house I bought a kilogram block (one-size-only) of goat cheese made the day before for $5 to share with my host family. And less than four hours later we were back to Santiago, civilization and the world of metros and public bathrooms.

Santiago: Week One

I head to class in the morning wearing sunblock and sunglasses. Bikes and strollers pass me on the 20-minute walk up the tree-lined streets of the Providencia neighborhood to my language school. The five of us in the advanced class, two from the United States and three from Brazil, practice conversation in a small classroom on the third floor. The breeze rustles the trees and blows through the open window during the four-hour lesson with our profesora Andrea. I'm learning new things about my South American classmates (while trying not to stare at the hyperactive Brazilian-supermodel-with-an-attitude across from me who's always bringing up the "Latin fire that burns within her"), like how their families beg them not to visit the United States because it's dangerous -- too many news reports about mass shootings and terrorist attacks.

I come home to my room in the Munoz family's house. It's a small rectangle with blue walls, high ceilings and wood floors. I sleep in a vintage twin bed and my door opens to the patio. Nine family members live in the house, including two kids and a Cocker spaniel named Coni who likes to doze in my room. My first night we ate completos, hot dogs with avocado, tomatoes, and mayonnaise. Last night we had pastel de choclo, a Chilean version of shepherd's pie baked in a clay bowl topped with creamed corn and and filled with olives (have to watch out for the pits), beef, boiled eggs and chicken.

In the evenings the school has activities -- My first night was cooking class. We made cancon, salmon fillets with tomato, cheese, oregano and sausage, and terremotos, white wine with pineapple ice cream. The next night we went to a futbol match, La Universidad Catolica de Santiago versus Colón de Argentina. When a student asked if it was safe, the director said that it wouldn't be dangerous like the games in Italy and England.

The giant stadium sits at the foot of the Andes mountains that loom over the city of Santiago making for a dramatic sunset. The fans sang and barked chants throughout the game, spewing giant confetti and waving flags. I really tried to pay attention to the field, but the men still in their work clothes who jumped up and down and embraced one minute and nearly shed tears the next before spitting out a string of obscenities rivaling that of a delinquent adolescent were more entertaining.

Last night we had salsa lessons in a Cuban club with a dynamic teacher dressed like an Abercrombie model. I was getting into the steps in the wedding reception-esque setting and thinking how this was the coolest dance class I'd been to and how I'd finally gotten the hang of Latin rhythms after all these years. That is, until during a dance circle in which we exchanged partners every minute when one of the pros (invited to compensate for our group's lack of men) told me to stop jumping and move "más suave."

Today when we twisted into a deep and delicious stretch in my yoga class I had the same dreamy sensation I had earlier that afternoon, when I was biting into my empanada Napolitana and looking at the water shooting from the fountain that sparkled in the sunlight as I sat in a grass with my new friends from school. I keep reminding myself to savor this -- because winter always comes and school always starts and reality always sets in.

On moving down south. Waaay down south.

Twenty-four days from today, this blog will get a lot more interesting. Because in just a little over three weeks I'm moving to Chile. So this will once again become a real travel blog instead of Rachel's online diary recounting her exile in West Virginia.

About a year and a half ago, with my college graduation approaching, I spent hours writing and polishing nearly 15 pages of essays. Then I spent a week locked in my room translating those essays into Spanish (with some help from South American friends via instant Messenger). I met with the director of my university's Hispanic Studies Department to get the scoop on South American universities, then I pored over his recommendations and their course offerings. I met with local high-society community leaders. The vice president of our college even took me out to lunch. (I wore flip flops. Her initial glance at my feet told me BIG MISTAKE. But they were classy flip flops!) Finally, I drove two hours to the state capital for impromptu written essays and interviews, in which I sat at the end of a long board room table and a dozen professional-types interrogated me.

And it was all worth it. (Somehow) I got the scholarship. I'm going to study for a year at the Pontificia Universidad Católica in Valparaíso, Chile (that long, skinny country on the west coast of South America. Yes, some people ask me where it is.). And Rotary International is paying for everything. I'll come back with a certificate in Latin American Studies from a respectable university on the rocky Chilean coast.

Now why would Rotary give me $24,000 to live and study abroad for a year, you ask. Well, their goal through this Ambassadorial Scholarship Program is to promote international peace and understanding by sending young people from all over the world to live and study outside their home country. The idea is that the students who receive these scholarships will be positive ambassadors for their own nations and develop friendly relationships in their host countries, and then they'll come home and share their enlightening cultural experiences, and that ultimately these "scholars will be tomorrow's community and world leaders," according the the Rotary International website.

So in addition to taking classes in Latin American literature, culture, and politics, I'll also be giving presentations on the U.S. to local Rotary clubs and co-heading a service project. I'm a teensy bit nervous about the (Spanish, of course) speaking engagements, but I've heard from other scholars that they're not all that bad -- low key with a sympathetic audience. And I'm really excited about the volunteer project. I won't know exactly what it will be until I get down there and see the needs, but right now it looks like it could involve a big sister-big brother type program with foster kids in an underprivileged mountain village.
When I'm not studying or volunteering I hope to be traveling. I'm dying to get down to Patagonia and maybe up to Brazil or back to Buenos Aires. I'll be flying into Santiago, the capital, where I'll spend a month reviewing Spanish at a language institute and living with a host family. Then I'll have to find my own apartment (eek!) in Valparaíso.

Valparaíso has been called the Little San Francisco of South America, as it's a colorful and shabby seaport city built on hillsides overlooking the Pacific. Antique elevators serve as transportation in some spots, and the historic quarter is a labyrinth of cobblestone streets and allies. The so-called Jewel of the Pacific has become a cultural mecca of late too. I read an Allende novel set in Valparaiso, La Hija de la Fortuna (turned out to be one of my all-time favorite reads) that painted the bohemian city as seedy and full of haughty European ex-pats. (But that was in the 1800s. Surely things have changed by now, right?) Today the university campus is divided between Valparaíso and its sister city, Viña del Mar, which is more polished and modern and popular for its beach resorts.

I've been waiting for this adventure for nearly TWO years. "Are you in Chile yet?" has become a sort of cruel joke. Since I returned from Barcelona in May I've felt like my life has been in limbo. But when very important people conclude that you're worthy of a very generous gift that allows you to see the world, educate yourself, and help others, you don't turn it down. Even if it involves a whole lot of waiting.

Now the waiting is about over, and I'm wondering ... am I ready?