Mountains, Futbol, and Tanning

Buenas Madrugada,

It's 12:13 AM Chile/Ontario time, and I am about to head to bed. The past few days have been busy and fun. We went to La Parva area where there are 3 of Chile's main ski resorts as well as a national park, "Yerba Loca". The road from Santiago to the higher area involves steep, continuously turning and switchbacking, and very thin roads - barely wide enough for one vehicle.

We set up camp on a plateu on private property - this was at about 2000 meters altitude. At night it got pretty chilly, probably around -15 but in the day time it warmed up to about 15. On Saturday we started hiking at 10 and headed up to the first visible peak. Just starting out I realized how hard it is to work at high altitude. Walking was slow, steps were small, and my heart was beating hard. La Parva is a beautiful area - pictures are up on Facebook - the hiking was mainly on steep and rocky terrain so I had to keep my eyes on where my feet should go. Walking effeciently saves you oxygen and work. But when I did get a chance to look around and see the vistas, I was very happy to be there, and not in Santiago. In the distance, past ranges of mountains, Santiago (or the smog of Santiago) was visible in the daytime, and the city's light pollution was very visible in the night time.

After our day of hiking (about 7 hours) we decended back to camp for guacamole and spaghetti and another cold night. Fortunately, I decided to bring my -18 sleeping bag with me instead of my summer bag. Mmm, cozy.

On Sunday, we were picked up by Luis (Viviane's driver) at 11 AM and he drove us back to Santiago. He took us to Viviane's house where we dropped off her camping gear and organized that afternoon's events. Viviane had bought five tickets to a futbol game on our request, as well as one for an escort.

That evening we went to one of the year's biggest futbol games. Colo Colo vs Universidad de Chile. Both teams play in the same elite international league, and both are from Santiago. So there is a yearly game between the two which is accompanied by ridiculous fan bases clashing in and out of the stadium. Check out Colo colo Universidad Chile on you tube and you'll see some crazy videos similar to what we saw.

I was very glad that Viviane had a friend escort us because it was very important that we enter in the right area and time, get seats in the right area, and exit in the right manner and time. Otherwise, we may have ended up in some significant trouble.

The game and madness provided by the fans were epic and entertaining. After the game as we were leaving, rocks were thrown at us by a mass of Colo Colo fans, but we were protected by some of the many armoured riot police. We then hid behind some news/tv vans until most of the Colo Colo fans had dispersed.

After that, we came back and ate and drank at our hostel and went to beddy byes.

Then, Monday Luc, Scott, and Pat flew to Iquique and the rest of us (Ryan, Christine, Justin, Amanda, and Moi) took a bus to Vin~a del Mar which is on the ocean. We pretty much just sat on the sand in the sun all day. It was wonderful.

Now I am going to bed because I have to wake up in four hours to get to the airport to fly far north to Iquique. From there we will be renting a car to see the area of San Pedro for a couple days. We will be back in Iquique for the 3rd of May to meet with regional FOSIS officials and Vivianne.

That's all for now / Ciao ciao,

-Mateo

26 de Abril - Psycho Poly

Cachai!

update: spanish classes, spanish classes, spanish classes. I've been eating: bread, beer, meat, and beer, and avocado. Yummm avocado. I love developing countries because they don't put "may contain traces of nuts" on ingredient lists of everything - So, I can eat lots of yummy things like ice cream and chocolates and such. I don't like wine. Wine is an acquired taste, so I have been trying to acquire it, but I have yet to acquire it. I had a bottle of red bought for me but I couldn't finish one glass. So I'm sticking to the cheap beer until we get to the north where there's only wine and mate to drink.

This week, we havent found much else to do in the city but lookin around some more.

Apparently we're heading out to the discotecque tonight. Woot. Should be fun.

Tomorrow we're going to 2000 m to camp. Saturday we're hiking up to 4000 m and then back down to our camping spot and having a bbq. Sunday we come back to Santiago and have until Tuesday when we fly to Iquique which is far northern Chile.

Once in the north we have a couple free days to tour around. Then on the 3rd our work starts, and goes until May 24th. We will be going to different towns and potentially touristic areas to meet with officials and locals, consulting to come up with a plan for simple and sustainable tourism which the gov't and locals can do to provide some economic development. We will be writing a lot of reports and plans, as well as capping it all off with leading a workshop on the 23rd of May for about 100 locals, government officials, and people from other related organizations.

After May 24th, I will fly back to Santiago and on to Puerto Montt in southern Chile by myself. It will be a good adventure, get some time to myself. I will then have five days to slowly make my way up to Santiago by night buses and visiting communities, parks, hiking, and trying to get into some of the culture.

Oooh, this summer I will be in Squamish, BC working at an Easter Seals camp (for mentally and physically disabled kids). I will be a Leader In Training Program Program for 16-22 yr olds. It's gonna be a good time, and a good challenge for me.

Also...this is the longest term planning I've ever done: I plan to go to Pond Inlet, Nunavut in late April 2008

oh, I gotta go to the disco now - peace out


Reminder: Check my fotos from this trip. Updated as often as possible here...

http://cariboobc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1026&l=ea5ff&id=127300125

22 de Avril

Heyo,

Alright so yesterday we all woke up a little late after a night out for drinks. Then Ryan, Christine and Amanda convinced me to the town of Pomaire with them to look at some pottery. We walked to the Metro (subway) and took it to the bus station. It was a 2 hour indirect bus ride along all the backroads until we arrived in Pomaire. An old tourist oriented town which sells pottery. Lots of pottery.

We ate hot dogs with mucho mayonaise and then walked around looking at all the pottery. Lots of pottery. It was very interesting but it was quite similar as the long street passed by me. Ryan was there on a mission from god. To buy a complete dining set for eight. He accomplished his mission, he got some really nice pottery.

I'm not a big fan of pottery. At least not for a full day. We tried an empanada frita con queso (fried empanada with cheese inside) and then got a direct bus back to Santiago with all of Ryan's new dishes.

When we got back I was very tired and grumpy from the long day of pottery. So I slept

Today the rest of the group went to a national park to hike but I decided to stay to chill and get some things done on my computer. It's very grey and chilly out too so I figured I wouldn't be missing out too much.

I'm out for now....

Nuestra dias primeros

Hola amigos, I've been in Santiago de Chile en el Sur America for 3 days now. We arrived at 10:00 am after a long ass red-eye sleepless flight from Toronto.

I'll be trying to keep regular posts onto this Blog to keep people in the know.

This place is super huge. Millions of people.

Photos at ... http://cariboobc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1026&l=ea5ff&id=127300125

Santiago is the city of love. There are always hundreds of couples in the local parks sitting on the grass and laying on the benches making out. It never stops to amaze me.

Santiago is the city of lost dogs. There are stray dogs everywhere! They are friendly, not too mangy, and pretty cute. I want to steal some and make them our group mascots for the rest of our trip.

So far everything I've eaten has been absolutely scrumptrelescent....and no nuts yet, still alive.

I am here with seven other fourth year Tourism Management students from TRU. We're down here to take spanish lessons for 7 work days (two weeks) and then go to the far northern I Region of Tarapaca to create a tourism based community development plan for several communities. This is a project for FOSIS, the national department of social development. It should be good times. We will on the coast, in the city, in the dryiest desert in the world. We'll also be in Bolivia for about three days.

At the end of our project in the north, Amanda and myself will have five days until flying out of Santiago to return to Canada. So, we will hopefully be travelling together to explore the southern portion of the country.

Weather is awesome. Quite warm, but not too hot. Nice and sunny (through all the smog). So far, it appears that our group has a lot of spanish to learn including myself because we're not too strong as a group yet in the language department. Vivianne (our Chilean associate) has told us that we will be having meetings with government officials to present our preliminary project reports in spanish without her to translate. So, I am enjoying speaking the spanish that I do know, and look forward to learning much much more.

Anyways, That's way more than enough for the first entry so peace out. I'll be back

-Matthew, Sway Z, Mateo, Maatiusi