I can hardly try to explain the beauty and the culture of Chile but here is my attempt to. That being said I will refer you to Matt's blog which is far more elaborate in detail when needed. http://mumblinggringo.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html
Upon stealth-fully scooping the three deep seats on the plane and making a pallet, I tried to get some sleep on my overnight flight to prepare for what would be an exhausting first day. As soon as Matt picked me up from the airport we hopped in a Taxi and went straight to work meeting up with VE members and Harvard exchange students, via a metro and autobus ride, painting the outside of a Shanty town preschool to help promote early childhood education and a positive safe place for the toddlers to be. More on the Toma here: http://matt-suggett.blogspot.com/2009/08/toma-poverty-shock.html
We also saw the ending to a 40 day protest of civilians living in the the city center river on the banks of one of the stinkiest rivers, literally.
Valpraiso is a small town built on hills/small mountains on the Pacific coast in a port which still has import and exportation regularly. It has grafiti art everywhere in the city combined with a mosaic of murals as well. It seems as if you pick a wall, and paint. It also has outside elevators if you will, called Acsensors in which case you pay a dollar (or close to equivalent to, if not less) to take a ride close to 85 degrees up a hill instead of climing hundreds of stairs or taking windy roads. These ascensors have been in use for decades and it gets a little shaky and nerve racking when the clicks and clanks sound like you could drop 100+ feet if anything were to break. This picture here is one of the ascensors we rode to the top of the hill. There are five total in Valpo, and Matt and I rode all five.
These are the hills, elevation can change quickly and there are houses in every direction you look.
Matt and I looking down over the hills into the harbor/port. This was just outside a quaint little restaurant (balcony to the right) where we had lunch.
More pics and culture on Valpo here too: http://matt-suggett.blogspot.com/2009/08/valparaiso.html
Chiliean food (wow factor) is fantastic - but you have to be in the mood for it. I suppose it took me about three to four days to actually start to eat a chilean meal. I stuck to fruit, fruit bars, and a simple pasta. I suppose it might have been that I saw Matt eat an Empenada from a street vendor for breakfast consisting of meat, cheese and mushrooms - which he claimed was excellent and part of a daily diet - but I just couldn't do it. There is also a divine sweet little concoction that is a croissant roll with a honey peanut butter inside it. Muy Bueno.
Which brings me to the language: Nothing like the espanol you hear when Latinos or Spaniards speak it. Chileans have their own dialect with slightly different sentence structures. Needless to say - my 5 years of Spanish studying it middle through college did little to nothing for me while I was in Chile. Minimal conversation could only be held and I still got it wrong. I am envious of Matt that he gets to practice the language everyday and live in its culture.
He is one of the persons who inspired me to take my next journey in life. Ladies and Gents, friends and fam, I am off to Australia. The Land Down Unda' has granted me a Working and Holiday Visa for one calendar year, where I will live and work on not only one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, it is also one of the Seven Underwater Wonders of the world...the Great Barrier Reef - ultimately to be on the water- near fish - and scuba dive.
More on Wonders of the World here: http://www.wonderclub.com/AllWorldWonders.html
More on the GB Reef here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrier_Reef
Who would have thought that I would be the one to do this? Not me... but I do hope that from my inspirations to do this - I might in turn inspire someone else to do the same. So... you have to ask yourself - where do you want to go?
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