farm life and such

So pretty much one week ago exactly I got out of the taxi that had taken me from the bus station in Tunuyan to the end of a dirt road 15 minutes or so out of town, paid the driver with too big of a bill (but he gave me change, no worries), put on my backpack (not actually so huge and waful as I initially thought) and headed towards the house at the end of the road. Some people were standing in the yard, I introduced myselñf, they looked confused, and asked where I wanted to go. I said Rincon Madre Tierra and they pointed me back the way I came and probably laughed behind my back as I walked away...good start. Went back to the kind of ramshackle house I passed before which, turns out, had a sign with the right name, knocked on the door and..nothing. I looked around the house, wandered past some mysterious half finished other buildings, found another kind of house where no one answered, and went back to sit on my pack by the road. There was no one there as far as I could tell, but I had definitely communicated that I was coming that day in a confusing Spanish phone conversation -earlier, and it was only like 6 so I decided to chill and make friends with the cats.
After like an hour there was still no one there. I wasn´t quite pnaicking, but curious...
Evenutally an oldish man and a little kid came around the corner and showed some recognition when I introduced myself! Thank god. They even mentioned Aviva´s name...but there was no sign of other volunteers, something about them being in Mendoza (where I had been until like 4 that afternoon, oh well). So Jorge and Nacho took me inside, gave me some oranges, and we attempted conversation. Nacho told me he was 5 and a lot of other things about the pets, etc really really quickly, then watched Winnie the Pooh while Jorge gave me a talk about how their farm is not a pyramid (with some people higher than others) but a ¨plano¨and how everyone is a person regardless of skin color or country and then put on a movie about the implications of quantum physics on our reality.

Eventually I went to the casa de voluntarios (other house) and eventually the other volunteers showed up. There´s been one new arrival since then, and Aviva left on Thursday but now we have:
-Pumita, 24 yr old from Dan Fran who is trying out WWOOFing in Argentina between surfing in Brazil and possibly other things ona trip of undetermined lenghth
-Hayden, 22 yr old from Vermont, takign some time off from school to dot he WWOOFing thing here, improve her Spanish, etc
-Kiley, 28 yr old from Kentucky, independent film maker? Travelling in SA for like 6 months, only dabbling in WWOOF
-Julian, her Colombian BF who only speaks Spanish
-Marko, 60ish expat who hates the US with a burning passion and has been around here for about a year, next stop India
-Jared, 19 yr old from Portland taking tiem off from school to travel in SA whose claim to fame is being drugged and the robbed 4 times on the same night in Buenos Aires
And then the familia, Jorge and his much younger wife Azucena, there kids Paloma (10) and Nacho (5), 5 cats and 3 dogs

We work from 9ish to 1ish, lunch and siesta, then 4ish to 8ish. This week there´s been lots of work on a house for more volunteers which we are weaving out of branches and will then cover with mud, also digging up and preparing to transplant little trees, also cultivating artichokes, watering trees, cleaning the casa this morning. Cleanliness is VERY relative. Maybe 2 showers a week, when we build a fire to heat a limited supply of water. In terms of cleanign dishes and tables and the house in general.. well, we do what we can but the standards are just so completely different. The food is great when Azucena cooks, but I´m definitely fighting cravings for meat and sugar (we went out for lomos--steak sandwhiches--and ice cream on Aviva´s last night and it wad the BEST THING EVER). It´s possible to buy snacks and supplements (cheese...chocolate...) from soem little stores closer than town, but I´m trying to hold out.

Farm work/life is definitely tough, but so far I think I´m getting what I want from it. Experience of a different lifestyle, sense of accomplishment, personal challenge, etc. Lots of interesting/nice people to get to know, further attempts to learn Spanish (I´m the only one who isn´t close to fluent). I think one more week should be a good amount of time, after that I have to decide if I´m off to Tucuman to volunteer in a city hospital or another farm in Salta.

Random things..
-so far I haven´t gotten sick (KNOCK ON WOOD)! My mom´s recommendation of a pepto bismol tablet and packet of EmergenC a day may be working...
-THE ANDES ARE AMAZING. You can see them from pretty much everywhere on the farm, except for when it´s cloudy
-apparently like 80% of the people in this area die of cancer, possibly because the land is so polluted with chemicals? weird. tragic.
-OH I FORGOT on my first full day here (last sunday) we went to an organic farming/biodynamics conference at someone´s farm like an hour away that included: philosophy discussion, hippie dancing, vegetarian potluck, digging up bull´s horns full of some mysterious fertilizer mixture

I took lots of pictures of the farm, etc but this computer won´t upload them... maybe next time

attempts at pictures, etc

room in valpo


parade


also from parade


hills in valpo


acensor

mostly I´m going to try to upload pics since I´m at a legit internet place but I don´t know how long it´ll take so I´ll just write a little
Valparaiso was really cool, I walked around during the day and watched the parade and rode some acensors up into the hills and looked at the pretty houses and views basically got adopted by my host at the alojomiento and she took me out to walk around at night and look at the lights and the ocean, and then we went out with her daughter to this cafe/bar and ate a huge plate of fries with onions and eggs and beef and listened to music and somewhow conversed in Spanish? I only understood like 1/4 of what she said but I think we covered topics such as: my dad´s job, her job, what movies we liked, politics, my trip.
In the morning I got on a bus to Mendoza and went over the Andes!!! Which was really really cool since I´m such a dork about mountains. The driver put on an American cop movie (possibly called The Fedreals? or something like that) which was kind of good but I got really annoyed because I din´t want to be distracted from the views. In Mendoza I ignored my guidebook´s recommendations for the first time (big step) and went to a random hostel closest to the bus station. My first hostel experience... mostly I´m really confused about who lives there all the time and who´s a guest.. there seem to be several large familys. I talked to a fat guy from Montana who said he spoke Ämerican and a German who maybe lives in Santiago now? or at least has a kid there. Now I´m trying to get in touch with the farm in Tunuyan (short bus ride from here), it´s unclear whether they actually know I´m coming and I don´t actually know how to get there from Tunuyan. So I might be here another night, we´ll see. Mendoza is kind of cold and cloudy but there´s lots of plazas I can wander through.


all the stuff I packed


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view from the plane


view of Santiago from Cerro something.. the hill you can see is the other big hill I went to



people dancing in the main plaza in Santiago


my room in Hostel Londres


fish in the mercado.. not quite the same as tokyo but pretty cool


this guy wanted me to take a picture with him and the fish
ç

shellfish soup I accidentally ordered that didn´t make me sick!!


view of Santiago from the top of the big hill

fiesta fiesta!

Today is la Fiesta Patria... or something like that, big national holiday in Chile! Which I actually knew was coming and sort of came to Valparaiso to be here for the holiday on purpose (because this random guy from Montreal I met said that all the locals were going to the coast and I do as the locals do... what?) BUT turns out TOSO ES CERRADO (closed) so even though I really need bathroom and lunch and should be exploring in the broad daylight, I had to grab the first open internet place I found. However I will try to be brief..
Yesterday I explored mor ein Santiago, highlights: Museo de Arte Precolombio (really old stone/metal/clay stuff and textiles, my fave part); the Mercado Central which was kind of like Tokyo in that there was a lot of raw fish and I ate lunch for the experience rather than it tasting good or filling me up; Cerro San Cristobal (or maybe Santa Lucia? whichever one i didnt see the day before) w/ views of the whole city. Then I took a bus for about an hour and a half to Valparaiso (whole process was surprisingly easy except for thr carrying my bag part) and found the hotel from my guidebook and looked pitiful enough (it was getting dark) that the lady cleaned a room for me. Noisy, the bed squeaks, I hear things in the ceiling, btu safe and I have my own room and the real owner (I think her daughter or someone let me in last night) who I met this morning is realllllly nice. Somehow we sort of conversed en espanol (shes very patient) and I think when I go back today she´s going to take me out with her, possibly to a friends house for dinner? and to see the fiesta. So far this morning I saw a big parade and soem cool building, since verything is closed I´ll probably just be wandering... but its really pretty, colored houses up into the hilss and the Pacific Ocean! which I have yet to see.

Okay no hay mucho tiempo, ciao!

como se dice ice cream en español?

ahhhhhh I am in Santiago, Chile!! Hay muy independecia y no responsibiliades y este amo! Basically I have been thinking in Spanglish all day so hopefully that is a good sign that eventually I will learn some real Spanish.

I´m definitely not going to make my goal of only 20 minutes online but in an effort to keep it as close to that as possible, brief summary of the trip so far:
Mon AM at SeaTac, an hour and a half before my flight, there was a huge combined line of UNited and Air Canada and they didn´t have my reservation at first and then I had to get searched at security but I made it to the gate 20 minutes before my flight left. Yeahhh. Then 4 hours to Torontop, 9 hours in the airport there, like 10 hours on another plane (mostly sleeping), land in Santiago at 10ish this morning. For some reason I wanted to take the most difficult transportation to my hotel, so I took the cheapo bus to the bus station in the center of town and then metro three stops... while wearing my huge backpack which seemed so well packed when I left but is now enormous. Big sweaty lost gringa, it was fun. Took me some wandering to find the hotel, but up 3 flights of stairs I had my own room and a shower! Took some time to chill and headed out to explore.

Santiago is big, I think bigger than Seattle, and kind of a mix of colonial and modern architecture so it feels almost European. Pretty easy to get around, except for the language barrier it sort of just felt like walking around by myslef at home. I managed to order lunch with the help of a nice waiter and walked down the main street ( my hotel is right downtown) to this big hill... the names of things are escaping me right now. Anyway it was really pretty and terraced and kind of castle-y, and at the top I could see over the haze to the mountains which are HUGE and gorgeous!!! Of course. Oh soem students from the University talked to me and I was a little skeptical when they started trying to tell me about things and maybe invited me to a party? (somethign about pisco sours) but then it turned out they were trying to raise money b/c school is so expensive. I got guilted into giving them some cash but that brought up some interesting questions for me. Anyway then I walked over to the Plaza Armadas? Where all the distances are measured from, its the exact center of town. Gorgeous buildings around it, lots of people watching, etc. Cathedral exploring, watched some dance performance with a really bad brass band, walked to another plaza, bought ice cream, now I´m on the way back to the hotel.

My voice is getting better (combo of not being able to speak and not being able to speak Spanish is unfortunate) as is my cold, but I´m definitely going to bed early tonight and I´ll just see how tomorrow goes. Miss/love everyone, but I´m so happy to be here and in general everything is great so far.

I leave in 9 hours

And I worked for 9 hours today and somehow lost my voice, and I should really just go to sleep. Somehow what I just wrote disappeared, and the pictures I wanted to post are taking too long to upload, and I really need to sleep.

Here is my Mobal global cell phone #:+44 7525 545713

I can receive texts for free so blow it up with updates on your life, and maybe I can text you back for 80 cents.
Goodbyes suck and I feel like I must be forgetting a million things but I'm finally about to leave! Next post from CHILE or maybe Toronto if I get bored enough on my 9 hours layover to pay for internet.

one week!

Exactly one week til I leave and since I'm new to blogging I thought I'd practice before I'm in a foreign country with weird keyboards.

Things I need to do to get ready:
-learn Spanish
-make a hostel/hotel reservation for the first night
-copy all my important documents
-shop for first aid supplies/random gear
-try to pack
-transfer all my money to my new bank account (cheaper ATM fees)
-buy traveler's checks
-make an itinerary/contact sheet for the rents
-find things to keep myself entertained for 24+ hours of planes/airports
-figure out how to use my global cell phone

Days left with long hair: 2

Wish list:
-Rubik's cube
-ideal travel pants