Mora-ns

When we left you last, we said we were going to be volunteering on an organic blackberry (aka mora) farm for two weeks. We´re back and because there was not a time warp, we clearly dipped out early.

The first leg of the journey to the farm (and it was a journey), was a bus ride south from Santiago to Molina. Actually, we took the metro all over Santiago trying to find the right bus terminal. Our directions said it would take 30 minutes. 3 and half hours later, we arrived in Molina with just enough time to make the last bus to Maitenes. While our directions did not mention we had to change bus terminals (and the second hardly counts as a terminal), we bumbled through the town until we found someone who had heard of Maitenes and could confirm the town existed, but was not able to provide directions. Through a stroke of dumb luck, we walked into the bus just as it was preparing to leave. Hooray! We ate a sausage salad we had made earlier in the morning and enjoyed our ride through beautiful wine country of the Andean foothills.

When we got to the end of the line and were the last people left on the bus, we realized we had missed our stop. The bus driver, who was turning the bus around, was kind enough to tell us when to get off the second time around. We jumped off at the Maitenes school, but found no one waiting there, as had been planned. Wandering unsuccesfully around the town took only about a minute before we realized we were rather screwed and asked a nice old lady if she knew where our farm was. In another stroke of dumb luck, as we were beginning on the trek to the farm, she saw the farm truck coming in the distance and told us to wait at the school again. Whew.

The farm is 40 hectares of diverse crops which are united by their insufficient water supply. Thus, it is a dusty farm and showers are rare. Fortunately, there is a river just one sweaty mile away and you usually smell much better after bathing in the river, at least for the first half of the return trip. We woke up most days at 7:30 before diving into our 8 a.m. carb underload. Just white bread and jam. We choked down awful pate (spam in a tube) some days so our stomachs would stop growling for a little bit before we started work. Once we started working, the adrenaline of black berry picking sated our hunger. Actually, it is really boring and that was a total lie. Stew satiated his constant hunger by picking the most berries but delivering the fewest. Editor´s note: More than 2 kilos of blackberries per day is harmful to the digestive tract.

The blackberries were haphazardly planted, overgrown, thorny, and poorly organized which certainly made the picking more difficult. Also, the sun will burn anyone not wearing a rice paddy hat into a crunchy critter. The only things in shorter supply than water, were instructions and diretions. We made up our own style of berry picking (free styling, if you will) as we wandered through the fields. This was fun for the first hour after which we started playing word games. After thousands of games, we will no longer be playing word games and are discussing this blog entry using hand signals.

Lunch break was a welcome respite at 1 p.m., even if it was a little underwhelming in nutritional value. You know what regenerates tired muscles? rice potatoes and carrots. Wait, not at all. This became our main impetus for leaving: acquire a decent meal and feel full. The afternoons were free but so hot that any activity above sleeping or swimming was impossible. Also, we were swarmed with massive horse flies almost all the time. One amazing chicken, Dandy, would eat them off of you but poor Dandy was incapable of overwhelming the droves of winged horses.

After the break, we returned to the fields for more work which was, unsurprisingly, very similar to that of the mornings. The unwelcome addition of more flies was the only real change. Some days, we would work on other tasks like: digging holes for an unfinished outhouse, watering the garden, cutting flowers, raking hay, watering the ground (¿WTF?), feeding pigs, burying piglets, collecting plums and making juice out of them, and this sort of thing. Mostly, the time was spent in the blackberry fields. We learned little and felt like...morans.

Our boss was something of an alcoholic but not the fun kind. He would get drunk and mean but not share any of his seemingly endless stock of awful wine. He also was the only person we´ve met capable of finding bad chilean wine. How do we know how it tasted? Stew sliced his hand open on a poorly put up roof (how high should we make this roof of very sharp metal? How about 4 feet, that´s safe right?) and while Tori was carefully wrapping Stew´s hand in gauze and medical tape, the farmer consoled him with wine. Hell, it´s better than nothing. His injury prevented him from finishing his much needed pet project of an outhouse (the other one has about a foot of use left) and all he succeeded in completing was a 6.5 foot deep hole.

Our last night there, Stew helped take the blackberries to town to sell. All the berries are sold to the same family that owns a small store. Every local comes here every other night with their harvests. After selling berries, the men all gather around the store and drink until the store runs out of beer. Picture 5 old drunk chileans and some of their children recruited to help carry berries sitting in a dirt road. As we tried to leave, our boss backed up to try to turn around, but apparently did not see the bridge he was trying to turn on, thus dropping one wheel over the edge of the bridge. Stew had to climb into the river and, with the help of the one remaining 70 year old farmer, lift the car high enough that the other wheels could get traction and pull the car forward. Thank God we left the next day. This guy was crazy.

Yesterday, we woke up at the farm and got ready to leave. We packed our tent, filled out water bottles, and hit the dusty trail. We couldn´t wait to get on the road again, but first we had to walk through a neighbor´s field, cross a stream over two downed trees, climb a hill through an apple orchard, and hop three barbedwire fences. Then we were at the dirt road and just a kilometer away from the gravel road. We hitched a ride down to a Saint´s shrine where we waited for an hour until our next ride came and took us 2 hours down another dirt road to a town called Cumpeo. Here, we ate a much anticipated meal.

Since this blog is more about food than travel, here you go:
Cazuela de Vacuno is a hearty beefy stew of beef. It also has corn, squash, potatoes, cilantro, and rice. Our meal was served with a cucumber, onion, and tomatoe salad dressed with salt, lime, and oil. We got bread which we barely noticed as we inhaled it whilst sitting down. (side note, we left the farm in such a hurry we didn´t eat breakfast and only had some cookies and candy bars for the various hike) Dessert was sliced cantaloupe. Stew ordered a ¨cerveza grande¨and was surprised when the bartender gave him a look of disbelief. It was, after all, two in the afternoon. Apparently, in this restaurant, a large beer is two liters. There have been more unfortunate misunderstandings.

Next we took a collectivo taxi to a town an hour away, then a bus to Santiago 3 hours away (shorter this time), then got on an unexpectedly cushy, airconditioned, leather seated, bathroom working, bus to Valparaiso. Now we are here and digs are better than at the farm. It is a beautiful city, reminiscent of San Francisco. There are many impressive murals in public places (some sanctioned, some freestyled), interesting local theatre productions, beautiful fountains and statues, colorful buildings, and an all around strong art community that lends the city a bohemian vibe.

Interested in seeing some pictures from our adventure? Tori´s mom has posted an album of our pictures from the first half of our journey! Enjoy: http://picasaweb.google.com/EllenKirsh/ToriAndStewPics#

Santi-again

Friday morning, we flew back from Punta Arenas to Santiago with Stew´s parents. While they checked in for their evening flight back to the U.S., Stew ran down to the lost luggage area and retrieved the back American Airlines had lost the week before. This is one of the great conveniences of naming giving your child after yourself. Unfortunately, (or perhaps at this point it was fortunate), our cheese and trail mix had been taken and destroyed by Chilean customs. While we were bummed that we didn´t get to eat them, we appreciated that our bag did not smell like moldy cheese. We did get some cheese and lox that Stew´s parents had brought in their carry on, so we weren´t without the luxuries of home.

We caught a cab back to the Eco Hostel where we had stayed the week before and where our bags were stored. We sorted through all of our new clothes and switched them out for old ones (yay! like going back to school!) and also picked up a new library (also like going back to school!). All of the books that we got looked great and we are very excited to have new real literature to read, but our bags just don´t have space for the 30 or so books we wound up with. Nonetheless, thanks to everyone for the books: it was great to have so much variety to choose from.

Afterwards, we went out for a final dinner with Stew´s parents. The restaurant was in the courtyard of a museum and we ate beneath a grafitti covered section of the Berlin wall. Outside the restaurant were scores of used book salesmen (hmmm...), artisans, and clothes shops. Amazingly, we looked at all of the stores and didn´t buy a thing even though Santiago has a distinct, hip, independent fashion scene. Then, Stew´s parents left for the airport. It was great to see them and we had a fantastic time traveling with them. We miss them already!

The last two days have been spent rather lazily (our most active pastimes include strolling through Santiago´s many parks and wandering through musuems) because we are waiting to go to a WWOOF blackberry farm. We will be there harvesting blackberries for the next 2 weeks. The bus to the country,( the farm is located in the heart of the Maipo wine region!) only leaves on Mondays, so we didn´t have much choice.

Today were the elections: Piñera, the conservative candidate, won and there are parties in the street but no alcohol for sale anywhere (except our hostel - apparantly they fly under the radar). It seems like every car in the city has hit the street to honk their horns and fly Piñera flags. The main road through the city is blocked off for a huge rally. Entire families - the stroller and wheelchair bound included - were carousing in the street, banners and flags in hand. By the time we came back to the hostel, we were covered in confetti.

All in all, it´s been nice to relax: we fixed many of our clothes, packs, etc., ate latkes, and read part of our new book store. Tomorrow we go to q blackberry farm and may be out of contact for the next two weeks. Sorry avid readers but adventure calls!

From the Atacama to Patagonia: EPIC!

Our first three days in Chile were spent in San Pedro de Atacama, a tiny frontier mining town that has transformed into a tiny tourist center in the past decade. It´s in the center of the Atacama desert, which we have learned is the driest desert in the world. You can tell this simply from walking around town: the buildlings and roads are covered in dust, water is scarce, and the sun is mercilessly hot. Still, the town is quaint and has a mellow hippie vibe.

On our first full day in San Pedro, we woke up early to hike to sights outside of town: an Inca fortress, el Quitor to Pucara, and a narrow gorge called ¨La Quebrada del Diablo.¨The scenery on the way was spellbinding. Red desert rocks forming towering mountains, dried up riverbeds filled with scrubby plants, and cloudless blue skies. Unfortunately, we both underestimated the sun a little bit and seriously burned our necks.

That afternoon we took a tour of the Atacama´s nearby salt flat and salt lake, el Salar de Cejar. This place was unlike anything we had ever seen before. First we bathed in one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world, la laguna de Cejar. It was so salty we were forewarned against dunking our heads underwater or even splashing -- medical injury to the eyes could result. Swimming with these restrictions might sound lame, but trust us, it was awesome. You could float with absolutely no effort in the water, in fact, we couldn´t go under if we wanted to. If you tried to make yourself vertical in the water, the salt gradually flipped your body so that you were floating on your back or your stomach with your feet in the air. Awesome! After the lake, we jumped in some nearby less salty water to rinse off. Nevertheless, we remained crusted with salt for the rest of the day.

The actual salt flat was ubeliveable -- imagine miles of salt thickly crusted on the soil. The biblical story about Lot´s wife becoming a pillar of salt suddenly made more sense. The salt had literally turned to a rocky topsoil, which we tramped over eagerly.

The next morning we started at 4 am to make it to the 3rd largest geyser field in the world, los Geysers de Tatio. It´s also the highest altitude geyser field in the world and the most active in the Southern hemisphere. Neither of us had ever seen a geyser before, and we were definitely impressed. The journey there, however was a little bit of a let down: it took 4 hours when it was meant to take 2 beacuse our driver showed up to pick us up with a flat tire (it was 1 of 8 tires, but this still was problematic). Our guide´s response was not to change the tire, but instead to clunk all the way up the mountain. Apparantly this is reasonable behavior and not a cause for complaint in Chile...we beg to differ.

We may have been a little cranky on the bus, but once we stepped off and saw the geysers, all negative feelings were left behind. It was spectacular! We saw 64 different active geysers (ie: water sporadically shoots out of a hole in the ground, timing varies by geyser) plus a host of other geothermic activity: boiling pools, fumaroles, and thermal baths. We were amazed.

After the geysers, it was a quick dinner of empanadas and then back on the bus. For 25 hours. Yowza! This was by far our longest bus ride yet, but it proved much more enjoyable than anticipated because we met some super fun brazillian guys to chat with along the way. Before we knew it, 25 hours and thousands of kilometers later, we were in Santiago metro-ing our way to our hotel.

The next day, the plan had been to meet up with Stewś parents when their flight got in at 10 AM. Unfortunately, it was delayed 12+ hours, so we didnt get to spend the day in Santiago with them. We decided to go to Chileś National History Museum, where we got better acquainted with one of our very favorite Latin American heroes, the Spanish butt-kicking powerhouse Bernado O Higgins. We also checked out Cerro Santa Lucia, a hill in the center of the city with epic views. The walk to the top features beautiful marble fountains, a castle, and well-maintained gardens.

It turned out that Stewś parents didnt arrive until 3 AM that night (you are hereby forewarned against ever booking with American Airlines), so much for a day of sightseeing with them in Santiago! After meeting up with us, we hope, the trip got much better for them :)

The next day we all hopped on a flight down to Punta Arenas, a city in Patagonia. It is one of the southern-most cities in the world, and home to the southern most brewery in the world (sidenote: yes, we are finally in a country which produces both good wine and good beer!). After a brief lunch of sandwiches, we hopped on a bus to Puerto Natales, the gateway to Torres del Paine, one of Patagoniaś most famous national parks.

Our hostel in Puerto Natales was one of the coolest places we have stayed in our journey. It was a cozy little home adorned with handmade wool textiles and warmed with gas ovens. It was incredibly warm and cozy, plus the owners were extremely helpful with everything we needed. If you find yourself in Puerto Natalaes, and you should because the town is delightful and Patagonia is awesome, be sure to stay at La Amerindia.

After an amazing breakfast (Tori sends many thanks to her parents for sending down lox and cream cheese with the Pollocks!), we set off for Torres del Paine. We found out they are not named for the towering revolutionary zeal of Thomas Paine (to Stew and Mr. Stewś disappointment), but because Torre means Tower in Spanish and Paine means Blue in a different language. Thus, the set of giant rock pinnacles appear as blue towers in the Patagonian mountains (not the Andes at this point but something else).

Torres del Paine is known for being staggeringly beautiful as jutting snow peaked mountains jut through the pampas and glacial lakes pool at their bases. The numerous lakes take different colors based on their sediment content: those formed by deep underwater springs, millenial glaciers, or the run off from snow melting in the peaks and carrying deposits from the rough (and steep) sides of the Mordor-like tectonic upheavals. When viewed in proximity, it looks like a paint chip of blue shades lacking its captions of aqua marine, glacial ice azul, gel deodorant blue.

The wildlife is also worth note, if not entirely wild or alive. First, we saw a milodon and its cave. The cave was pretty cool: like a 10,000 year old empty hot pocket of the earth. Settlers found the bones of a milodon (giant land sloth) here and promptly took them to London. Now, there is a statue of a milodon, complete with giant, slothenly descending huevos. Outside, we saw baby owls, generally recognized as one of the cutest things that one cannot have as a pet. Later, we came across a herd of guanacos which are basically llamas but are not (to our knowledge) domesticated. However, if an animal lets you get within five feet of it, we do not think it really counts as wild, either. Also on the list were condors, flamingoes , rheas (ostriches but a little different), foxes, and maybe more!

After a delicious lunch of salami and laughing cow cheese (Thanks again, Kirsh-Cliffordś!), we took a hike to see glaciers and ice bergs in their natural habitat (a really cold place). We only had an hour to do the hike, so we ran our hike. ¿Have we mentioned how awesome we are? The icebergs and glaciers were impressing and, thus, we were impressed. Itś difficult to describe them, but cold, icy, big, intimidating, jagged, blue not white...these are beginnings.

The next day, we went to see more glaciers. (Sorry...after the previous failure to describe glaciers, this must seem to be an inauspicious beginning for a whole dayś entry). This time, we were aboard a speed boat. We knew the day was going to be good when half the activities were eating and one was drinking whisky. Most of the day was spent boating out to our main destination, but along the way we saw various frozen and flowing waterfalls of a kilometer or two in length (height?) with fleets of condors that seemed to be frozen in the air, relaxing on the air currents and maintaining their positions while looking for delicious dead animals. Being a scavenger has got to be good in an environment that is basically the worldś biggest walk in refrigerator. We also saw a colony of cormorants (flighted) chilling on the side of a cliff. Nifty.

Eventually, we got to our glacier hike. Slow pokes on the trail inhibited our new love of running hikes. This glacier was much bigger and scarier. Scary because the nooks of crannies of the ice were clearly visible (it is summer), but one can understand how in the winter it would look flat and appear passable. This is not the case, however, and a wrongly placed foot leads to a hundred foot fall into icy water. Standing in the driving hail over the water next to a giant icy english muffin, we gained a healthy respect for natureś frozen wonders. Floating in the water below, one could see ice bergs that had, due to global warming, broken from the glacier. While these melting chunks breaking off are probably only the tip of the iceberg of global warmingś effects, they remain massive. True to form, the majority of their mass is concealed beneath water but they still appear titanic.

As a prologue to lunch, we were served whisky over millenial ice. Technically, the ice is decamillenial given that the glacier was formed in 10,000 b.c.(e). but since it is not clear if this is the correct formulation of the latin root, we can forgive the tour guide. Nonetheless, a noon oclock whisky is an excellent segue into a two hour antelunch nap. When we woke up, we hiked up to an agroturism destination: one of the southern most ranches in the world. We dined on lamb that had been spitted and smoked in halves over a fire in front of us. Also, they gave us wine.

Today, we rented a car and headed south toward Punta Arenas. We stopped along the way to see a huge colony of penguins. The colony consists of 10,000 infants, adults, and offspring ("¿why do infants not count as offspring?", one may ask, without resolution). Apparently, we came at a bad time and many had run off to important meetings and lunches, all dressed up in their cute little tuxedos. Nonetheless, we saw about 1,000 relaxing on the beach like hung over highschool boys still drunk from prom. Others were waddling along the beach as only sea animals (and the rotund) can do. A particularly cute one nipped Toriś shoe, Stewś mom got all up in oneś face as they got to know each other better, we all saw a mating dance, and Stew stepped in penguin poo. Also, because this was allegedly a busy time (when the penguins go out to fish), it meant that we were the only tourists at the park and (as they say) "ïf you have seen 1,000 penguins, you have seen a lot."

Now weŕe in Punta Arenas and are flying back to Santiago tomorrow. Stewś parents have to get back to square old cold north hemisphere and we have to go to work on our warm black berry farm. Yippee, though we will miss Stewś parents. We will also miss the amazing beer of Patagonia (which we toured today, at the factory and the bar).

Happy New Year!

After spending the days following Christmas chilling by a pool in a blistering hot, sunhine-filled desert of dali´s dreams (it was fine, how was the rest of your December?), we headed up to Lima one last time. We met up with Jamie and one of her friends, again, as well as Geoff (a friend of Stew´s from Peru). G Money, as he is better known, is in Peru visiting his girlfriend´s family, so we all went out for drinks together, which was a nice little reunion.

The next day, we hit the long dusty road again on our way to Arequipa in southern Peru. It is a beautiful colonial town and pretty much every building is made from giant white stones so that the city looks like a conglomeration of mini fortresses. We spent New Year´s Eve in Arequipa watching a hilarious cover band sing a mix of American classic rock and high school dance hits (as well as some Offspring). At midnight, we found ourselves in the top story of a disco (called the ¨couch bar¨) with a 360 degree view of the top of the city. We could see the main fireworks display over the Plaza de Armas, but there were also about 200 smaller displays scattered throughough the city. Not a bad way to spend welcome the new year. On our way home, we ate choripan (chorizo on bread with french fries), which was delicious.

We spent the next day recovering and wandering around the city. The choripans seemed to be a bad idea and we were glad to have an extra day to rest. That night (or the morning depending on your sleep schedule), we left at 3 a.m. for a hiking trip through Colca Canyon.

Colca Canyon is the second deepest in the world at just over 4,000 meters. It is more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. We drove for a couple of hours over mountains and through deserts (the only natural resources appear to be stones) until we came to a little town called Chivay, where we grabbed lunch (coca pancakes and banana dumplings) before heading up to Cruz del Condor. Here, we watched condors swoosh and dive and hunt for dead animals, as they are known to do (like Stew).

After an hour of condor watching, we ate some alpaca before beginning our alpaca-like journey into the canyon. The hike began flat as we left town but soon descended dramatically into the canyon. Though the hike was only a couple of miles, at least one was vertical. Several hours later, we arrived at a little village called San Juan de Chukchuk (spelling is unclear...meaning is Saint Juan of the Plagued because the town was plagued by malaria in recent times). We were exhausted and relieved to find comfortable beds waiting in our straw roofed, mud walled hut.

The next morning, we had an easy day. Just four hours of hiking and only a mini mountain to climb. Unlike the previous day, we didn´t scale either of the canyon walls, but went over and down a small rise in the canyon itself. Actually, it was still a pretty intense hike. We got to our lodge around noon or one in the afternoon and were delighted that, due to a natural spring in the mountain, we had a swimming pool to relax in all afternoon. This was great because we were hot, tired, and smelled bad (even for us). Dinner was nice: huge plates of spaghetti. Stew, however, could not become full no matter how much pasta he ate.

The next morning we had an early wake up call (again!) and were on the trail before the sun was fully up at 5. This turned out to be necessary because the hike out of the canyon was steep, rocky, long, and would very quickly have become miserably hot. We were told the hike took between 3 and 4 hours, but we were alotted 5. The first person in our group finished in 2:12, two semi-sane germans (including a 68 year old that thought it was normal to get out of a swimming pool, pull off his speedo and stand in front of everyone changing) finished in 2:30, and we finished just around 3 hours. By 8 a.m., we were very tired and the sun was incredibly hot. Just a minute or so after Tori came up, a group of five condors flew over head and stayed close by long enough to snap some photos. !que suerte! We still had a 30 minute hike back to town, but at least it was flat. Honestly, distance no longer seems to be difficult which compared to the steepness of Colca.

After our Colca tour, we spent one night more in Arequipa. Yesterday morning we got on a 5 hours bus to Tacna (near the CHilean border) that took 8 hours. Two taxi rides later, we were in Arica, Chile. Because we will be meeting Stew´s parents in a few days, we hurried on past Arica and caught an overnight bus to San Pedro de Atacama in the heart of the desert near the Bolivian and Argentinian borders. We just arrived and found that everything in Chile is really really expensive. Hence, we will be camping in the Atacama desert for the next two nights before we catch a bus down to Santiago, where we will finally meet up with Stew´s parents! Yay!