Student Protest: A Lesson in Cultural Differences

Last month I covered a student protest for my internship with the Santiago Times.  The protest was for a number of reasons but primarily due to what the students deemed to be an inadequate response by the government in helping students affected by the earthquake along with a recent price hike in student metro fees.  

I followed the 3,000 or so protestors through the streets of Santiago for the entire day, did a few interviews, and took some photos.  It all seemed pretty standard until we got to the plaza where the final speeches took place.  A few student representatives got up and said a few words and then told everyone the protest was over and to go home.

I was on stage waiting to interview the head of the protest when a fight broke out down below.  Soon everyone was rioting and the guy I was supposed to interview got whisked away into a car.  I stayed with the protest and took the above photos.  While I was dodging water cannons, tear gas and angry policemen I kept thinking that this would be all over the news stations later, but I came to find out that this is a fairly normal occurence in Santiago.

According to some of the students I interviewed later and my host mom, there is a massive riot that ends in police tear gassing and arresting people EVERY TIME THERE IS A PROTEST.  While the rioting was still going on a man in a business suit passed me and asked what the protest was about, when I told him he just rolled his eyes and said, “oh those students” as if it was no big deal that there was tear gas everywhere.

Now I know that I haven’t been alive during a time of great social upheaval, but I still think that if something of this magnitude were to happen in the U.S. it would have been a huge deal.  It wasn’t even covered on the nightly news.

I would link to my article but the Santiago Times has recently closed off certain parts of the site to non-suscribers.  If you’re interested in Chilean news in English I highly recommend getting a subscription!

A Weekend in Buenos Aires

Back in April I went to visit my friend Katherine in Buenos Aires.  She is studying abroad there for the semester and her host mom allowed me to stay in her extra room for the weekend.  I was pretty shocked by how different Buenos Aires is from Santiago.

 I feel like Buenos Aires is much more influenced by European cities.  It has coffee shops on every corner and tiny corner stores.  It seemed more touristy to me than Santiago.  At the same time, however, I feel like some aspects of the city had a lot more character.  

For instance, the transportation system, while not as streamlined  amused me everytime I used it.  Instead of employing cards like the Transantiago and the London Underground, the colectivos in Buenos Aires only take coins, which makes riding the bus a nearly impossible task for some due to a nation-wide coin shortage.  When I first got to Buenos Aires I knew none of this and got some money out of the ATM.  Knowing I would need smaller change to take a bus I asked a man at a newstand if he had change and he literally laughed at me and shook his head.  I thought he was just rude, but later my friend explained to me that asking for change in Buenos Aires is the equivalent of asking for non-instant coffee in Santiago.  In addition to the coin paradox is the fact that literally EVER SINGLE sidewalk in Buenos Aires is broken.  It is as if some crazed drunk went all over the city and took a sledge hammer to the sidewalks.

Overall I had a really great time in Buenos Aires.  The nightlife there is GREAT, even if no one even starts thinking about going out until 2 AM.  I like to stay out late like everyone else, but dinner at 11 PM is a little bit much, even if it was the best steak I have ever eaten in my entire life.  I have heard about Argentinean beef, but I could not have possibly imagined a steak being that good and that cheap at the same time.  We went to one of Buenos Aires’s best steakhouses where we split two massive steaks, a plate of this grilled cheese appetizer, french fries and a bottle of wine.  When the waiter came out he cut the steaks in half USING A SPOON!! I did not know that that was even possible.  With all of that food the price rounded out to being about 14 bucks a person for one of the best meals I have ever had in my life.  In all honesty every single meal I had in Buenos Aires was delicious.  My friend Katherine prides herself on finding cheap delicious food wherever she goes, and she really found some great places in Buenos Aires.  In one of the photos above there is a yellow grill house, which we ate at for lunch one day.  The place specialized in Choripan which is chorizo on a bun.  It sounds simple but it was amazing.  The grill also had a table with all of the toppings your heart could ever desire.  It was like being in heaven.

Even with the short time I was in Buenos Aires, I feel like it is probably one of the best places to visit in South America, but I am still glad that I chose to live in Santiago. 

Hello to my five or so followers.  Sorry that I haven’t posted in a while.  Between school, being sick, and (most importantly) traveling around South America, my blogging has kind of gone by the wayside.  Since my last post a ton of things have happened here and I have a ton of great photos and experiences to relate.  I hope these posts make up for my absence.

Colonia Uruguay

One of my days in Buenos Aires we went to Uruguay.  It is a three hour ferry ride across the ocean on this giant hotel-like ferry called the Buquebus.  Other than getting a little seasick the ferry ride was really fun.  They had these funny little events, like a random flute concert (which was more like this funny little man with a glorified recorder).

Colonia is a somewhat touristy historical town where a lot of Argentineans have weekend houses.  There was not a whole lot to see in Colonia, but it was a very relaxing nice day.  We did our own little walking tour of the town and then had lunch at this really good restaurant with a group of people from Katherine’s program (for free I might add).  After lunch we walked around town and eventually ran into some other people from Katherine’s program who had rented a golf cart.  We did another quick tour via golf cart and then headed back to the Buquebus for Buenos Aires.

I’m glad that we went to Uruguay, and I think it was the perfect amount of time to go.  Uruguay is such a small country and I do not think there is really that much to see or do there, but you could definitely tell the difference between Uruguay and Argentina.  As soon as we stepped off the boat there was a man in a cowboy hat, on a horse, with a cup of mate.  Overall fun trip.

Pablo Neruda’s Houses

So far I have been to two of Pablo Neruda’s three houses in Chile.  For those of you who do not know, Pablo Neruda is a famous Chilean poet who won the nobel prize in literature and who, by the looks of his houses, was kind of a weird dude.  All of the photos from the beginning to his burial place are from Isla Negra, which was his main home along the coast and the others from .  You weren’t allowed to take photos inside, but Neruda collected some pretty ridiculous stuff such as: glass piano feet, the bows of ships, seashells, paintings of watermelons, and A NARWHAL HORN!!!!!

The second series of photos is from La Chacona, which is in Santiago.  I hope to go to his third house in Valparaiso before I leave. 

CIEE Trip to Viña del Mar and Valparaiso

The second week in April was the program’s trip to Viña del Mar and Valparaiso.  The two towns are right next to each other on the coast.  They were beautiful places.  Viña del Mar reminds me a lot of Florida.  It has condo buildings and palm trees, it looks a lot like Clearwater where my grandparents live.  The main difference is some of the older buildings.  Viña del Mar has a bunch of castles that were built years ago by the extremely wealthy, and a few other buildings that would be completely out of place in Florida.

While our hotels were in Viña, we spent most of our time in Valparaiso, which is just up the cost.  Valparaiso is an extremely pretty and unique place.  When the city was first settled, everyone decided (for some weird reason) to build up on the hills instead of right along the coast.  This means that the city has a series of Ascensors (elevators) that take people up to the tops of the hills so they can get home.  At not the ascensors are closed and people have to take these complicated series of staircases to get back home.  Valparaiso is much more funky and tranquil than Santiago, it is sort of like one giant Bellavista (the bohemian neighborhood in Santiago).  There is really unique graffiti everywhere and the houses are all painted bright colors.  The hills are littered with tiny cafés and unique little design shops.  It’s a pretty interesting place.

While on this trip we also went to a vineyard a little further off the coast.  I was pretty amazed by both how complex a process winemaking is, and by how primitive the methods for doing it are.  This vineyard, at least, used all manually powered mechanical tools to make their wine.  At the end we had a winetasting.  I knew almost nothing about wine, but everything we had was delicious.  I ended up buying two bottles to bring back to the U.S.

Right before we headed back to Santiago we went to the church of the patron saint of Chile.  It was a pretty unique cultural experience because there were virtually no tourists there.  Groups from all over Chile had come to pray and look at the statue of the woman.

Overall a very fun trip.

Views of Valparaiso and Viña del Mar

Valparaiso is entirely built on hills, the result is some beautiful views.

More Viña del Mar/Valparaiso Photos

Trip to Magallanes Patagonia Region of Chile

During the first week of April, a few of my friends and I flew down to Punta Arenas in the south of Chile for the week.  Our initial plan was to explore Punta Arenas, head north to Puerto Natales and go for a few days to the Torres Del Paine national park.  We were then going to return to Punta Arenas and explore some other places around there.  What we did not realize was that Torres Del Paine is not something you can just go visit and leave, you basically need to backpack through it.  So what started as a chill trip to southern Chile, turned into the most intense three days of my life camping and hiking in the wilderness.

Prior to this experience I have never really camped, and I have never backpacked at all. It was both the most difficult and the most rewarding experience of my entire life.  As you can see by the photos, Torres Del Paine is the most beautiful place EVER!  The landscape was surprising everytime we hiked to a new area.  There were lakes, glaciers, icebergs, mountains, rain, snow, rocks, rivers, wild horses, fields, sandy beaches, rocky beaches, basically everything you can possibly imagine all crammed into one place.

We did the W hike, which is more or less the most common hike done there.  It takes between 3-7 days, we did it in 3. Here are some maps of the trail.

I really think that this trip was somewhat of a life changing experience.  It was the most challenging physical thing I have ever done, and some days I did not think I was going to make but I pushed through.  I would highly reccomend this trip to anyone who likes the outdoors or challenges, just give yourself more than 3 days.

PATAGONIA: MORE PHOTOS