La excursión tres~PUTRE, CHILE =)

Name of title in English: Excursion three~PUTRE, CHILE =)

Holaaa!!!

How have you all been? It feels like years since I have written on here, and gosh it kind of has been a long time. SO much has happened since my last blog post, but I'm going to cut this into two posts. And first, I'm going to start with last week...here goes nothing :) and a forewarning-I have not reread this or made corrections! So sorry-just don't have enough time right now for that :)

During the middle of the week last week, a few of us walked to the "island" of Arica to see the sunset. The ocean amazes me every time I see it! The sound of the waves (although they crash hard against the rocks, the sound is so calming), the fact that the ocean goes on and on and on, and the ships are SO giant! It was beautiful to see the sunset and spend time with friends. There's a picture below with Cynthia-a friend of mine from Chile- and I at the island.

The next day for our writing class, we took a little field trip to the port of Arica. This port is extremely important and is used by the world. It's especially important for one country in particular other than Chile, and that would be Bolivia. Bolivia is landlocked, and so in order to receive and export items, they use the port in Arica. We saw the fish market also, which was pretty cool, but it smelled really awful haha. The best part of the field trip was that we were able to ride in this boat along the coast! It was really cool to see Arica from the ocean; it's beautiful from every view! haha I wish I could share more facts from that day, but our tour guide was speaking in Spanish (obviously he should be haha), but it was really difficult to understand him while we were on the boat. The wind kind of carried his voice. BUT we did see "lobos marinos"-translated literally this means sea wolves, but really in English it would be sea lion (picture below!). I even got a video of some jumping from the ocean onto the buoy! I'll be sure to put that on facebook :) There's a pic of some of the girls from the group and I on the boat below :)

What more-the "toma" or "takeover" is still on at our University...actually, right at the moment I can hear a lot of screams and drums and noise coming from that direction (probably a little protest at the school...if not that, probably something to do with soccer and the American cup haha). Anywho, after school one day, there was a march down one of the main streets. Rachel and I really wanted to see it, so we hurried and dropped our bags off at home, and went back. We had to run a LONG ways until we finally caught up with the march, but we were able to see it! That's when it really hit me, that these students are truly fighting for what they believe in, and it is serious business for them! If all of their education is privatized-what are they going to do? What will Chile be like in twenty years? These things hit me as I was watching the students march with pride and courage. There's a picture below of some of the guys from the march that really wanted their picture taken haha. It was definitely an emotional and eye opening experience for me.

What more? Well, I may as well talk about the title of this blog huh? So, for our third excursion we went to Putre, Chile, but this time we took a lot bigger of a bus. We left around 2 pm and arrived around 6 pm. It took us a long time because we made a lot of stops along the way to see interesting places and things. The first things we saw were these holes dug into the ground made by aliens...ok not really by aliens, but it did kind of look like that ;) They were created by the Incas, and it was how they kept their food cool for a long period of time. We also saw some more geoglyphs.

Our next stop was at a super old and beautiful church and cemetery (I forgot how old though..). It was really interesting to understand the religious side of things a little bit better here. Near every cemetery here there is a "mountain" that has a cross on the very top of it, and every march (or may?) the people make a trek to the top to praise the cross (I hope I understood all of this information correctly). The Indians of the land used to climb to the top in order to praise the Earth Goddess called "Pachamama", but then the Spanish came, and put the crosses on top, and so everyone continued to climb to the top of the mountain to "praise the cross", but really the Indians were climbing to praise Pachamama...Like I said, the people of these areas still make this trek once a year. Also, they mountains are supposed to keep watch over the dead. The depth of the meaning of everything here is so interesting to me! There's a picture of Pablo (our tour guide) talking below of how the people will eat "with" the person on their birthday and during holidays.

The roads along our trip were super sketchy! I was kind of scared out of my mind the whole time! But I'm still alive haha. Along the way we stopped and were able to take pictures with a type of cactus that can't be found anywhere else in the world. (You'll see a pic of me and Rachel below with one). We also saw a "tambo"-I honestly don't really know what that means, but pretty much it was this small little building made out of stones haha (pic with me sticking my head out of a window). We also had to make a pit stop at this little restaurant in order to drink some Coca tea...pretty much it was hot water with coca leaves inside and I added A LOT of sugar haha (pic below of my tea and my snack). It didn't taste terrible, and it actually helped make me feel a lot better. And yes, coca leaves are used to make cocaine, but here they use the leaves in tea and candies and to chew to help out with altitude sickness and digestive problems. We needed to drink this during this trip because we made such a dramatic change in altitude-from sea level up to around 12,000 feet. BIG difference in just four hours.

What more? We stopped in a little town called Socroma. It was really beautiful, but strange at the same time. It kind of felt like a ghost town to be honest. We didn't see anyone, but a couple farmers working in the distance. We stopped in this town to see a church that has a table that is chained to the wall. The natives have this legend that the table walks in the middle of the night, and whichever house in the village it stood in front of, someone would die from that house. Creepy right? haha We actually weren't able to go inside, however, because the keeper of the keys was not around. But, the city was really pretty even though there was hardly anyone there. A lot of the people go there during the weekends to get away from the city life. There's a picture below that I really like-and it definitely captures how dead this city was haha.

We finally made it to Putre, and we stayed the night in a hostel. For many people it was there first time to stay in a hostel (mom and I stayed in one in Berlin last summer), so I knew kind of what to expect...BUT the ONLY type of heat that this hostel had was body heat!!! No joke-and yes where most of you are reading this (back in the USA) it's super hot and you're probably sweating while you're reading this and wondering why the heck I would want heat in the summer...BUT remember it's winter here and it was FREEZING!!! I even slept all bundled up and most of us shared a bed with another person just to have some extra heat haha. We were fed a really good meal at the hostel, and we chowed down(there's a picture of my professor and I below in the restaurant..let's just say I'm starting to be able to understand her more..and her laugh is one of my favorite laughs in the world! One can't help laugh when she starts to laugh).

We began the next day bright and early by taking a bus ride to the national park where Lago (Lake) Chungara is, which is one of the highest lakes in the world! On our way, we were able to stop and take some pictures with some llamas-this was actually one of my favorite parts of the trip haha. There is one main llama named Lolly who is the favorite of the tourists because she stays near the police building where the people stop, and then all of the tourists give her bread to eat...Now there are a few llamas that realized Lolly was pretty smart, and so there was a whole pack waiting in front of our bus door for us :) Pictures below- 1st one of the smaller llamas and me, 2nd Lolly (all white), and last a really sweet pic of the llamas with the volcano in the background :)

We finally made our way to Lago Chungara, and WOW was it beautiful! Not only is the lake pretty, but right next to it is Parinacota Volcano. I guess there really isn't a whole lot to talk about this place...there really aren't words to describe how pretty it is either..so please just enjoy the picture below :)

We then attempted to visit this super old church, but the key keeper wasn't there either..so we finally went to our last destination which was the hot springs! and oofta were they HOT! There is a legend of the natives of a princess that lived for many many many years! When one husband died after many years, she would then marry another. All of her husbands wondered why she still looked so young when they were all old and wrinkly. Finally, the fifth husband followed the princess one day, and realized that the secret to her staying young was that she bathed in hot springs. When she wasn't around, he decided to bathe in them also, BUT she ended up finding him and said "JURASI" and I'm pretty sure this means to boil..so her husband that she loved "oh so much" died..and she was no longer able to live forever. Good story huh? :) So anywho, these same hot springs that the princess bathed in were the ones that we visited..so maybe I'll live a little bit longer now?? ;) I wasn't going to include a picture, but the owner of the place was super excited about taking one picture of me..and next thing I know he has my camera and is telling me to follow him. He was practically running from one hot spring to the next and making me sit down and take a picture :) It was pretty funny haha.

Well that is enough for one blog post...more than enough actually. I'm hoping to write my post about Perú really soon... Just a forewarning- the Perú post will be THE best post of my entire blog. We had quite a crazy adventure with many problems...that's all I'm going to say for now ;) You'll have to wait for my next blog post. Hope you're not all sweating to death back home...I'll try not to freeze to death here. I swear I'm becoming more Chilean every day. The weather was PERFECT today for normal me, but for the Chilean Katie...well let's just say I had a sweatshirt AND a scarf on today and I was still cold. My sister here, Rachel, just a t-shirt on. hahaha :) Ok...for reals, I wills top writing now :) Take care everyone!

Chau chau! Besos!
(Bye bye! Kisses!)