Chile

To sum up the rest of my time in Chile will be a great disservice to the full stories, but I am so far behind in blogging at this point that I must be brief:

After the intensity of meeting with Armando, Jose and Alberto I realized that there is only so much I can learn at this point in my limited Spanish. I spent another day with Ines and prepared to go further south to Chiloe island.

Chiloe is beautiful. Anywhere that you have to take a ferry to get to is beautiful. The ride down to get to Chiloe was like a birding tour, I saw really unique looking birds that clearly weren't as exciting for the people sitting around me. I happened to be on the island during their Costumbrista celebrations. I was in Castro for their Costumbrista fair, food, crafts, demonstrations of basketry, weaving, wooden boat building, old machinery for making hay bails, and some rather disgusting demonstrations of killing goats (?). Really though, everyone was there for the food and I ate my way through all of the favorite foods of Chile. They were selling big plates of salmon and potatos for what would be 6 bucks US, wish all of First Nations student org was there to dig in! Image of Castro burned in my mind: Bright colored leaning houses on stilts at the waterfront. I went up to Ancud next and got to go see PENGUINS at their summer home, some islands off of Chiloe near Ancud. I went with a tour and there was a woman from Vashon Island there, great coincidence really because I got to hear a little of the traveling she did when she was my age. Delicious sea food on Chiloe.

From Ancud I went to Puerto Montt and on up to Villa Rica/Pucon where I soaked up sun on the lake. Great views of the volcano and some great inspirations for future projects. I took a night bus to Valparaiso, which is one of the greatest cities (perhaps the greatest) that I have visited. I was once again hooked on the graffiti art got to know the city by following the graffiti up and down the streets. Hostels in Chile are more expensive, just like everything else, but wow. REALLY nice places. So nice that you preted you really live there and imagine your life in Chile. Or you can go see one of Pablo Neruda's houses and pretend you live there, very interesting man with remarkable houses. I told my parents if I hadn't bought my ticket to leave Chile I would just stay, find a flat and spend the rest of my days painting in that bright colored sea port city.


And then I took a 12 hour plane ride to Aotearoa, nearly crying on arrival. I have wanted to come here for a very very long time. Now I can move on and start talking about my time in New Zealand... real soon.