Weekend

FRIDAY:
After waking up late, I met my friend at the bus station. We decided to go to Pichilemu, a beach to the south, so after waiting in 5 wrong lines we got on the bus. There was no AC, and the bus was just sitting there, and a baby was crying, and we were not in the mood so we got off and went to Vina del mar instead. We jumped in the ocean and got tumbled by the huge waves, then watched the sunset over the coast. Then, we all tried to go out for sushi, but of course nothing is as simple as it may seem. We finally sat down at the table, starving, and asked for sake bombs. The chileans had no idea what a sake bomb was, so, like the good gringos that we are, we gave them a demonstration. On the second sake bomb we broke 3 of our glasses on accident, but managed to keep that hidden. Our sushi was increddddddible, so delicious, especially since we were starving. After finishing dinner around 12:30 (normal Chilean time), we walked around Vina looking for clubs, but there continued to be problems with each one (we weren't dressed up enough, they saw us drinking on the street, etc), so we ended up going to bed after a while, but the meal was enough to make it a wonderful night.

SATURDAY:
We agreed to go meet another group of friends to go on a "hike", which I was unprepared for, having only my chaco sandles and no camping gear, but we figured oh well we can make it work. That was the beginning of a trecherous 9 hour journey up a giant mountain. William was convinced that we could make the peak that day, even though the rangers warned us repeatedly that it couldn't be done because we had gotten to the park too late. But we said, darn it, we're americans! of course we can! And set off to hike the peak. The boys wanted to camp at the top of the peak, and the rangers said that it was impossible because.. dun dun dunnn.. there is a mysterious bug who resides at the upper levels of the mountain, who is small with salmon colored stripes, and if he bites you... you will die in 30 years. you don't know if you have been bitten, and there are no symptoms until 5 years later and there is no cure. So whether this is a myth they tell so you won't camp up there, or whether it's true, who knows - but if I die on valentines day when i'm 50 here is why. We saw on the map the campsite that looked furthest up, so our plan was to hike to the camp, set up and leave the gear, then finish the climb. After about 3 hours of extremely hard and verticle hiking with our packs, we run into the rangers again- "why the hell do yall have all of your camping gear with you, the campsite is 5 km down the hill, just 10 minutes from the park entrance, you stupid gringos! we told you!" us- "uhhhh", and then Jake pipes in "ohh yea, I saw the sign for the campsite but since it was 10 minutes in to the hike I thought it couldn't be the right one". So basically we hiked all that way with all of our camping gear, food, drinks, for nothing, in the heat of the day. Ahhh!! So then we just left our gear in a hidden spot on the trail and continued up. It was such hard hiking, having to use our hands a lot, it was slippery, and almost completely vertical. And I was in chacos, a sundress, with 4 hours of sleep under my belt. But I made it super far up, until the very last part leading up to the peak which was extremely slippery and you had to bear crawl, so Cassidy and I decided we had made it plenty far, so we sat there and took in the view. It was pretty scary up there, one wrong foothold and you were going to fall down the mountain. But believe me, we fell plenty of times on the way down. By the end of it my knees were killing me and I could barely walk. We made it back down to the campsite just as the sun set, and felt very accomplished for doing something that supposedly couldn't be done! That is our American spirit! :) Then Liz cooked a gourmet camping meal of spaghetti with sauteed veggies. I had to sleep in the tent, on the hard ground, with no pillow or blanket, and my ipod died after a little while. Worst night of sleep i've had in a long time, just laying there waiting for the sun to come up.

SUNDAY:
Our attempt to "get the hell out of there and get home" translated into a 6 hour misadventure home. when we finally reached Santiago we headed straight to California Cantina for gringo food, but, of course it was closed. So I went to the next street over to the amazing vegetarian restaurant for great mexican food, which was much more delicious anyway. then I passed out, my body aching,so extremely tired. happy valentines day!!

MONDAY:
Tonight Randy made curry from scratch, with a veggie curry for me!! sooooo delicious!!!!!!! As jenna said earlier today, "chileans hate flavor", so tonight we all savored the delicious spices and aromas that came from real food.