Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys Discover a Saint on a Bus in the Mountains

I´m just gonna try and create outlandish titles that are quasi-legitimate.

The Mountains

I decided to go camping in an area known for it´s overall safety: Cajon del Maipo. It was only the location for the 1986 assassination attempt on Pinochet by the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front.
Wait a minute. Yep. The group was named the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front. Chileans might not be the best at some things, but they take the cake on naming leftist insurgencies. IRA, you´ve got nothing on these guys! Obviously they didn´t kill the dictator. I mean he is still living today and currently going through tax evasion and money laundering charges.

Cajon del Maipo is a large area southeast of Santiago about an hour. It was formerly known for plentiful silver mines and now houses many roadside fossil stands. Oh the times, they are a changing. The area also houses Monumento Natural El Morado - our destination, just off the road from Baños Morales, a small town with some hot springs that we failed to try. To translate, that´s The Purple Natural Monument. Although it doesn´t inspire fear it is a very cool place.

I went with Danielle, Chrissie and Lisbeth. I wanted to make sure I had the equipment and strength to take a longer trip next week, so this was a bit of an exercise. An exercise in me carrying way the hell more than I should have because Lisbeth doesn´t have a pack!

That thing in the background is the big Purple at sunset. The picture doesn´t do it justice. It was quite fantastic. And freezing.



A steep but short hike of about an hour brought us to the camping site. Since it´s still early spring we couldn´t make it all the way to the heralded lagoon up near the glacier San Francisco. It was still under snow. So we stopped at one of the few areas that was not a bog from the melting snow.

And since I had carried a ton of crap, I had no problem letting them set up one of the tents.



So what could have been a horribly cold night turned out to be just a pretty cold night. Last week at some point I was rooting around our attic and discovered that we had several thicker, better sleeping bags than the ones Scott and I employed two weekends ago. The weekend after which I was sick! I was mortified and elated to come to the realization. So we used a few of my family´s sleeping bags (I borrowed a really good one from another guy in our program) and I brought along every warm thing I own. This turned out to be great because the girls hadn´t brought very much, so we all shared a little of my clothing, but I made sure I got first dibs.

So then Lisbeth cooked on my new, cheap camping stove that I bought from Jumbo (which is like 10 posts all in itself. 4 words: Puts Wal-Mart to Shame!), and Danielle and I switched off playing guitar.



The sunset was nice. The moonrise was anything I hadn´t anticipated seeing in the middle of the night, but Danielle and I woke up at just the right moment because we thought something was running around outside of our tent. There was no way I was getting out of my sleeping bag for a better look at it, though. And an early start allowed me to take a hike and see some of the sunrise, too.



I like animals. But girls have something weird when it comes to horses. Lisbeth wants to rent a ride any time she sees one, and Danielle attacked several local ones like three or four times. By attacked I mean she would wade through glacial runoff sogged fields to interrupt their grazing and jump on their backs. Luckily, they were well-mannered horses and took her for rides after all the trouble she went through.

We stashed our bags and hiked for several hours. Danielle went swimming in what had to be some of the coldest water on earth. At that point in the day I still couldn´t feel my hands because I had washed the dishes the night before, so I imagine by tomorrow she might feel her body again. We were several of very few people up in the park, so it was wonderful.

Chrissie and Danielle taking one of several rides.



Lisbeth looking like she should be in a Bond movie or something rough and cool.



As if the trip hadn´t been cool enough by that point, it just had to get better. We had taken buses as far as we could on the way in and then hitched several rides to make it up to Baños Morales. However, on the way down we were amazingly luckily. We walked one kilometer...maybe, and then the cavalry arrived. We hitched a ride with 2 people whose names I never got, but who will long be remember as Los Santos Morados. They took us to within 2 blocks of my home. TWO BLOCKS. Santiago has roughly 6 million people. Chances that we will hitch a ride of roughly 60 or 70 miles with people who live 5 minutes from me? About a snowball´s chance in hell. It was amazing. And saved so much time on the return because we didn´t have to wait at three bus stops and 2 metro stops like on the way there. So they capped off a great trip.

Me enjoying the hitch. I only stayed in the back for about 20 minutes. The following hour had the four of us crammed in the back seat of the truck, but I am not complaining!



The Saint

Probably just around the time that I was watching the moon rise, much of Chile was awake to watch the live announcement of the Catholic canonization of Padre Alberto Hurtado live from Rome. At either the beginning or end of each Year of the Eucharist (I guess with a cyclical calendar the beginning and end are roughly the same day if not a day apart at most!), the Catholic Church likes to create more saints to be patrons over things. So Chilean Alberto Hurtado was one of 5 on Sunday. It´s been huge news since I´ve been here and almost 10,000 Chileans were in Rome for the announcement. This means that Chile now has two saints: Hurtado and St. Teresa de los Andes. I don´t know her story, but Hurtado died around 1950 and was really well-known. He opened several houses for the poor in Santiago and was apparently a pretty nice guy. There are many rules in becoming a saint and Hurtado passed with flying colors. You have to perform X amount of miracles; he did that without any problems. Just stuff like that. He saved a few people, blessed a few things, your normal saintly sort of heroics.

The big question now is whether the street "Padre Hurtado" will remain as is or be changed to the new "San Alberto Hurtado." Hopefully people won´t let something insignificant like street naming or homosexual marriage swing the presidential election in December. But just wait...who knows!

On that note, the campaigning is beginning. I think there are 6 candidates, but only 2 matter: Michelle on the left and Lavin on the right. Michelle (whose last name I don´t know) is the favored candidate. She runs for the socialist party pretty much, although distinctions aren´t super clear. The election is early December.

The Bus

Santiago is in the first week of introducing the new TranSantiago system. This unfortunately means that the frightening old, yellow micros will be no more. They have already provided many an exciting ride to school! The new system is trying to use all cards, less cash, and intergrate all of the many bus and train routes through Santiago. The new buses are huge. Some are regular, but the only noticeable ones are the doubles. They are so long, and very slow I discovered today. The drivers seem to have orders to make these new ones last, so they are properly stopping, turning, accelerating, etc. It was horrible. The trip home took forever, and we didn´t even come close to having an accident. I´ll try to use them as little as possible!

I´m gonna try to be an entrepreneur. There are tons of vendors who hop on and off of the buses. You name it, they sell it - or so I thought. Most of it is actually small snacks, drinks, pens, purses, band-aids...stuff like that. But I have found my niche. I am going to import tons of tiny bottles of that clear, anti-bacterial stuff. Then, I´ll get on buses with these other vendors and say things like "This guy who is trying to sell you ice cream, I just saw him use the bathroom." and "Look at the old, dilapidated seats you´re sitting on. Thousands of other hands have touched the pole you´re clinging to." And then the kicker, "I have anti-bacterial hand ointment in convenient little bottles. 100 pesos."

I would be living the good life!

Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys

Remember those detective books you read in about 5th grade? I sure do, because I just finished their Spanish equivalent. When you realize that you´re reading something that is at a very low level it´s somewhat demoralizing. But in my case, I didn´t really discover that until about the last 10 pages! I read Nunca Enamores a un Forastero for my class. (Never Fall in Love with a Foreigner) Its mere 173 pages were daunting at first, but it became pretty easy to read. It was a little detective flick starring Heredia, who is Nancy Drew´s South American counterpart. He sleuths many a mysterious clue.

It can´t be good if I can catch major flaws in a story written in something other than my first language. So it was fun, now it´s over, and tomorrow I have to write a 5 page paper about it. I also have 2 tests Wednesday, so tomorrow will not be fun.

I haven´t finalized my departure plans yet, but Thursday or Friday I will begin my week break my taking either a train or bus about 20 hours south to Puerto Montt. From there I will hopefully camp in several national parks, visit the island of Chiloe, and make my way back through the Lake District of Argentina. But we´ll see how much plans have to change.

Singin´ and Dancin´ and Robbin´ to the Music...

Most of last week involved daily doses of vitamins. They don´t joke around with those things here. They were in packets of 10 - I skipped most meals and opted for the fruity flavors of health.

I´m still reading a lot because of exams and a few papers coming up next week.

On Saturday I got an early start and went to Mercado Franklin, which is this huge jumble of everything one could imagine. Two friends and I spent hours getting lost from stall to stall. It was a lot of used, robbed, black market sorts of things. And way too many clothes. Still a fun place to see though. The girls took off and I decided to venture around more and slowly make my way up to the main street in Santiago, Alameda. I didn´t anticipate walking for like 2 hours to get back to Alameda - apparently I don´t judge distances well while riding the Metro!

It was actually a nice afternoon because I explored a lot of southern central Santiago. I found a cool fruit market that I will hopefully visit again.

Sunday involved a large barbeque followed by a hike with my Chilean parents. We went to Parque Mahuida, which is east of the city and overlooks everything. Unfortunately, it means walking right in the middle of the smog and not seeing much, but my parents tell me that at certain times of year good views have been had. I´ll believe it when I see it.


María and Tallu at Parque Mahuida. And Santiago in the backgroud...oh wait, you can´t see anything because of the lovely smog blanket.


On the subject of my Chilean parents, let me tell a little about them. Tallu is an engineer and works for the government. Also, students here study practical things like the sciences and engineering. None of this Liberal Arts crap like photojournalism! Jobs aren´t found for those in elitist café conversations, they are for doctors and stuff like that. I meet so many people with "real" majors that I feel left out. Oh well, somebody has to be the flakey one. I think a lot of Tallu´s work is with bridges. And his family is from Europe. He was born in Austria, his mother from Russian and his father from Poland...if I remember correctly. They came over when Tallu was 2.

María is insane. Way too much energy. She is an artist. And that´s what she teaches during many classes around Las Condes - the municipality employs her. She is always working on some art thing and our house is covered in her work. She doesn´t like to sell anything, so we´re just a big exhibition for her. She is always pressing flowers - which she does actually sell, just not her works. The latest craze is mosaics. She´s been going crazy. Many nights involve Tallu and I eating dinner with the rest of the table spread with tiny pieces of multi-colored tiles as she toils away.

This cow is by far the smallest mosaic she has tried. To give it perspective I included the sandwhich.



And her family is Chilean for at least a few generations back.

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Tuesday night was eventful. Dance class, which still consists of mostly merengue and salsa, is progressing well. It´s always fun to get out and spice things up a bit.



Gry-mette with one of the Chilean males who helps out the horrible ratio of males to females. Danielle and Vaness are an example of a typical pair. The guys get shuffled around so that all girls can dance with a male at least every now and then, which is nice for me.



So after dance class a few of us went out to a dance club. Seems rational. It was a good time, plenty of dancing and other vices. Then as I´m leaving I see Jill, who by this point is smashed (to put it lightly), running around looking for something. I stopped to ask = HUGE MISTAKE. So for some reason she hadn´t taken advantage of the bag-check service offered for about a dollar. She had chosen to dance with her backpack and purse tightly clutched to her. That obviously didn´t work very well, so she asked some nice guy at a table to watch it for her! SO her purse was stolen. Meaning I am left there to take care of her. Oh, and did I mention that she was drunk?!? So I broke my promise to myself to not use cabs and went ahead and did it so that we wouldn´t have to wait for a bus, which would have taken forever and she wasn´t up for simply walking until one comes which is my strategy.

So she got my bed and I got the floor because I didn´t want to try and get to her place at that point in the night because she also had lost her phone and keys - the purse is generally accepted as the international location to store one´s keys and other personal items associated with monetary value.

Luckily Jill was okay and nothing worse happened. My watch story pales in comparison, although I still think it´s pretty funny.

Then my mom yells at me in the morning because I chose the floor rather than the couch -- I believe I made a better decision concerning back and spinal health. What excitement! And the micros were on strike today, which apparently an annual thing that is planned pretty far in advance.

And I´m gonna cry because the Cardinals just lost.

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Here are some photos from around Santiago.

A nap at Plaza de Armas.



There are a lot of homeless people, as with any large city. So after taking some photos I gave this guy a few bucks. I figure no matter how bad my life might get at any point, I really can´t compare it with anything most of these people encounter. So giving a few bucks is never too difficult.



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It´s odd the way life just continues, regardless of what happens. Not just locally, but worldwide. I guess it kind of has to be that way.

Because I feel my photography is starting to suffer, I´ve decided to give myself some weekly assignments. I have some ideas about the race track, doing portraits or just covering street dogs, etc. -- But I´m open for ideas.

Bad Hair, Chileans, and lots o´ Tea

Thursday was busy. I joined another class to tour famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda´s Santiago house, La Chascona. La chascona means "bad or crazy hair," for which Neruda´s third wife Matilde was known. Neruda designed and built the ridiculous house on that premise. There are roughly 4 sections which are completely disjointed, akin to Matilde´s hair. Neruda was fascinated with the sea and the house shows it. I mean the guy only wrote in blue or green ink because those are the colors of teh sea. All of his houses were designed after boats in some way. Very small doors, a slanted floor specially made to creak when walked on, etc. And he collected everything: glasses, pictures of hands, African statues - I mean everything. It was a great tour. Very interesting. I don´t know if Neruda was actually as egotistical as his former house makes him appear, but he was slightly obsessed with himself if that was the case.

Later Thursday I swallowed my pride and decided to go with the easy way of meeting people...Language Exchange! There´s a little café where english and spanish speakers come together to have very jumbled conversations. The topics were everywhere from a Bart Simpson comic to the war in Iraq. I met tons of Chileans and gringos alike. And after the café kicked us out I joined about a dozen Chileans at a jazz club where one of their english professors was singing. An odd but good time. It ended up that they would speak english and I would reply in spanish. I´m hoping that I can start making it more often, but my schedule only allows for Thursday nights.

After jazz I caught a taxi with 3 friends from school and went to a disco until 5 in the morning. Wow, I felt old. The majority of the people there seemed about 16, which just made me feel dirty. However, we danced like crazy and I am so thankful that I do not have classes on Friday.

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I slept Friday. But Friday night rolled around and I finally got to see my brother Berna´s band play. This was the first real heavy metal concert I´d ever been to. There was no way of getting around this, I mean simply metal. Berna´s band, Motor, started off the evening close to midnight. They are a Latin American version of Rage Against the Machine style spitting lyrics and some mixture of loud, belting music. Needless to say, I have no idea what any of their songs are about. But Berna was fun to watch. He has the most hair and the most spirit up there on stage. His hair was everywhere. And he is a really good guitar player, which unfortunately could only be noticed from time to time when he was allowed to solo and the singer finally shut up.



That´s Berna in action above. And below the mixture of cool guitar in the background with unadulturated screaming in the foreground.



After Motor Berna came out to join me and our "cousin" Leo and his wife. My friend Scott also made the trip to southern Santiago for the concert. Berna hadn´t wanted me to attend other concerts because he thought the locations were far too dangerous. And I take his word.
We mainly talked during as the second band, Silencio, tried to break the Guinness Book of World Records for worst band ever.
It was painful. Imagine screaming. Imagine harmonizing. Imagine trying to scream and harmonize simultaneously. It doesn´t happen, but they tried to prove me wrong.
The final act was called No Longer Music, which isn´t far off. I honestly don´t remember the music because the theatrics were so crazy. I do recall that the singer did a lot of talking and yelling and little singing. But I could understand this one because they were an American band, or at least had Americans and New Zealanders and other english speakers with them. They were a lot of fun, though, because they employed everything under the sun to keep you entertained: fire, water, zombies, electric chairs, fake blood. They must be exhausted after a show.

This was one of the better spectacles.



I headed home at about 2:30 because I wanted to get an early start on traveling the Saturday morning. As usual, I walked a ton before catching a bus. Luckily, I got to see a guy getting arrested for trying to pick up hookers. Then as I walked by the hookers tried to get me. I quickly realized I was looking at adam´s apples, obviuosly as I was kindly excusing their generous offers. So the guy was going after transvestites. I knew they seemed like especially tall prostitutes! I got home at about 4.

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The Weekend

So my early start was only delayed by sleep for a few hours. Then Scott and I were to begin our trip south from the bus terminal. But the Metro was having work done and I had to make several line switches to arrive in one piece with both Scott´s and my baggage - which was annoying and cumbersome.
The bus system here is awesome. The problem is that you don´t want to buy in advance because you might miss the bus, like I did last time I took a large trip south after that debacle at the soccer game. But if you wait until you get there you will find that the only one you can get tickets for leaves several hours later. AHHHH. I haven´t figured out how to win yet. I guess maybe I´ll start buying advance tickets for about an hour or two after I want to leave, but before I know I´ll actually have to leave if I wait to buy them. I think that confused me.

We evenutally arrived in Molina, which is the center of the largest wine producing area in Latin America. That means I was in the area with the most wine in Central and South America and I did not even take a tour or taste any of the local flavor. And I like wine, too. Come to think of it, I have no idea why I didn´t take advantage!

We arrived too late to make it up to our final destination, but we took a few erroneous bus rides that evening just to make sure because for some reason we didn´t believe the local guy who told us we would have to wait until the morning. It was probably best that we had to return to Molina for the evening, seeing as how we had forgotten to buy food up until that point. When we get to the hostel Scott loudly bangs through the door with his pack and tent, says hello and embarissingly realizes the landlord is in her pajamas in the adjoining room, quickly and clumsily comes barging out through the door he has just entered only to discover that she is standing there in her pajamas to let us in by the time he has made it all the way out of the door. And then he went back through again! We went to bed early in order to get our even earlier start in the morning. And we lost an hour in the middle of the night thanks to a time change with Spring. I was 1 hour ahead of central time before, now I´m two, and when the the States fall back another hour at the end of the month it will be 3!

We actually got up to catch the 8 o´clock bus to Radal, which was about 40 kilometers up toward the mountains. You wouldn´t think that about 30-ish miles would take 2 hours, but it can somehow.



Me being weird and screwing around with the camera after I woke up.

We started hiking with Jannina and Marsella, two girls who had stayed in the room next to us the previous night. Jannina is a doctor from Ecuador and Marsella is a nurse from northern Chile. They work together now in Santiago. We luckily had the 11 kilometer hike shortened with some hitchhiking for about half of the distance. We first stopped at the Veil of the Bride Waterfall on the Río Claro. It was a great view, but we couldn´t get very close. However, we did see a really cool lizard.



And a little later we arrived at our last hitch stop, Las Siete Tazas, or 7 teacups. They were the main attraction, but the Lioness Waterfall was also amazing. But before that, we saw a wild tarantula. It was awesome!


Then we trekked the kilometer loop or so from the road to 7 Tazas and then onto the Lioness. The weather was perfect, so Scott and I decided to display our young age and go swimming in the snow-fed river. I was pink in about 2 minutes. And I couldn´t breathe. I haven´t been whitewater rafting in over a year, so I had forgotten the inescapable way your body just shuts down in several cold situations. I quickly remembered, though! I tried to swim all the way up to the Lioness waterfall, but there was no way in hell I was gonna get there. So instead I let the current take me through a little rapid as I struggled to swim back to shore. Then I did it a few more times.

Scott at Las Siete Tazas. There wasn´t a vantage point to ever actually see all 7 teacups or pools, so here are about 3 of them.



After swimming and lunch (which was ham and cheese sandwiches...for like 6 straight meals) we started the 6 km hike up to Parque Ingles, where we were camping. Wow, those 6 km hurt.

It was a good thing that I started off with a small camping trip. We had planned on two nights but only ended up with one, which was probably a positive thing. We forgot a few things. Nothing major - just vitals like utensils, proper warm attire for a night in the mountains, stuff like that.

Parque Ingles was beautiful, set right by the Río Claro at a higher point. The river was constricted to a miniature canyon of mafic rock, which made for fun climbing and pretty views. After dinner Jannina and Marsella joined Scott and I for some wine and several hours of conversation. It was a great week in terms of meeting some locals. Spending just a little more time with native speakers has helped immensely. And they´re more interesting.

Then Scott and I froze all night. It was horrible. I neglected to bring my tent or sleeping bag and I am now regretting it. I´ll have to buy better gear than what I borrowed from my family if I want to do some larger trips in the future.

Jannina, Scott and Marsella



I slept on numerous buses Monday, which was Columbus Day (or the Anniversary of the Discovery of America!)

News Briefs -- "Father Time Dies While Waiting in Chilean Line...and Man Discovers that Exercise Hurts Body"

I had the first round of tests in school: Literature and Spanish. And they went very well. The next two weeks I have several papers due, so I´ve been reading a lot and studying more than I want to be.

I had an idiotic moment - maybe spurred on by the intense studies. I decided that I was getting out of shape and that it was time to do something about it.
A Note. I don´t really have much physical exercise at all. I walk around the city, but that´s about it.
So I elected to do as many sit-ups and push-ups as possible at around 10 at night. YEARS AGO, I did them frequently. But that was years ago. So probably after 20 or 30 minutes (it really was a long time, with frequent heavy-breathing breaks while slumped on the floor), I finally succumbed to my screaming body. I got up, started doing homework, and then began to feel a little funky. I luckily had the wherewithal to make it outside, stumble to the fence (all houses are protectively fenced), and fall over while nearly blacking out. Then I turned to my side and puked!

If you don´t already gather it from the preceding paragraph, it´s really demoralizing to throw up after merely doing push-ups. In fact, it makes one achieve a new low. It wasn´t after running for the first time in months. Oh no. It was from doing aerobics for 20 minutes. Well, I´ve been keeping it up and I haven´t vomitted again, at least not yet.

And I couldn´t move the next morning...or the one after.

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On a completely different topic - I won´t be deported anymore. I was in this gray area of having arrived, not having completed all necessary paperwork, and somewhat fearing deportation if they found me. The weird thing is that they could deport me, but I couldn´t leave the country on my own volition.

When I arrived in Chile I went and registered with the International Police (this was about an hour wait) - like I was supposed to do. They gave me this great little paper with cool stamps, a fun mug shot and all my pertinent information. And the paper said that I had fulfilled the obligation to register. Woo hoo! I failed to read the tiny writing on back of the paper or listen to anyone else in the group: YOU HAVE 30 DAYS TO GET AN ID CARD USING THIS HANDY-DANDY PAPER.

Well the 30 days passed really quickly. So last week I had the joy of waiting 3 hours to get another little paper which said, "This guy screwed up and now has an additional 10 days to get an ID." But the wait wasn´t too bad because I had a book, there were seats, and I simply watched the numbers slowly climb toward the one I was holding.

So to be daring I waited 5 days before trying to get my ID, of course having the extension at this point. The line was too long, so I came back on day 6 at 8:30 in the morning. At 11:30 I finally was seen. That was 3 hours in a line. Not sitting waiting for my number to be called. Hell no. My new physical endurance test will be constantly renewing my ID card. They were out of numbers so I slowly moved forward with the rest of the herd. It was horrible. But now I won´t be deported. And they now have all 10 of my fingerprints. I´d never experienced that one before. You just have to feel guilty for no reason at all when someone is taking your fingerprints!

Actually, I did all the work to get the card. But I must return in three weeks to actually pick it up. I´m hoping that´s the marathon wait I´ve been training for since I arrived! 1) Short time with seats. 2) Long time with seats. 3) Long time with no seats. 4) Who freaking knows!

And to continue my physical degradation I joined a soccer class on Friday. I had another thing coming if I thought the pains from push-ups were bad! It was great to play. I met quite a few Chilean guys who go to my college and it was some real physical exersion. We play in a gym with a miniature ball, which means constant movement. I had a blast. But I really did hurt while attempting to roll out of bed Saturday.
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The weekend was calm. I slept. I spent early Saturday reading, accompanied by rain. We´re in this fun stage of the seasons making poor decisions of what they want to be. Spring says "My turn to rain buckets and then be sunny and happy." But then Winter says "Wait a minute. I still want my random really cold days slapped in the middle of everything. And why don´t I made it impossible to figure out to wear everyday?" They just have crazy conversations, those two seasons.
On Saturday evening the weather cleared up and I took a long walk. Probably 4 miles or so. I stopped in several cafés to read and otherwise enjoy the walk. After several hours, I finally arrived at my destination: the Salvador fountain. I don´t know what its actual name is, but it is near the Salvador metro station and happens to be a large foutain.

This fountain is spectacular. According to my host-mom, the city spent something absurd like $80 million dollars on it. She went off on an angry rant about how the city spends tons of money on crap like that but not on impoving the roads. It was understandable but didn´t lessen my appreciation for the fountain. During the day it´s decent, but night is the time to go. There are couples everywhere. And Chileans love PDA (public displays of affection). And I hate PDA. You cannot walk through a park without being bombarded with thoughts of how many children were being or had been conceived in that location. Unadulturated face-sucking in every direction, with absolutely no shame. More of a pride thing, actually. I haven´t figured out how to correctly capture the feeling with the camera. But don´t worry, I doubt it will be stopping any time soon.

So at night there are tons of people, the lights are amazing, and I probably found my new favority place. I told you they make out.





Pretty much every bench is occupied. How cute. Sorry that they´re all roughly the same photo. It was hard to do much more than silhouettes given the lighting conditions.



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But I did learn something this weekend! Sunday was more reading and sitting. Quite wonderful. Then I went downtown for a friend´s birthday party, or small gathering. It was a nice time: stupid games, meeting locals, debating the differences between Chilean and Argentine dictatorships. The usual stuff! And Argentina´s military dictatorship from ´76-´83 was much worse than Chile´s Pinochet dictatorship ´73-´90. In my opion. 30,000 versus 3,000 disappearances. But Pinochet rule still had many horrible aspects.

But about me learning things. It was a fun night and I decided to hit the road a little after 1 a.m. The metro absurdly stops running at 10:30 most nights and I think 9:30 on Sundays. Not very practical for a city of 6 million. And I strongly oppose taking taxis. Micros, or buses, really don´t run at 1 in the morning on Sundays. I walked for about an hour before I caught one. Good thing to know for leaving a little earlier in the future!