Crazy Toilets: April 2006

2 Things You Don´t Hear About: Chilean Futbol y Chilean Salsa

The fans go insane when the teams first come out. About 4/5s of Estadio Monumental was Colo-Colo fans clad primarily in black and white, with the other tiny red sliver cheering on la Universidad Catolica.
The presentation of the teams was nothing compared to when Colo-Colo took a 2-0 lead early in the second half, even though we were playing with only 10 guys (the best player, Jorge Valdivia, was thrown out about 10 minutes into the game).
However, true to form with bad Chilean soccer...Colo-Colo lost 3-2. Although sitting with several friends and many avid Colo-Colo fans, I didn´t mind too much because I prefer la Catolica. And there were about 12 yellow cards given out during the game!! But I didn´t get jumped...and anytime I don´t get jumped or mugged after a futbol game - it´s a good game!
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That positive soccer experience was only outdone by some salsa dancing. Jacob spearheaded a fun, although often times embarrassing, night. I took dance lessons last semester. I danced...last semester. So I was a bit rusty. Jacob tore it up - putting us all to shame.
And even though Chile is not at all known as a dancing mecca, it doesn´t seem to matter. Some of the dancers were spectacular. Thus meaning it took us a drink to build up the courage to join them on the floor! It´s impossible to even try to compare North American dances to Latin American ones. We simply lose - hands down - back at home. Asses aren´t trained to move the way they do down here! Teresa and Carly could both hold their own...but the other ladies were a thing of myths --- partly because there were several outfits that could kill small children. We still closed the place down after 3 in the morning, having the last laugh of some sort!

End in Sight

With just over a week left I have been running around trying to do and see as much as possible. Classes end on May 4th, or something like that, and then we`ll see which route I choose to start my travels. I went to a photo exhibit with my recently-introduced Chilean friend, Max. A friend of his, Sebastián Sepúlveda, brings an interesting eye to fashion. We hung out for several hours talking about Santiago and photography and a mountain of other things we have in common. It´s very annoying that I have just now met several intriguing Chileans. Es la vida. Max also showed me around the photo institute he attends. It is very interesting to compare approaches to photograhy and its teaching...which is exactly what we did.

I also hit up one of several jazz clubs in town to enjoy an erratic night of sax solos and an eclectic pianist. Oddly, all of the jazz clubs have some small variation of the name Club de Jazz de Santiago. What I at first thought would be bad seats, small bleachers squished behindthe band area, turned out to give us plenty of room and great views of the club and the players.
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Before continuing, the beauty of Jacob´s beard should be fully appreciated.
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I´d received enough hate-mail about not appreciating my situation, so I took the painful plunge...I finally toured a winery. Chile is the world´s 5th largest wine exporter, and I only now make it to a winery. Not only a winery...the winery. Concha y Toro is one of Chile´s largest wineries. It is famous for the Casillero del Diablo (Devil´s Cellar) mark, which I believe is quite easily found in the US.
Kristy and I enjoyed a beautiful vineyard and the original estate of the founder Don Melchor de Concha y Toro. After the tour we tasted for quite a while. I suggest the Cabernet Sauvignon, which is Chile´s main wine, similar to how Argentina´s main wine is the Malbec. I also liked the Carmenere. Bottles here are rarely over $4. Woo-hoo. Talk about the lush I´ve become!

The Devil´s House Made My Butt Numb

Last weekend I spent an amazing time with 10 friends in Pucon. We rented a house, relaxed, partied, and most importantly...climbed a volcano. For my first volcano scaling experience, I was not disappointed!

Pucon, located in the Lakes District about 10 hours south of Santiago, is the extreme sports capital of Chile. With several national parks at the doorstep it is situated perfectly for a huge variety of excursions from horseback riding to rafting to zip-lining.

Carly and I on the ski lift, jumping a good amount of hiking with a short ride. Jacob posing once we´d made our way into the snow.

The hike was about four hours. The worst part was the crampons - a devilish invention making it easy to walk on icy snow but hard to actually lift your feet due to the wonderful weight of the things.

Villarrica means house of the devil in Mapundunge, the native Mapuche language. It is an active volcano under 10,000 feet. It largest recent eruption was in 1971, when it took out a local town and killed many people. They said that just a month earlier it was much more active and was firing some lava.

Alex checking out the view into the crater. It was possible to walk around the entire cone, but we stayed relatively close. The one time I tried to be a little daring and climb and interesting area they blew the whistle on me - literally. So I quickly came down.

We hit it at just about the worst time to climb the volcano because there was least amount of snow. Although that sounds good, and means less time wearing crampons, the ashy volcanic rock is horrible to walk on because every step involves losing a little ground as your feet slide in. With crampons you don´t lose any ground in the snow.

Rosalyn´s glasses served well. The intoxicating sulphur smells emanating from the orifice were horrible. We were coughing, hacking, covering our noses, etc. A strong gust of wind, of which there were many, seemed deadly. Unfortunately we failed to see lava, but its evidence was everywhere. Including this little dried river of it next to Jacob on the way down!

The descent was really hard until the finally just let us slide. We had to walk most of the super-steep part and then enjoy the rest.

This was one of the lesser slides toward the bottom of the mountain. The guides impressively skied down on their shoes. I tried. I fell. And my ass was honestly quite numb for a long time afterward.

Do What You Can

The final project for my stylistics class is a blog...so I have a new one. Many of the photos are the same, but I am taking a slightly different approach to writing:

a) It´s Spanish.
b) The aim is more philosophical, literary, artistic, etc.

The site, Haz Lo Que Puedas, roughly means Do What You Can.

La Bella Durmiente

I finally made it to the ballet. Teatro Municipal greeted Kristy and I with horrible seats. We bought gallery seats and got there late...leaving absolutely nothing. However, the building is an impressive structure, similar to Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, although slightly smaller.

Sleeping Beauty was a great ballet. (We eventually stole some pricier seats and had a great view until true owners showed up at intermission...then played musical chairs again.) Other than the Nutcracker, I don´t think I´d ever seen a true ballet. The costumes were spectacular - only outdone by the dancing itself. I was in awe of the physical specimens up there on stage. They can do insane things with their bodies.

Near the end of the ballet, just about every fairy tale under the sun was brought out for a grand ball of sorts. Snow White, Cinderella, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, the Frog Prince, etc. It was odd. Enjoyable, but odd.

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And on a different note - Kristy, Jacob and Carly almost exploded the other night when we had a drink together!

The Lines My Eye Finds

Here are a few images from the antique fair.

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Kristy waiting for the subte. And a broom/duster vendor.

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Some young geniuses used the subte tunnel to power their plastic bag kites.

Bohemian Rhapsody

Lively is a good desciption of Buenos Aires. Historically the most important city of Latin America: the New York or Paris for this part of the world. Art thrives in the capital.

I enjoyed the majority of the cultural experiences with Kristy, who arrived a few days after me. The highlight of our outings was definitely the world-famous Teatro Colon, a relic of an opera house at which all major names have played. We saw La Boheme, an Italian opera on which the modern-day musical Rent is based. It was fantastic! I went into it thinking I wouldn´t like it too much because I generally prefer something other than an opera, but it couldn´t have been better (except that the subtitles above the stage were in spanish...meaning that I had to translate the translation!)

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Another stage we saw was El Ateneo, a theatre-turned-bookstore. It was an incredible use of the space.

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Another artsy stop was in the section of San Telmo, where Sundays bring a huge antiques fair as well as many musicians and other street performers. We unfortunately didn´t see any of the tango shows for which this area is famous, but we at least heard some good tango music.

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30 Años y Aún 30,000 Desaparecidos

For only having one week in Buenos Aires, we encountered a variety of exciting events. The most memorable of those was definitely the march marking 30th anniversary of the coup on March 24, 1976, that led to the horrific military dictatorship in which over 30,000 people disappeared.

The Plaza de Mayo was filled with thousands of people. The surrounding streets, which spread out from the plaza like the spokes of a wheel were also filled. I can´t imagine the number of people...but easily over 50,000.

Groups ranged from teachers unions to dancing schools. Everyone and every aspect of life was deeply impacted by the dictatorships. Although the heart of the demonstration was a little uncomfortable due to the amuont of people, it was very peaceful.

The vistas ranged from large puppets, to children in bands, to a long sheet with pictures of nearly all 30,000 of the disappeared. The sheet continued for several blocks.