{"id":4043,"date":"2013-03-19T18:41:56","date_gmt":"2013-03-19T23:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/?p=4043"},"modified":"2013-03-19T18:41:56","modified_gmt":"2013-03-19T23:41:56","slug":"fantastico-sur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/?p=4043","title":{"rendered":"Fant\u00e1stico Sur"},"content":{"rendered":"

Time is flying by here in Chile! I realized I forgot to post to this blog earlier, so here is something I wrote on the 25th of February to my personal blog.<\/p>\n

I apologize for not updating this blog in a while \u2014 it\u2019s summer here in Santiago so everyone is on vacation, myself included. As my friends in the United States are currently facing their midterms, I confess that I haven\u2019t even started the actual semester yet. With all of this extra time before classes start, I had the opportunity to do some traveling in the south of Chile.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always dreamed of traveling as a backpacker and I finally got to do so! I took a backpacker bus tour called Pachamama (which means Mother Earth in Spanish) through the Lake District with some of my gringa friends. We left from Santiago and traveled to our first stop, an indigenous town called Pomaire, famous for their empanadas that weigh half a kilo (over one pound)! We also made stops at the Rapel Dam and Punta Lobos. We ended up staying in Pichilemu that night, a town known as the capital del surf. That being said, when staying in the capital del surf, one obviously must surf. So that\u2019s exactly what I did \u2014 or at least attempted to do. I took surfing lessons and by the end of the session I had actually caught a couple of waves!<\/p>\n

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The next day we left Pichilemu.\u00a0 Our first stop was Santa Cruz, where we visited Chile\u2019s most famous museo.\u00a0 After that, we saw Villarrica Lake and then headed towards our final stop for the day, a town called Puc\u00f3n.\u00a0 In this town, we got to go white water rafting.\u00a0 It gave me such an adrenaline rush!\u00a0 The rapids were crazy and at one point we even had the opportunity to cliff jump!<\/p>\n

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We also got to see Ojos del Caburgua Waterfalls and Lake and then\u00a0 the Pozones Hot Springs while in Puc\u00f3n.<\/p>\n

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We then left Valdivia and stopped in Puerto Montt, where we jumped off the bus because we wanted to visit Patagonia and Torres del Paine.\u00a0 Patagonia is the Antarctic of Chile and Torres del Paine is a national park within Patagonia famous for hiking and trekking.\u00a0 They are both so far south that we had to take a plane to get there.\u00a0 It was cold but so worth it!\u00a0 I got to see penguins, snow capped mountains, glaciers and a magnitude of other gorgeous sights!<\/p>\n

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After our adventure in the far south, we headed back to the Lake District to hop back on the Pachamama bus, where we continued the rest of the tour.\u00a0 On the rest of the journey we ventured to places like Puerto Varas, Llanquihue Lake, Frutillar, and Salto el Laja Waterfall.<\/p>\n

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Other things we saw include San Javier, where we got to see a volcano, and Balduzzi Winery, where we got a tour of the winery and tasted many varieties of wine!\u00a0 Then it was back to home sweet Santiago.<\/p>\n

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I wish I had more time to describe what a unique experience this was.\u00a0 I believe backpacking and staying in hostels is one of the best ways to encounter a culture and meet new people, both locals and foreigners alike.<\/p>\n

There was one instance in which it was raining cats and dogs and we were drenched to the bone.\u00a0 We were desperate to get out of the rain and reach our destination.\u00a0 A truck was driving past us so we decided to take a chance and see if we could catch a ride.\u00a0 Sure enough, after we put our thumbs up the truck pulled over for us.\u00a0 Inside was a nice Chilean man on his way to work.\u00a0 He reminded me of my friend Ernesto back in the United States.\u00a0 We had a wonderful conversation \u2014 it was nice to chat with a local.\u00a0 When he dropped us off, he gave us apples.\u00a0 It was such a kind gesture and it definitely put a smile on my face.<\/p>\n

I met people from so many different countries during my trip that I\u2019ve lost track of where they all came from.\u00a0 Many people I encountered were not only traveling through Chile but were also traveling the world!\u00a0 Some of the most memorable people that I met was a couple from England.\u00a0 They have been traveling the world for a year.\u00a0 They even sold their house in order to do so!\u00a0 They have inspired me to take risks and the road less traveled.<\/p>\n

Now I have a week or so to explore Santiago until the semester starts. I am excited to have even more stories to share about my explorations in the city.\u00a0 (Be on the lookout for a new blog post dedicated to Santiago!)<\/p>\n

\u201cConfieso que he vivido\u201d is a quote from Pablo Neruda (he is a famous literary icon from Chile, as mentioned in a previous blog post).\u00a0 Translated into English, his quote means \u201cI confess that I have lived.\u201d\u00a0 I hope over time this becomes more relevant to my life.<\/p>\n

Besitos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Time is flying by here in Chile! I realized I forgot to post to this blog earlier, so here is something I wrote on the 25th of February to my personal blog. I apologize for not updating this blog in a while \u2014 it\u2019s summer here in Santiago so everyone is on vacation, myself included. … <\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}