A few weeks ago, I finally made it to Valdivia, which is actually a somewhat known destination, in contrast with many of my other travels (it scores a whole five pages in my travel book...or four and a half, at the very least). It's a pretty university town surrounded by various rivers and little islands with old fortresses. Sure, they have older ones in Florida, but they're not too bad here in Chile either. It's slowly growing more commercialized - there's a huge casino - but it's definitely still got that charm, without the Beaver Creek feel I got in Pucon. [View Full Entry]

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Terribly behind on this blog, with no real excuse. Due to a nationwide teachers' strike over a historical debt, my school hasn't held classes since last Thursday. It seems like a tricky situation and one on which I won't comment except to say that I certainly hope it gets resolved. A few weekends ago I took a day trip to get in touch with my Coffey heritage. I didn't quite make it to Ireland, but I did get to go into an old coal mine in Lota, a town along the coast a bit north of Lebu. Lota has a reputation [View Full Entry]

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The next weekend I tagged along with some of the other teachers at my school on a day trip to the Piedra del Aguila (Eagle Rock). Getting there was quite a mission, as the easier route was "mal" that day. Between the "highway" and the park were 20-30 kilometers of seriously unpaved roads, and then after entering the park, we ventured in two not very big cars on mud roads, far past the signs that insisted they were for four-wheel drive vehicles only. Turned out they were right about that road being a problem, so we did get some extra walking [View Full Entry]

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The afternoon of the 18th, following the desfile madness, is major family time. Lots of kite flying and generally strolling around by the beach - I took part in the latter and took some much sunnier photos. Also went to the Cueva del Toro, which is a hole in the rocks that roars (something like a bull) due to the waves crashing. Does not look anything like a toro, though. [View Full Entry]

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I woke up early - okay, not that early, but certainly before 9am - on the 19th to tag along with another group of (very physically active) Chileans on their trip to the cordillera. Specifically, we went to a volcano called Lonquimay and stayed in a town called Malalcahuello, and perhaps most notably, I can now pronounce both of those names. They all went snowboarding, while I enjoyed a wonderfully lazy weekend. It seemed a lot like the Vail/Beaver Creek of Chile, as there were a ton of cuicos (rich people with snooty accents) from Santiago. Day One I rode the [View Full Entry]

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Not last Friday, but the one before, Chile celebrated its 199th birthday - and in much more style than the US celebrates its independence day. The whole week of school is basically dedicated to the festivities. All the classrooms are decked out with branches, streamers, those paper mache-like bells that fold out, you name it. Different performances - poems, songs, dances - took place during special "actos" Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Thursday was a half-day of school that consisted entirely of different dances from different regions and styles of Chile (the north, the south, Lebu, gene [View Full Entry]

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...someone I believe to be the brother of my host mom came over with several large and oddly shapen packages, which he proceeded to unwrap. I am now in the same room as five to seven large swords, made of the sword portion of the swordfish, and with studded bronze handles. They come in a variety of shades and appear to range in length from about two and a half to four feet. This did not strike me as remarkable in any way for several minutes. (Incredible how quickly I've become accustomed to not questioning these sorts of things.) Said swordfish [View Full Entry]

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Eek, looks like I'm still a little behind, as I keep having more adventures than expected! The weekend after Chillan, I made my way to the Saltos de Laja (waterfalls of...Laja) for a weekend trip that managed to involve seven different buses. Friday afternoon I snagged a seat on bus one to get to the major station in Concepcion, Collao, where I met up with a friend from Arauco (another beach town a little north of Lebu). The next bus for Laja didn't have any seats left, and standing for three hours didn't strike us as terribly appealing, so we had [View Full Entry]

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Not last weekend, but the weekend before, I met up with two friends in Chillan. I had a really nice time, but not a lot of specifics to report or photos to show. Chillan isn't as big as Concepcion, but from the little I've now seen of Chilean cities, Chillan seems the most charming. On the bus ride in, I went through Chillan Viejo, which is a really pretty area. A lot of it seems residential, but there are also some squares, statues, monuments, etc that are nice. I spent my time on foot all in the centro, however, which is [View Full Entry]

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It's week seven of my time in Lebu, but more importantly, it's also the week of Fiestas Patrias - the 18th of September is the Chilean equivalent of the 4th of July, except even more patriotic, by a long shot. Today was only Monday, and there were a number of girls wearing traditional Chilean dresses. The room decoration started last week, an event through which I learned two things: first, that it is illegal to pick a copihue, the Chilean national flower; and second, that tree branches are infinitely and inexpliably distracting to thirteen-year-old boys. In preparation for the holiday, [View Full Entry]

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