Pucón y Latin Vive

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4/17/07 12:09 AM
Hi. Still getting caught up on weekly adventures. Pucón is a tourist trap for the wealthy outdoorsy types that Chile attracts. It’s a similar latitude to Oregon with similar climate, a great big lake to swim in, and a smoking volcano in the background. Me, Christina, Tiara, our friend Sara, and Tiara’s friend Chris who was visiting from Santa Cruz for 3 weeks, all went to Pucón with the intention of climbing the volcano which is a huge tourist attraction, and quite the endeavor with lots of gear including picks, helmets, gators, boots, boot clamps, etc, etc. We had been planning to miss our Friday classes, but lucky for us the students at La Universidad de Chile are pretty into rioting, so the campus was shut down Wednesdsay afternoon and didn’t open again until Monday (Lucky me, I don’t have classes on Monday or Tuesday, so I got a 6 day weekend).
Anyway, long story short (I’m just going to skim through Pucón), after a very gravelly 2 hour climb we got to the first part of the glacier (for which we would need the ice picks and boot clampy things), which was just less than halfway up the whole mountain, but it was too windy, so the guides made us turn back. Christina and Sara were both extremely disappointed, but we could see people who had gone on earlier treks up the volcano coming down the glacier and being blown off balance and falling most of the way, which actually looked like fun but is apparently very dangerous. That night we went to one of the many natural hot springs in the area. The drive there in the dark was dusty with oak trees hanging over the barbed wire fences that lined the road, and rabbits darting in front of the car, and it was such a comforting drive because it reminded me so much of home.
Also in Pucón Sara, Christina, and I went to a beautiful national park. We took an ancient bus on roads that reminded me of the back road between North Fork and Auberry, but not paved. We also went swimming in Lago Villarrica, where we were terrified by what we thought was an empanada fish (what looked like an empanada on the lake floor, but it had a trail and may have been moving, or not, but it was terrifying nonetheless).
Everyone left Sunday night, except Christina and I so we rented bikes and rode out to Rio Plata, which was a BEAUTIFUL bike ride past grazing sheep and blackberry brambles, and rolling green hills with jagged volcanic mountains in the background. We packed a picnic tried to go swimming in the glacial melt river (WAY colder than the Nooksack), and had a very pleasant afternoon on the outskirts of Pucón.
Oh yeah! I almost forgot that we went river rafting the second day in Pucón. It was a lot of fun. The river was a class 4.5 or something like that, except for one drop that was rated a 6 because it was 10 feet. At which point we had to get out, walk through the forest, and then jump off a 10 foot cliff into the river to meet up with the raft. It was great. Terrifying for a few seconds, but I think it gave me the courage to jump through the roof of the keyhole room, which I’ve never done before.

Latin Vive (or Vivo?) was last night. This is Latin America’s answer to Coachella. Something like 21 bands playing on a horsetrack in Santiago. It was the most music I’ve heard in Spanish since I’ve been in Chile, and it was pretty good. Christina, Tiara, Sara, and I went. One of the most popular bands there was a Chilean group called Chancho en Piedra (hog in stone). Sara and Tiara had gone to sit on the grass, but Christina and I went to get up close. We felt silly because everyone was obviously huge Chancho en Piedra fans and we didn’t know anything about them. Throughout the crowd there were a lot of people who had big plastic yellow pigs, some old, some new (brand new ones were for sale at the show for $8), and each person had decorated their pig in a special way. One was painted in pot leaves, one was dressed like Marvin the Martian, our favorite had a scary clown face and what looked like moss for hair. So in anticipation for Chancho en Piedra, the crowd would chant “¡olé, olé, olé, olé! ¡Chancho! ¡Chancho!” and the people with the pigs would wave them in the air over their heads. Christina and I were just wondering what kind of music the band was going to be, and worrying a little that they might be some crazy death metal band and we would be in the middle of a violent Chilean moshpit, when the lead singer came on stage in what I think was a lobster suit, with yellow shorts, and a yellow heart on his chest that bore the letter “ch” (which is one letter in Spanish).
The band wasn’t all that hard, but we did find ourselves in the middle of what I guess is a Chilean version of a moshpit. It was a lot happier than any I’d seen in the US. Everyone was jumping around and bruising each other with enormous smiles, enjoying the music. They’d get really worked up for a few minutes, and then the pit would fizzle out, and they’d get way worked up again, and then it would fizzle again. But no one was angry and just moshing to get hurt or to kick someone’s ass like at the harder rock concerts I’ve been to back home in Fresno (in my rebellious youth).
We also got to see Los Jaivas (the king crabs)!!!! Los Jaivas are THE band in Chile. THE band, more than any other Chilean band I’ve heard or heard of. They’re like Chile’s answer to Led Zeppelin. Or at least that’s how I think of them because they use similar fonts on their albums and posters. And they’re from the same era, and they’re kinda hippied out rock. I never liked them before I saw them live, though. First, their drummer is a woman. That’s always cool. Second, they use a bunch of Mapuche and other native instruments (the Mapuche are the people native to southern Chile. I’ve been told that they were the only group of natives of the Americas who actually held off the Spanish conquest for decades. Maybe it was even centuries. And their culture is still very much alive today, I’ve yet to recognize it, but supposedly you can still hear their language, Mapongo, spoken on the streets of Santiago). ANYWAY, so they had some crazy drums and horns, and they were having a great time. I suggest looking up Los Jaivas.
So at this show with three main stages of all the best bands in Latin America, who was the closing act? A semi-emo British pop band called Keane. Tiara went home early, but Sara really wanted to see Keane play because their one hit was one of her favorite songs freshman year of college, so Christina and I stayed with her, and waited through about 8 very predictable songs in English until her beloved tune came on, and then we left. But watching Keane was fun because we were giddy with exhaustion, and the band was soooo cheesy. When I said predictable, I literally meant it, we to sing the lyrics to the songs we didn’t know, and were met with some success because it was all so cliché. Oh jeez, I’m so sorry if one of you is a die-hard Keane fan and I just don’t know it. What was bizarre was that there was an even bigger crowd for Keane than there was for Los Jaivas, which is just absurd.
At the end of the night we finally got to ride a PIRATE BUS!!!!! And that’s about it. Unfortunately, of the bands there last night, I didn’t get to see Los Amigos Invisibles, or Los Tres, which are both supposed to be really good bands. But in between some groups we got to see a breakdancing competition, and gymnasts doing some interpretive dance/gymnastics thing. Oh, and Chileans, when they like a band they put their arms in the air and shake their hands around.
Oh man, good times. I feel like I could write more, and I feel like I’m forgetting something, but this is a darn long e-mail, and I have a quiz to read for. Oh, realy quick, the shooting in Virginia was headlining all the news here. I don’t have a TV, but the guy at the cyber café across the street told me about it. I didn’t know what to say. I just told him that there’s a lot of stress in the United States. He said “sí, mucho estrés.”
Okay everyone, take care of each other!
-Sophie
4/17/07 1:06 AM

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