Blogs from Valparaíso Region, Chile, South America - page 74

Valparaíso is definitely my favorite of the sister cities over Viña del Mar. It is rich with culture and history, and has a very San Francisco feel to it. One of my favorite things that I have done so far here are one, going to the Ex-Carcel. This jail was used to house prisoners (both actual criminals and political dissidents) in Agosto Pinochet´s seventeen year dictatorship over Chile. Although there is no documentation to prove it, many historians believe that people were jailed, tortured, and murdered within its walls. It is now a cultural center. When we went, we saw people dancing and learning how to dance, drumming, and people climbing up a three story sash. It was amazing. The inside and outside have been completely covered with murals, and the cells are in tact. The ... read more

COLD WATER I It was still dark when we took off. It also hardly mattered: I was asleep before second gear, as Dad would say. I slept very very deeply. One, I hadn’t slept much for days. Two, I was on my way. A new life, a new world was ahead. I could just lay back for these few hours and relax … months of being mentally on edge - from the stimuli of danger, beauty, absorbing everything round me, for now I was done. LAN-Chile was taking care of the worry for me. With each REM cycle I was shedding layers of emotion and tension. It was almost literally taking a break from the world … no more sling and arrows, just slipping into dream … … Something was happening. I was coming out of ... read more

The autumn is about to arrive in Valparaíso, even though it doesn’t seem to mean such a great change in the lives of the people of Valparaíso. Some of the people that are contracted might have a week or two of winter holidays to look forward to in July, but the majority keep on working or whatever it is that they are doing as usual. In the organisation where I’m working we are about to start with a new concept. It’s very exiting and very new, but so far it’s just an idea and we have still to find out how we’ll go on the implementation stage. The concept is called planning ahead. It was at this weeks staff meeting that the co-ordinator presented the revolutionary idea of making a plan of the activities of the ... read more

Argh. My dad just typed a summary of today´s travels and what we planned on doing the next few days, and I ("like a nimrod," he says) accidentally opened a song file that changed the web page, and when I went back everything he typed was gone. In my defense, I was well aware that playing a song with windows media player opens a web page, but EVERY OTHER TIME it has ALWAYS opened it up in a new browser. Well, anyway, I´ll summarize what we did today and then finish up with what I was going to say. Today was my day (so I was told last night), and so of course I decided to sleep in. Dad woke up at 8 or 9 or so, and I slept til 12:30 or 1. It was ... read more

We are back in Chile and have spent the last few days chilling in Vina Del Mar a big coastal resprt. It was weird and quiet as it is the end of their summer now and so out of season but it was great to have the beaches pretty much to ourselves. Got the bus yesterday to Valparaiso apparently the cultural capital of Chile. Our hostel is awesome and owned and run by the guy who wrote the footprint guide to Chile so we got a full briefing when we arrived and maps and everything. heading off up the hills later to an open air museum I think. This place is actually built entirely on a hill, they have loads of ascensores or cable cars to get you up and down! The views are awesome and ... read more