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Published: April 23rd 2011
Those Rotary Kids
This is the group--every exchange student in the north half of Chile!Hey everyone!
So, the topic of this blog is the Rotary Youth Exchange South Trip! During this trip, nearly every exchange student in our Rotary district took a trip south to Chilean Patagonia. I know it’s really really late, since this trip took place in the end of November.
Anyhoo, the trip was supposed to be six days long, from Sunday November 21st to Friday, November 26th, with a full-district orientation the Saturday beforehand. However, things didn’t QUITE go as planned. But I guess you’ll get that in the full narrative. Which starts…
2010 Rotary Youth Exchange Program District 4320 South Trip Now.
There was an orientation planned for 10:00 in the morning on Saturday, November 20th. I was really excited, because this was the first time that I would meet the other exchange students in the district, aside from Kirsa and Olivia. They had told me a lot about some of the others, but I hadn’t had any contact with them, not even through Facebook, so was both excited and nervous.
Viña del Mar is about an hour and a half from my house in La Ligua, so at 8:15 in the morning on
Waaaiiting...
4:17AM in the Santiago airport. Saturday I had my bags packed and ready to go. Olivia’s host mom, dad, and Olivia herself picked me up before going to Kirsa’s to pick her up. And then we were on our way.
We arrived at the hotel where the meeting would take place a little before ten. We said goodbye to Olivia’s host parents, and then entered the main lobby of the hotel. The rotary district coordinator, Leonel, and his wife, Sol. They told us that we could leave our bags in the lobby and grab breakfast in the hotel restaurant quick before heading back to meet the rest of the group. We did so, and then brought our bags back to the conference room where the orientation was to take place.
We hung out for a short while, talking and meeting new people (there were several other people who had arrived late, like I had, so even those who had been at the first orientation made new friends). Everyone speaks at least passable English, so that’s the language that we exchange students speak when we are together because, at the time, there were actually very few of us that were able to maneuver well
Tadaa!
A couple free nights here? Okay. I suppose. If you REEEEAAALLY insist. in Spanish. Oh, I suppose while I’m mentioning this I should give you the actual demographics of our group: there were nine from the United States (two from Wisconsin including me!), three from Denmark, five from Germany, one from Switzerland, and one from Finland, admittedly not as diverse as I had been expecting, but great nonetheless. After a while, we were all called together to officially start the orientation.
There were four adults running the orientation: Leonel, Sol, their daughter Tamara, and a Rotarian named Luis from the Copiapo rotary club. They started off with a welcome, and then went into a review of the rules by which we are all to abide, especially the four (or five, depending on the club) D’s of rotary: no Drinking, no Driving, no Dating, no Drugs (and the +1 is no Dumb stuff). We also went over how we have been fitting in with our families and communities. We broke up then for quick break, and then Leonel called us in one at a time to have a short personal interview with him and the others. The interview was for us to speak with them privately about any problems or concerns we
Well Good Morning Santiago!
The view out of our hotel room in the Crowne Plaza Santiago. had. Afterward we broke up for a while to go explore Viña on our own.
When we came back, we said goodbye to the few of us who would not be going on the south trip. Then those who WOULD be embarking on the journey south climbed into several vans and headed to the airport.
At the airport, we checked our luggage, and then brought our carry-ons to the gate where we would wait. The plane was supposed to leave at 1:20AM, so we had a while to wait (we arrived at the airport around 10:30). Luckily, any time you have fifteen exchange students together trapped in an airport in the middle of the night SOMEthing interesting is going to happen. Or we’ll make it happen. Anyway, one of the other exchange students, Addy (from New York), taught us an absolutely ridiculous game called “Retarded Deer” that amused us for quite a while. About halfway through the game an announcement came over the intercom that our flight was delayed until 2:35AM. Well, we were having fun so oh well.
We finally bored of “Retarded Deer,” and moved on to funniest game of charades I have ever played.
Well Whadda ya know?
Pascal and I in the Crowne Plaza At about 2:45 another announcement played that said the flight to Punta Arenas had been cancelled. Shoot. NOW what were we to do? Our trip, already too short, had just had another large chunk lopped off by the airlines.
Exhausted and worried we lugged our suitcases back to the entrance of airport. We got our bags back, and sat down to wait in the middle of the terminal while Leonel tried to figure what would happen—whether the flight would be rescheduled, whether or not the entire trip would be cancelled, where we would stay that night, etc. We found out that the plane had been cancelled due to dangerous weather conditions in Punta Arenas, which should have worried me, but only made me want to get the trip under way even more.
Eventually, at about 6 in the morning (it’s Sunday now, remember), Leonel informed us that he had managed to get the airline to pay for us to stay in a hotel for the next two days until the next available flight (at around 11:00 on Monday). We piled into several vans that brought us to the hotel, and wow were WE surprised! We thought we would
Impressive
Self-portrait on an impressive landscape on the shore of Fjord Last Hope (Fiorde Ultima Esperanza) in Puerto Natales. be going to just a normal hotel, but we when the vans stopped we saw that we were at the entrance of the Crowne Plaza Santiago, one of the nicest hotels in the capitol!
However, at this point we were so tired that we only vaguely registered the fact that we would be staying in a luxury hotel for two days completely free. We went to eat a short breakfast in the hotel dining hall, and then shambled our way up to our rooms like so many zombies, where we finally collapsed into slumber. It was 8:38AM. I was rooming with Pascal, a German boy who had—to translate literally from Spanish—“fallen on me well.” Meaning we got along well with each other.
Pascal and I slept until around 4 in the afternoon, so woke up fairly well refreshed, though hungry. We explored the hotel and found the other exchange students and hung out with them until dinner.
We had dinner in the hotel, and then went out with Leonel and the others to watch “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: part 1” at a nearby theater. It was in English, with Spanish subtitles, so everyone was able to
Ancient Cavern
The milodon cave. You can see a life-sized statue of the milodon on the rise at the left of the picture. enjoy it. After the movie we went back to the hotel to sleep.
The next day, on a complete whim, Pascal and I woke up at about 7AM to take advantage of the hotel’s exercise room. We then showered, had breakfast, and got ready to go to the pool before anyone else was awake. (What can I say—we wanted to take advantage of our free hotel!)
At lunch everyone was informed that the flight was scheduled for 11:00 that night, so we hung out for the day, eagerly awaiting the trip to the airport and then departure/
Finally.
We finally left for the airport. We passed through customs into the terminal, and waited for our plane. Eventually, a group of us decided to go get something to drink (ooooh, exciting!). We searched the entire terminal, and, because it was so late, there was not a single shop open with anything to drink! Well, okay, there was an entire store dedicated to liquor, but there wasn’t so much as a can of Coca-Cola hidden amongst the booze. SO, I decided to take orders from people and try to go back through customs to buy drinks for everyone. I
Perspective
THIS is how big the cave was. It's kinda hard to tell in the other pictures, but when you put a person in there... figured there was little or no chance that it would work (imagine trying in the US—not a chance), but decided to try anyway.
It worked. The security officers running the x-ray machine said that yes, one person could go back through, but when he came back he would have to wait in line and get scanned again. Cool! So about fifteen minutes later I returned and sent a bag of about 20 bottles of water through the x-ray machine. Fun 😊 The rest of the night was fairly uneventful, except that on the plane I had to use some of the gauze from my first-aid kit to help stop one of the other exchange student’s bloody nose.
We arrived in Punta Arenas at about 3:00AM. We walked out into the cold, blustery night and boarded our bus. It was cold. We had been used to baking in the Santiago sun, with an average temperature of between seventy and eighty degrees, and I would guess that when we arrived in Punta Arenas it was about forty degree plus wind-chill (which is significant, since it was blowing at about a constant twenty miles per hour). In a way, I was
Big Teddy-Thing
The trip group by the mylodon statue. excited to see the frost on the windows of the bus, because it had been ages since I’d seen really cold weather.
We drove immediately to Puerto Natales, where we would sleep the next two nights. I was too excited to sleep, so while everyone else slept, I watched the sun come up. It was gorgeous. I didn’t notice anything strange about the sunrise at first, but then it
dawned upon me (okay, okay, that was an absolutely atrocious pun) that I was watching a sunrise at 4:00 in the morning!!! We drove for several hours more, and I have to say that I don’t remember exactly what time we got to Puerto Natales, but it was midmorning. We checked into our hostal and dropped off our bags before loading ourselves back onto the bus and heading to our first destination: la Cueva de Milodon.
Now, just going by the name it should be pretty easy to get an idea of what the cueva de milodon, or Mylodon Cave, is: a cave that has something to do with a mylodon. And if think about the word “mylodon” itself, you might think that nothing has been called a name
Panorama
Panorama of one of many beautiful landscapes during the trip. ending with “odon” for a very, very long time, so it’s
probably some sort of prehistoric creature. But beyond that things might get a little fuzzy.
I had actually heard about the mylodon cave prior to going to Chile, (not sure if it was in National Geographic or Discovery Channel or where, exactly) so had an idea of what it was all about. First of all, the mylodon was a giant herbivorous species related to the present-day sloth that stood about ten feet tall when raised on its hind legs. In 1896 a highly preserved remains of a Mylodon were discovered in the cave, which gave irrefutable proof of the creature’s existence. Actually, the remains in the Mylodon Cave and in other sites in the region were so well preserved that when explorers first found then they thought they belonged to a living animal, not one that had been extinct for over 10,000 years. We took pictures and took a quick tour of the cave, and then boarded the bus to the next site: la laguna amarga at the entrance of Torres del Paine National Park.
La laguna amarga, or Bitter Lagoon, is a brilliant green-blue lake in
The La Ligua Trio
From left, Kirsa, myself, and Olivia in front of a beautiful lake overlooked by the Torres del Paine the Torres del Paine National Park. When we arrived, about one hundred yards of grey, large grained sand separated us from the water. We disembarked, and were promptly buffeted by an enormous gust of wind. It was probably blowing at a straight 35 miles per hour. Once we regained our bearings, a few of us had an impromptu race to the water’s edge. When we arrived, the shore was littered with what appeared to be larger, greyish-tan stones. At first I had a nagging feeling that there was something odd about them—oh, right, they were greyish-tan while the rest of the beach was straight grey. And then I stepped on one…and it was
squishy. Our guide finally arrived and began to explain to us why this lake is particularly fascinating. First of all, it is nearly as salty as the Dead Sea, so if we reeeallly wanted to, we could swim and float very easily, or taste the water to see for ourselves. However, she went on, we might not want to. She picked up one of the strange stones from the shoreline and held it out. “These are colonies of bacteria.” The resulting effect was pretty funny, I have
Skkkraaawwww!!!
Said that Andean Condor. This is the best picture I was able to get of them, and it LOOKS like it's abotu to take on that bus. However, it's just a trick of the camera. They're big birds, but not THAT big. to admit. A collective “eeew!” sounded, and every head in the group looked down and moved a few steps back from the water. As it turned out, the bacteria aren’t dangerous; and those of us who wanted to were able to pick up the colonies with bare hands to examine them more closely (you bet I did!). We eventually went back to the bus to head to the next site.
We now entered into the Torres del Paine National Park, the main attraction of the trip. It is absolutely gorgeous. Named for three towering granite spires in the center of the park, it was named a World Biosphere Reserve in 1978. With good reason. I cannot adequately describe the sheer immensity and beauty of the park, and my pictures are a poor representation—like trying to make a replica of the crown jewels out of playdough. Everywhere we turned, literally the
entire bus ride, there was scenery of such breathtaking beauty that it looked fake. There were several times where I thought “That is NOT real. No way. It can’t be. That has to be a giant painting or…or
something!” And then half an hour later we would drive right
Wowzers!
We were pretty excited to see Guanaco. between the lake and mountain that I had been admiring. The sky was infinitely blue and the sheer amount of space astounded me. It was like moving through a very, very large dream. And the cool part was that we were rudely reminded that, yes, we actually
were awake every time we got off the bus thanks to the wind.
Our next stop was the worst of the entire trip, as far as wind goes. We arrived at a spot where we had a fantastic view of the Torres del Paine themselves. When I got off I was nearly knocked over by the wind—it had to have been blowing a straight 50 or 60 miles per hour. We walked up a wide gravel trail that might have once been a riverbed, marveling at the Torres del Paine, and we saw a herd of llama-like guanaco just off the path. About ten minutes later, we reached a large rock plateau overlooking an enormous, rushing turquoise waterfall. We spent about half an hour there, taking pictures, enjoying the scenery. I climbed a small hill to pose for a picture, and very nearly got thrown off of a rocky incline by a
Laguna Amargo
Pascal and I at the Bitter Lagoon. When this was taken we had no idea what those "stones" at the water's edge were. particularly strong gust of wind. The picture turned out really cool, though, so it was totally worth it. We eventually walked back to the bus, urged on by our tour guide. We were going to be late for lunch!
We wove through numerous lakes and rivers, each one a different shade of blue, and after half an hour reached our destination. A large-ish cabin-style building on the shore of a striking aquamarine lake was where we would be eating. We entered a spacious, high-ceilinged dining room and sat down at a long table that had been prepared for us. Looking down the table, a magnificent view of the lake, and behind it the Torres del Paine themselves in their entire grandiose splendor. We were served a very traditional, very delicious meal: a “parrillada sureña.” It consisted of an assortment of grilled potatoes and meats—several types of sausages, and cuts of pork, beef, and chicken. Spectacular.
After lunch, embarked on the longest drive yet to our next destination: Lake Drake and Glacier Grey. Unfortunately we, due to our trip having been cut short, we were unable to actually go walk on the glacier itself, as we were originally going
Neat!
Kirsa at the Bitter Lagoon. to, because it would have been an additional several hours each way to reach it. However, we arrived at the park entrance, and were given directions on how to get to the nearest shore of Lake Drake.
We got off of the bus and followed a wooded path away from park office. After a short while we found ourselves confronted with a long rope bridge spanning a rushing river, with a sign off to the side proclaiming that only six people were allowed on the bridge at a time. We divided ourselves up into groups of six or less, and then carefully stepped onto the bridge. As I have mentioned before, the wind in the extreme south of Chile is very strong, and Lake Drake is no exception. The bridge swayed disturbingly beneath us as we were buffeted by the winds. It was a little difficult to keep our balance, but everyone managed to make it across okay.
On the other side we followed a short path up a small hill, and upon cresting the rise were met with an awe-inspiring sight. A plain of greyish pebbles that reflected the color of the now-cloudy sky stretched out before
Shot
Neat picture. us. It led up to the edge of an icy black lake roiling from the ever-present wind. Several blue-white icebergs sat imposing and unmoving in the water, the brightest objects on an otherwise fairly drab (yet no less impressive) landscape. Behind the lake a ridge of rock and shrub rose up, and farther in the distance a mountain range jutted up out of the earth, the tips swirling with clouds and a few valiant rays of sunshine. We fought against the wind several hundred meters to the water’s edge, and passed the time taking pictures, marveling at the icebergs, and picking fascinating stones. At one point, Pascal and I wanted to take a picture on a rockbar (like a sandbar but out of stones—does that work?) that was just barely poking above the waves. We dashed out to the highest point, jumping waves as we went. We got the pictures, but thank God for waterproof shoes! On the way back I miscalculated a jump and landed straight on top of a wave. Timberland really proved itself on that one—I didn’t get the least bit wet! (They’re actually paying me to say that—it’s amazing what someone’ll do for $5, isn’t it?
Torres
Del
Paine (Just kidding))
Eventually, though we had to go back to the bus. We trudged back to the bus (admittedly some of us were ready to get back on the bus—it’d had gotten
cold, man!) and boarded, ready to be on our way back to the hotel.
We arrived energized and elated, despite the apparent length of the day. We had dinner, and then hung out in our rooms, talking and laughing and just passing the time together, taking advantage of our time together while the sun was still in the sky. At one point, though, someone looked at a clock and revealed one of the phenomena of being at one of earth’s extremes: the sun was just beginning to lower in the sky and it was 11:30PM!!!
The next day we got up early. The sky was filled with racing clouds of a darker grey than normal, which cast an oppressive pall over Puerto Natales. We had a quick breakfast and then walked blearily out of the hotel. To our surprise, it was not the bus that awaited us, but a pair of white vans. Before piling in, were told the itinerary for the day, which was considerably
Represent!
Rotary District 4320 in the South! shorter than the day before due to the distance involved to travel to each of the locations, and the time we would spend at each. First we would be heading to a ranch in the mountains where we would do a little bit of horse-riding and have lunch. Then we would return to Puerto Natales, and from there go on sightseeing tour by boat to see all manner of wildlife and natural wonders. Then, afterwards we would be given time to explore Puerto Natales on our own.
We started out in the vans and as we moved away from Puerto Natales the sky cleared up, though the wind maintained its strength. The scenery during the ride to “Estación Natales” was breathtaking. At one point we saw a group of ranchers herding horses with the help of dogs—it was really neat to think that the same methods used by sheep herders in Scotland are used by herders on the complete opposite end of the world.
We finally reached the Estación, descending a steep gravel road to the main building situated on the shore of a lake in a small valley. The wind in the valley was absolutely vicious, and apparently
ALWAYS was, because there was a small forest in the valley, and every tree was bent in the same direction—away from the wind. We had a spectacular lunch, and then went out to the horses. Unfortunately, there were not enough horses for all of us, so we split up into three groups and took turns taking a short tour around the ranch’s perimeter. I saw several species of birds I had never seen before: unfamiliar ducks and geese, and even a species of ibis. It was fantastic! After the ride, we spent some time exploring the ranch before getting back in the vans and returning to Puerto Natales.
When we got back, we were met with an unpleasant surprise: Leonel informed us that the boat trip had been cancelled due to rough waters. We were all really disappointed, because the weather didn’t seem that much worse than the previous day. With nothing else to do, we set out to explore the city of Puerto Natales. It is a fairly large city, considering how far south it is, but doesn’t FEEL big because there are almost no multistory buildings. In one of the stores I found a painted clay mask
Thundering Water
I got a little distracted from the camera, I guess. Well, wouldn't you? like those used by the indigenous peoples of the region. The storekeeper (and maker of the masks) told me a little bit about the history of the masks and what they represented. It was fascinating! I eventually bought a mask of one of the gods that represents the compass points. The rest of the day we spent exploring the city together.
For dinner, the exchange students from the USA all realized that it was Thanksgiving day, so we decided to declare it an international Thanksgiving dinner. We all took it to heart and put the tables together and had a fantastic holiday, full of the spirit. By sheer coincidence dinner was grilled chicken, which we all agreed was an excellent substitute for turkey. It was a wonderful night.
The next day we woke up early again and boarded the bus. We were to head back to Punta Arenas for the day before boarding our flight home late that night. We were to see the penguin beach and an old Spanish fort quite a way south of the city.
We drove about two hours from Punta Arenas and reached a beach that looked pretty, but not at all like
Conquering the Torres
Love this picture. Totally worth almost falling off the mountain while posing like this. a place I would expect to find penguins. Long, tough grasses grew in clumps that covered the fairly flat landscape, with lichen-covered stones poking through the grasses like splotchy islands. The beach itself was made up of a fairly homogenous mixture of sand and pebbles. The sky on this day was almost otherworldly—swirling blues and greys and clouds and sun…it was like every spare scrap of every mood the sky has ever had was mixing above our heads. But it wasn’t frightening, quite the opposite. It cast a peaceful light over everything. We followed a wood-plank, roped-in path to an observation point and lo and behold. Penguins. LOTS of penguins. The little guys were SOOOO cute! Standing about knee height they walked along self-made paths to and from the ocean and their, well, burrows. We spent quite a while there, taking pictures and following the maze of bridges and boardwalks.
The next stop of the day was an old, old Spanish fort south of Punta Arenas. It was all made of wood, and was located on a cliff overlooking the Magellan Strait, in a forest of Araucarias. Araucarias are the national tree of Chile, and just by looking at
Nice Horizon
Beautiful drive. them you can tell that they are ancient. They have been on earth and have remained virtually unchanged since the dinosaurs (if anyone needs a visual, they look like a cross between a pine tree and a stegosaurus).
After touring the fort we headed back to Punta Arenas for the flight. It had been an absolutely fantastic trip—definitely once in a lifetime….not that I’d complain if it came around twice.
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