Surfs up!

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So yet another week has flown by down here in Chile. I am still very much enjoying the weather, the sun always shines here. I have continued to make new friends and check out the city. With a four hour language class every morning and a 3 hour MBA class 3 evenings a week, I am very glad I chose to drop my other MBA class. This last week was pretty exhausting, but I really learned a lot! My Spanish is improving quickly, I am getting around just fine now with the language. I absolutely love my Negotiations class through the MBA program. My professor is from South Africa and seems very knowledgeable and is quite entertaining, making our 3 hour classes go by quickly. I also enjoy the fact that for the exchange students this was the less popular class and therefore I have only 4 other Americans in the class which leaves a lot of room for interaction with all the Chilean students.

So after a week of class, break, class, more class, break…we were ready to jet out of the city for a couple of days. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to see some family friends who were on their way to fly fish in southern Chile on Friday night. We had a wonderful dinner with great company over at the Hyatt hotel in Las Condes, a suburb of Santiago.

Saturday we got up super early and headed to the bus station to buy our tickets to a town called Pichilemu. This city is the unofficial surfing capital of Chile, about 3 or so hours SW of Santiago by bus. We got to the station about an hour before the bus was supposed to depart, but much to our dismay, there were no more seats left on the 9 am. We therefore grabbed seats on the 11 am bus and found a cozy (not really) spot to sit down for a couple of hours. When it came time to finally depart we headed to the bus terminal area and boarded our bus. Here when you purchase a ticket, you are given a reserved seat. I saw some incredibly nice buses with full bed seats, unfortunately ours wasn’t quite that nice, but for $10 who is complaining. We took our comfy seats, opened the window vent and enjoyed our 3 hour ride across the Chilean countryside. The view was absolutely gorgeous and the landscape changed dramatically as we headed south. First it was very dry, with tall skinny trees and vineyards, much like you would think of Italy. Then we climbed up into some rounded mountains with pine trees which reminded me very much of New Mexico where our house is in the mountains. Finally we came up over a mountain to see a gorgeous view of the coast with waves crashing into a beach area.

Pichilemu is a quaint and small town. I don’t think it is much of a tourist destination, except for surfers looking to ride the famous waves. We found a hostel online, Pichilemu Surf Hostal which led us to this quiet and beautiful spot. We upgraded to a 4 bed private room when we arrived (they only let you reserve one if you are staying more than one night) since there was one available. This room was really cool because to get to the fourth bed you had to climb up a ladder into a loft area which had a fabulous view. We put Andrew up top so he wouldn’t have to listen to our girl gossip, which seemed totally fine with him. After dropping our stuff off we went across to the street to the restaurant which was owned by the same people. We had some crab stuffed ravioli and watched the waves crashing in. I tried a glass of Camenere, which is the sister to Merlot here in Chile, it was very fantastic. There were many people out windsurfing and kite surfing which looked really fun, but all donned full wetsuits, this is in fact the Pacific ocean. The sand on the beach consists of darker sand and there are pieces of volcanic rock sticking up across parts of the beach.

We decided to take a stroll into the downtown area and checked out some artists stands along the way. There were some really neat crafts, foods, etc for sale. We happened upon what I will refer to as “spring break central” where it seemed most of the other people in the town were hanging out. This beach was a little more protected from the wind and therefore was donned with many different blow-up games (bouncy castles, etc) and a zip line. My absolute favorite was the bull riding blow up for children. Yes. I said it.

So we headed back to our quiet pristine beach on the other side of town. After a walk along the beach we were a bit windblown, so we took a break in a little sheltered area with a fire pit next to our hostel. It started to get chilly and we donned whatever clothing we had brought with us. Andrew was the only prepared person out of all of us, so we all froze together. Cameras in tow we watched the amazing sunset over the surf and took LOTS of photos. We were all pretty hungry after that, so we went up the beach to a restaurant that seemed fairly popular with people. It was a small restaurant called Adobar, with only about 10 tables and a beautiful view of the ocean. This was probably the best choice we had made yet, the meal was absolutely fantastic. Most of us had a white fish stuffed with crab, mushrooms and cheese with a cream sauce on top. Some fish came with a quinoa risotto and others with this cream of corn dish that I am absolutely in love with. We were quite cold but very satisfied after our relaxing dinner and all took a hot shower and crawled into the warm, comfy beds to sleep. This had to have been the best night of sleep I have had since I arrived.

The next morning we woke up late and meandered on over to grab some breakfast that was included in our room. We attempted to head out to the beach and quickly noticed that we were some of the only people without a little half tent to block the blowing sand from pelting us the entire time. So we took a place somewhat sheltered by a sand dune and attempted to get some sun. We all only lasted about an hour because of the wind and then headed back to our fabulous spot by the hostel to read and watch the waves. We packed up and then headed back over to the Adobar for one last taste of fabulousness before heading to the bus station. Rita, Megan and I had bought our tickets as soon as we arrived in Pichilemu to return to Santiago, but unfortunately Andrew had not. Because all the transfers were full, he had to wait until 7 pm for the next bus. So the three girls hopped on the bus and had an entertaining ride back to Santiago, stopping every 10 min to pick up random people off the side of the street.
So overall, it was a fabulous weekend with wonderful sights, great company, and fabulous food. It was just what we needed to launch into another week of intensive language classes and MBA program. This will be Rita and I’s last week of Spanish lessons and then we will be freed up a bit to enjoy what Santiago has to offer during the day. I made my biggest mistake this weekend and was too stubborn to put sunscreen on my legs. I am paying the price with a horrible sunburn, but I guess that’s what I get for thinking I’d be ok. Haha. So I am looking forward to that subsiding and to actually getting some good work done this week. I hope everyone is well back in the states, I am sorry that it is SO cold up there. I am pretty sure that I will need to migrate south every winter from now on, this is fabulous.

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Photos

Our Room
That top window was andrew's bunk.

Romantic...or not
they were really enjoying there evening until the dog wandered up. Stand off i think...R

Rita
Watching the waves...

Election
Someone didn't like Pinera as a candidate and defaced him haha.

Other Hostel Building
This is where the hostel dormitories are housed. haha.

Vineyards
On the way to Pichilemu