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Published: February 27th 2011
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I keep have reoccurring dreams that my time in South America has finished. The more often I have the dream the more I do not like it. With every day that passes I become more comfortable and am enjoying my time here more and more. I have a way of life here, and I like it. While it is true that not every day is the best day of my life I am still thoroughly enjoying where I am in life.
The latest thing I have taken up is running as means of transport. Yesterday I walked home with Sofie to her house, and ran the remaining five kilometers. Mostly it was a way of avoiding taking the metro. For the record the metro system in Santiago is of top quality. The problem is that it is expensive. This week the prices were raised to 620 pesos during rush hour. That is roughly $1.30 every time I get on the metro. Considering I take it at least twice a day to school and back it adds up. On average I am spending fifteen dollars a week just on transportation. So I figured that if I walk to school I can
save some much needed money.
I live eight miles from school. This is the main reason why I never considering walking to and from previous to this week. However, after talking with Sofie, who lives much closer to school, I decided that I would try walking home from school. The walk to her house went by quickly. I do not mind walking with someone else, because you do not notice the time pass. Walking alone is a little rough. I find it to be a waste of my time; it too so slow. I have the mind of a distance runner and use the why-walk-if-you-could-run approach. So after splitting ways with Sofie I ran. All in all it was not too bad. It was a little far, but certainly possible.
So this morning I decided to run to school. I left the house at 7:25am. The weather was nice and cool. It took me just over an hour. After school I went to a farmer’s market with Julia, and hung out at her apartment for a while. By the time I left it was almost 6:00pm. I had lost the desire to run home. However, if I have
learned one thing from running over the past six years it is that there is always more left in the tank. With that in mind I strapped on my watch on ran the remaining six miles home through the streets of Santiago.
I will say right now that I do not like city running. I am a huge fan of trail running. Unfortunately, I live in a city of six million people with more concrete, buildings, cars, and traffic than I wish to know. In the past I would have been embarrassed to run along the sidewalks of a city with a backpack on. Now I am immune to all that. My guess is that the majority of the people I past today have never seen a sight quite like what they saw today: a tall American, running through crowds of people on the sidewalk, with a backpack on, sweating, and occasionally sprinting to make the green lights.
In a way I felt like Haile Gebrselassie, the greatest distance runner of all time. Geb, who was born in a poor Ethiopian village, used to run ten kilometers to school and back all at the age of six. Of
course he probably did it without shoes
, and he was running through the African countryside. However, I actually ran further to school. Thirteen kilometers compared to ten kilometers. I am probably not going to do this every day, but for today it was fun to feel like a modern day Gebrselassie.
In other news last I just recently completed the best weekend I have had so far in Chile. I took a trip down to Pucón, a small town south of Santiago. It is sounded by national parks, a lake, and a volcano. The weekend included two eleven-hour bus rides, another hostel, eating traditional Mapuche native food, horseback riding, hirdrospeeding, climbing a volcano, canyoning, and feeling confident about my Spanish.
Pucón is sounded by natural. It is a big tourist town, and thus, expensive. However, despite spending nearly four hundred dollars on a single weekend I feel as though it was worth the trip. Some of the things we did were questionable. The more I think about it the more I realize how dangerous some of the activities were. Hidrospeeding, for example, is basically whitewater rafting minus the raft. Instead we each had a styrofoam boat/kickboard. The rapids got progressively larger and more dangerous. There were hidden rocks at many points of the river. I know this because I hit some of them with my legs.
The guides did not seem to be helpful. The instructed us to form a line when entering rapids. I do not understand why this was supposedly safer. On the very first rapid we lined up behind one another. Sarah was in front of me and Julia behind. Somehow Julia ended up getting sucked under the current in front of me. I saw her go down, but could not do anything to avoid from hitting her. The current pushed me towards her and my knee crashed into her in the head. Fortunately she was wearing a helmet. A few rapids later she got pulled under the current yet again, but this time could not re-surface. She said that if it were not for a guide she could have died. I do not know whether this statement is true, because I did not see it happen, but I remember passing by that particular spot in the rapids and wondering if everyone was going
to make it through safely. It is reasons like that why this would be illegal in the States.
The horseback riding and volcano were much safer. The canyoning was the best part of the trip. It was not quite as dangerous as the hidrospeeding. However, there were several parts where the guide told us to jump into dark, unclear waters. This is something I will not do elsewhere. I was afraid that the water was either too shallow or that there were hidden rocks. Only after I watched th guide jump did I jump. Even then I was still nervous. I could go into much more detail about the weekend, but I will leave it here for now. Currently, I am preparing for my trip to Patagonia/Tierra del Fuego. We fly out for that in just thirteen days!
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Adam R
Adam
Shoot. In reviewing this blog I just noticed that I put 'natural' instead of nature. This is because I was in Spanish mode. The Spanish word for nature is 'naturaleza'. My brain started to type naturaleza, but left it at nature. No big deal, but this is another sign that I am adapting to Spanish.