Breaking Borders

Hello all,
This is Caitlin, flying solo right now, and I thought I'd give you an update!!!!
As of Friday April 15th, Cora has one month of traveling left, and I've got two! It feels like we're both trying to cram in everything we want to do while still trying to wrap our heads around how fast this time has gone!!!!

So, during Christopher's (my brother) visit, Cora and I went our separate ways. She went to Valparaiso and continued on traveling north to La Serena and Iquique and then hopped on a 17 hour bus to cross into Bolivia!!! From there she has gone to quite a few cities, met up with an old friend, and found new ones!!! She will continue traveling through Bolivia and then cross into Argentina traveling down and loop back into Santiago de Chile to catch her flight back home in a month!!

As for me? I've been non stop traveling for the past month going to Valparaiso, Curico, Talca, Chillan,  Pucon, back up to Santiago, La Serena, and am currently in San Pedro de Atacama! That calculates to approximately 3,000 km or 1,880 miles. That's quite a lot of distance if I do say so myself.

In Valparaiso I visited Jorge's parents, Marta and Leo, and got to enjoy an evening with them over a home cooked meal!! Another highlight of that visit was the goodie bag Jorge and Lydia left for Cora and me earlier in the year! While there I also went to the beach in Vina del Mar and got to walk along the ocean watching groups of pelicans fly by!
Curico was the first non touristy place I visited. It's clearly not a main tourist spot and has no reason to be since the most exciting thing to do was to make the 4 minute climb up the hill to a vista point with a small statue of the Virgin of Immaculate Conception. I don't think I'll be going back there again...
Next was Talca where I ended up staying at a student house near the university there and met a couple of great people. The owner of the house had a three year old daughter and invited me to lunch one day and showed me around town!! I first tried Mote con Huesillo, a Chilean drink with chopped up corn on the bottom and a shriveled up peach that was dried and then rehydrated to make the juice for this drink. You eat/ drink it with a spoon, and it's a nice blend of sweet and savory that is a new favorite of mine!
After Talca was Chillan, a teeny town which had also been hit by the earthquake and had very little to do. It's known for it's Mercado Artesanal, so it was fun to wander around there!
And down to Pucon I went where I experienced my first taste of Chilean winter as it rained two and a half of the three days I was there!!! I stopped at a few little towns on the way to Pucon which was an eye opening experience. First, it's now officially the low season in Chile as it's turning into winter. As a result there are very few others traveling now, which makes for a very quiet and sometimes lonely stay. So far I've been in two hostels by myself, with no one else staying there, in one of them even the owners left! And I've been in quite a few dorm rooms all to myself, I can't really complain about that though! While it's been nice to have that down time to myself, after a few days of speaking only a few Spanish sentences and no English, I feel like I'm going crazy and should start talking out loud to myself so I won't forget my English!!!
From there I bussed back to Santiago where I went to an unforgettable concert with Inti-Illimani, Illapu, and other Chilean groups and artists. They were all there singing for an organization that helps families of the disappeared, so it was a little bit emotional at times. As it was my first time seeing Illapu in concert, I spent the entire hour they played with my mouth practically hanging open. I'm just waiting until the next concert of theirs I can go to!!
Up to La Serena I went where, true to its name (meaning the serene) I relaxed and hung out in a very cool hostel. Now, you have to understand, this is first hostel outside of Santiago that I've been to where there have actually been people, so my excitement may be a little exaggerated. However, this is one little town I would love to come back to. It's on the coast, so is known for it's good surf and great beaches (the water is still freezing) and has some cool attractions in town and in the neighboring town, Coquimbo. While there, I also went on a tour of the Elqui Valley, where we saw some quaint little towns, got to go to a papaya plantation, and check out a Pisqueria. The people on the tour were very fun and it turned out to be a really great day!
San Pedro de Atacama is a huge tourist spot in Chile, but completely the opposite of what I expected. I got here and thought the bus made a wrong turn somewhere. All I could see was dust, cactiOjos del Salar (Eyes of the Salt flats) which were actually two man made swimming holes that had originally been dug to find oil, but because of the lack of technology to extract it, they've become a huge tourist spot! Our last stop was the actual Salar de Atacama, which was awesome, it was like walking on snow! The view all around was amazing, we were surrounded by at least 5, maybe 6 volcanoes, two of which were active, one which bordered Bolivia, and all were snow-capped looking very majestic. After that, we went back to the car and ate some snacks as we watched the sun set over the mountains, then hopped into the car for the very bumpy ride back to the hostel! Today, I woke up at the ungodly hour of 4 am to be picked up and driven to the Geyser de Tatio situated at 4,300 meters (approx. 14,000 ft.) above sea level, one of the main attractions surrounding San Pedro de Atacama. With a stop at a Terma (hot spring) which I unfortunately didn't get in, and a small rural town which was rebuilt for the sole purpose of showing the tourists, it was an alright but slightly overrated tour. I'm still glad I went though!!
Tomorrow I'm off to Iquique to try and get back my Brazilian tan, and then maybe up to Arica, and then back down to mid or southern Chile!!!

Besides the tranquility of the southern Chilean towns, what I noticed the most was how much they had been affected by the earthquake, specifically Talca. It was about 60 miles away from the epicenter of the earthquake, and there are still vacant lots where houses used to be that are just full of rubble. When I first saw these, I thought it just had to do with the state of the city, but then I talked to a Talquino (someone from Talca) and he told me all of it was remnants of the earthquake. It's been over a year now, and there are still plenty of cities that have nothing to do in them because their main attractions (museums, churches, etc.) were destroyed and still have not been rebuilt. The people however are so inspiring. I've spoken to a few who were there when it happened and each of them talked about how there is nothing to compare it to. However, everyone has gotten on with their lives, and are doing what they can to move forward.

One of the major difficulties I have encountered are the weekends. Chile does not exist on Sunday. It is a cultural thing where you have a barbecue or a simple dinner with the family or occasionally go out for a walk in the park, but other than that, if your a tourist looking for anything, you have to wait until Monday! There's also Siesta time between 1-3 where you won't find even supermarkets open in some towns. This has been hard to get used to, especially since that's exactly when I'm ready to go exploring, look at museums, do some shopping!

While my Chilean Spanish has improved a lot since arriving, there's still the occasional "Que?" repeated 2 or 3 times, followed by an explanation of yet another Chilenismo. At this point, I'm thinking of writing a dictionary and carrying it around with me!!!! But, I am very proud to say that people have started to ask me if I'm a foreigner even after we've had a two minute conversation!!!

As time keeps flying by, I think about going back home with mixed feelings. It will be great to have clothing options, the yummy food back home, and of course, my own room! But, there's nothing like the experience of traveling, and I wish that this trip would never end! Maybe that's why I've already starting planning my next five years of travel throughout the world!

In the Elqui Valley it's always sunny, where as La Serena and surrounding towns have fog that burns off sometime in the afternoon

We ate a delicious lunch at restaurant that only uses solar powered stoves! They even gave us bread made there, apparently it takes 4 hours to bake!

Interesting and very modern Cathedral in Chillan

Termas Los Pozones in Pucon

Illapu!!!

Another salt lake that had such a high concentration of salt it was not allowed to swim in it

The backdrop of every picture in San Pedro, pretty awesome!

Me and one of the geysers!

Did I mention when we arrived at 6:30 am it was -15 C (5 F) and finally started warming up to -4 (a whopping 25 degrees F). I was stepping over puddles that were frozen solid. This being my first experience in such cold weather and not handling it so well, I've officially decided I'm never leaving California :)

Hasta luego!!!

Caitlin

Carnaval and such!

Hey guys, congrats on becoming tsunami survivors! We hear that according to CNN, California had a rough time... especially in comparison to Japan. Sorry we missed it, I hope everyones' boats fared well enough.

On the other hand, "How was Salvador," you ask?? "BELEZA," we answer!
As of the 14 of March, we have been in Santiago, Chile getting back to our Spanish, after 3 months of pure Portuguese. Though we could talk about Santiago, we thought we were overdue for an update about Brazil.

To recap, we were living in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil for about a month and a half. We were studying and practicing Portuguese, being tour guides for Loxie (Caitlin's mom), relaxing on the beach, and finishing it of with bang during our six days of non stop festivities aka Carnaval!

Salvador was all in all a unique city, very different from Florianopolis or any other part of Brazil we visited for that matter. It is known as the capital of Afro Brazilian culture and was once the largest slave port in Brazil. Because of this, Salvador has a special vibe and the people and city itself embrace and express their culture with pride. In the Historical center, Pelourinho (literally, the whipping post) someone is always playing music or doing Capoeira. Salvador wears her heart on her sleeve, and it is possible to feel and experience her soul even as a tourist visiting for a short time.

As Caitlin wrote in the last post, we had a bit of a hard time adjusting to Salvador at first. It was a big city, that wasn't very clean, and didn't feel very safe. Our little knowledge of Portuguese made it more difficult as well. Thanks to giving it some time, our room mate Aurora, Cora's Portuguese classes, and the visit from Loxie, we soon became comfortable in the city. Aurora, a lovely french lawyer who was in love with Salvador, introduced us to her friends in the city, spoke with us in Portuguese, helped us feel more comfortable in our apartment, and called us "Queridas (little loves)." She was really wonderful and helped us adjust a lot. With Cora's Portuguese classes, we both had basic Portuguese skills, so that helped to get us around the city more easily. It also gave us access to lots of tourist information, which was really helpful. Once we had these things, Loxie's visit was like icing on the cake. It was great for Caitlin to get to see her mom and catch up. It was nice for both of us to have a mother around as well and helped us to feel a little bit more safe and taken care of. Loxie coming also forced us to be tour guides and see the rest of the city. Up until then, we had spent most of our time on the beach. We took Loxie to see all the sights, visited beaches we hadn't been to, and celebrated Cora's birthday with a home made birthday cake!

Loxie's return home marked the end of our time in Barra, the neighborhood we had lived in up until that point. The day after she left, we made a move to Rio Vermelho, a new, quieter, less touristy neighborhood where were would spend Carnaval. We moved to a lovely little 20 person hostel called Albergue Pedra da Sereia, run by an American guy named Michael. It was a beautiful place, right on the beach 500 meters away from the main Carnaval circuit, so we could escape the crowds and the party when we wanted to. We stayed there for two weeks, and got to know all the other travelers as well as the staff. The small size of the hostel was really nice because we ended up going to Carnaval with the other travelers and getting to know them. We were all in the same boat not really knowing what to do, so it was a good set up.

Carnaval in Brazil is a huge deal and Carnaval in Salvador is as big as it gets. Salvador is known to have the biggest street  Carnaval in all of Brazil, and it is apparently the largest street party in the entire world. The population of the city quadruples during this one week every year. Also, according to Lonely Planet, and Brazil's youth, Salvador's Carnaval is the best in Brazil. We thought it was pretty cool too.

Carnaval in Salvador is not at all what comes to mind with you think of Brazilian Carnaval. Most of us have the image of Carnaval in Rio (IE Brazilian Samba queens in sparkly Bikinis and feathers, dancing down the street.) Salvador's Carvnaval is more like the Rose Parade mixed with the new years crowd in Time Square. Famous singers get up onto huge floats called "trios electricos" and sing all day and all night. Each trio electrico has a group of fans, who dance behind the float in colored t-shirts, called a "bloco." The bloco is surrounded by a group of security guards and a rope. People pay money to be part of the bloco for the security, the chance to see their favorite artist, and the t shirt, which serves as a entrance ticket. The two other options for celebrating Carnaval are to be "pipoca" or popcorn, which means you are watching the parade on the street, which can be dangerous, or to get a "camarote," which is a sort of box seat, where you can watch the Carnaval parade pass by. All the buildings on the Carnaval circuit get transformed into camarotes. These camarotes can be as simple as fenced off bleachers or as fancy as a VIP club with included food, drinks, and DJ's.

In order to get the full Carnaval experience, we decided to try out each option. For our first night, we choose to get an all inclusive camarote so we had the chance to get a feel for Carnaval, while inside the safety of the camarote which was set up in a hotel, and away from the huge crowd. We had a great time styling our t-shirts before hand and were all decked out for the fiesta! We got to watch tons of singers at eye level, eat good food, and dance to the DJ inside in our camarote. They even had a hair stylist and massage tables. It was tons of fun, and perfect for our first night out! Because of the mobs of people, Carnaval can be completely  overwhelming and so the camarote was a great way to get into it!

For the next four days of Carnaval, we chose to be popcorn. We spent our days relaxing and then went out to the party at night with the rest of the people from our hostel. Carnaval has three circuits so we went to each one of them. Each circuit had a different vibe, and it was great to experience them all. One of our best nights, was when we went to the traditional circuit in Pelourinho and watched the Afro dance groups preform away from the main crowds. It was chill, and we had a great time!

The last night of Carnaval we had a bloco! We joined the bloco of Parangolé, a really popular Pagode artist from Salvador itself. We had been listening to his songs the entire time we had been in Salvador and thought it would be fun to see him live. It turned out to be a bit overwhelming and we had very different opinions, about it. Cora thought it was amazing, and the most fun we had the whole Carnaval, but Caitlin was not a big fan of it. Though it wasn't fantastic for both of us, we still danced until morning and finished the night out watching Will.I.Am, and David Guetta, two famous western artists that we love! It was a great end to our Carnaval, and though we didn't go at it all day and all night, like the Brazilians, we still enjoyed it and got our fill!

After Carnaval we stuck around Salvador for a five more days before heading out for Chile. During that time we got to see the Camarotes deconstructed, where as we'd spent the first month and a half in Salvador watching them get built!

Today we read our friend Nina's Blog, who is traveling in Nicaragua at the moment. She has been writing a lot about the injustice and poverty she is witnessing in Nicaragua. We thought that even though it sounds like we have an easy trip, we should talk a little bit about the Salvador and the problems we see that Brazil has. We feel we witnessed first hand the economic gap there, and how it effects not only the people who like there but the cities themselves.

When we first arrived in Salvador, we thought that it looked almost as if you had taken San Diego, and stuck "Slumdog Millionaire" poverty all around it. Brazil has a huge gap between the wealthy and the poor, and Salvador shows it in not only the people, but also in the architecture of the city itself. It is a rapidly growing city, full of beautiful beach front property, high rise buildings, and fancy malls, surrounded by hills of favelas (slums).  Like a lot of places in the world, the richer people are lighter-skinned, and the poorer people are dark-skinned. In Salvador, where there is a huge Afro population, and comparing it to Floripa, this statistic is thrown right in your face. The moment you hit the air conditioned, pristine malls, everyone inside is much lighter skinned. In Floripa, which has a huge European influence, the people are lighter skinned. We noticed this again during Carnaval. Our Camarote, which was beautiful and expensive, was full of lighter skinned Brazilians. In the Pelourinho Carnaval circuit there were certain blocos you couldn't be a part of unless you had dark skin. Many of the more traditional blocos had Afro music and dance and were created for Afro Brazilians, and lighter Brazilians were not accepted there. It was interesting and sad, to see the economic gap that Brazil has. There is seemingly no middle class, and it is very difficult to move from one class to another. There is a huge amount of poverty, and is visible everywhere. Though we have poverty in America as well, it is rare to see a person, who looks as if they are starving walking around the streets. Many of the street children look as if they haven't eaten in years. The streets are kept clean by people who collect cans to then turn in for money, and people will do anything for a bit of extra money. It seems that thought Brazil is had a booming economy, not enough of that money if going to the hands of the poor.

On a completely different note, we are now in Santiago, Chile which is very different than Salvador. Not only is Santiago the cleanest city we have been to so far, there is a sense of safety here that we haven't felt in a while. So far, we are both really enjoying Santiago and spending our days walking all over the city and seeing the sights. We visited a the Centro Cultural Palacio la Moneda, yesterday and saw two really interesting exhibits. One was on Violeta Parra, a famous Chilean singer and activist who we are both very interested it. Thanks to Lydia, we know some of her music and a bit about it. The second exhibit we visited was an art show about bringing the Americas together. It was a collection of art, from artists all over Canada, North, Central, and South America. There was also a huge outline of Canada to South America filled in with pieces of wood people had written or drawn on in chalk with words of inspiration for the continents and the others who would view it. It was really interesting to see what other people had written and we got to write our own message and add it to such a multicultural piece. All in all, though we miss Brazil's beautiful beaches and Portuguese, it's nice to be back to speaking Spanish, and it's very refreshing to have dry heat and not sweat all day, and we're enjoying the nice cool nights!

We're now being tour guides and exploring the city with Chris, Caitlin's brother who decided to spend his spring break in Chile! Lucky for him the weather is a lot nicer here than in the Bay Area!!!!

 

Our plaques we made in the museum

The entire project

A little taste of what the streets were like during Carnaval!

The Plaza de Armas, the main square in Santiago, Chile

La Catedral in the Plaza de Armas

Until next time friends!!!

Pictures!!!

My wonderful TEFL class and trainers on the day of our graduation!

Both Cora and I worked for a time at Alberque do Pirata, a hostel in the southern part of Florianopolis

Alberque do Pirata

Lots of time was spent in these hammocks relaxing!!!

One of the beautiful beaches Joaquina in Florianopolis

Soon after we arrived in Salvador da Bahia, Brasil we went to the Festival de Yemanja, the goddess of the sea. You celebrated with lots of music and people, and by going to the water, making a wish and placing a rose in the water as an offering to Yemanja. 

Here's just a little taste of what we've been up to lately!!! We left beautiful Floripa after both recovering from our various ailments and arrived in Salvador da Bahia, which both of us took a few days to warm up to, but have come to love. It's very different from Floripa, there is a large African influence left from when the slave trade came to port here, so it is much more culturally rich and diverse. So far, we've explored the city a bit, gone to a few beaches, practiced our Portuguese, and gotten nice and tan!!! It's always sunny here unlike Floripa, so we've been using tons of sunscreen!!!
Cora is taking Portuguese classes at Idioma, another local language school, so far she's learning a lot and really enjoying them! Hopefully we won't forget everything we've learned when we get to Chile!!!!
As for me, I'm enjoying the company of my mom!!! She arrived safely in Salvador on Wednesday after some slight plane troubles (her plane from Sao Paulo got canceled!) and has been melting from the heat and enjoying a little bit of summer during winter! Cora and I will be playing tour guides for the next few days, which means we will see some of the wonders Salvador has also!!!
After that, we're gearing up for Carnaval, which the city is already preparing for with bleachers on the streets called "camarotes" where you can reserve a space to watch the passing parade. More on that after we experience a true Brazilian Carnaval!
This was just a little update, until later, and good luck to those in the Bay Area with the raging storms!
Caitlin

Time for an Update

Hey Guys,
It's been about a month since I last updated the blog, so I decided it was time! A lot of things have happened in that period of time, and I finally have some down time to write about it.
Caitlin arrived in Brazil on the 22nd of December and came to meet me at the hostel I am working at in Florianopolis, Santa Catarina. Though she didn´t give me a ton of details, she told me a bit about her TEFL course that I thought was really interesting. The course she took was a month long intensive TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) program organized by the same Spanish school that organized our volunteer work. In this course, you learn to teach English by only speaking English to your students. Speaking the students native language during class is not allowed. Because of this, you can use the skills you gain anywhere in the world. In this month, Caitlin told me that she worked a ton, learned a huge amount, wrote a few essays, and taught a week of English classes. It felt like being back in school, she said. She really loved the program and told me how beneficial she felt it was. Caitlin said it was a bit strange at first to be teaching adults, being so young, but she got used to it. There was also another 18 year old girl in the course who she became close friends with. Over all she loved the program and is working at getting a job teaching in either Salvador, our next Brazilian destination, or Chile.
I had been working in my hostel, Albergue do Pirata, for about three weeks before Caitlin arrived. I had grown to really love it here by the time she came. So, when she arrived, Caitlin came to stay at the hostel and worked with me for about a week and a half. The original plan had been for the two of us to start Portuguese classes on another part of the island on the 3rd of January, but I decided to stay and continue working, and Caitlin decided to take the classes as planned. Due to this change of plans, we are separated again. I am still working at the hostel on the south side of the island, and she is taking classes in the center. We will meet up again a few days before leaving Santa Catarina and catch our flight to Salvador together. We leave on the 30th of this month, so we will be reunited in about two weeks.
Albergue do Pirata has been a great part of my trip! It is a hostel run by Argentinians, so though my Portuguese isn´t improving greatly, I speak Spanish almost all day everyday. The other girls I work with, Josephina, and Melisa are lots of fun, and when we are not working we spend most of our time on the beach, crocheting, or doing other types of craft projects. We have actually opened a little store in the hostel where we are trying to sell some of the things we are making. The part of the island that the hostel is in is extremely quiet and there isn't much going on. The beach is beautiful and deserted most of the time, and everyone in the neighborhood knows everyone else. Since this hostel is kind of off the beaten track, we get a lot of very interesting travelers who come to stay. Almost everyone is extremely nice, and because we also have an area to camp and cheaper prices than the rest of the island, we get quite a lot of hippie types completely roughing it. These travelers often have really great stories as well, so I really enjoy chatting with all of our guests that come to stay. Its nice to be away from the gringo trail for a bit, and away from the world run by Lonely Planet. Also, since the hostel is advertised as multi-lingual, we get travelers from all over. We seem to have mainly Argentinians but also a lot of Brazilians and some Europeans as well. As I meet more and more Argentinians, I continue to fall in love with their country, so I'm sure I will be back in the near future.
Caitlin told me that she hasn´t been all that impressed with her classes so far, but they're getting better. She was sick for a week, but is now better and making up the second week of class. Now that she has a different teacher she likes it a lot more. Apart form taking classes, she has been spending a bit of time with our old friend Jovita who lives here.
Interestingly enough, Caitlin and I have both been sick this week. I had to go to the doctor, to get an ingrown toenail operated on, which was an experience to remember. It was very weird to go to the doctor and not be able to speak to him or really understand what was going on. Though I had to go to three hospitals to finally get it fixed, thanks to Brazil being a relatively westernized country, I am almost good to go!
Almost everything that has happened during this time in Santa Catarina has been positive. The holidays were kind of difficult, but we made the best of them, that we could. We celebrated Christmas on both the 24th and 25th because Argentinians celebrate on the 24th. Caitlin and I made a big American Christmas dinner for everyone at the hostel which was a huge amount of work, but definitely worth it. I made stockings as well and played Santa for Caitlin and me, which was a lot of fun. It was strange to celebrate Christmas in the summer, but it was enjoyable anyways. For New Years, we all went to the beach and had a party there. Even though its not what I am used to, and I would have preferred to be with my family, the holidays were still enjoyable. The fact that I saw all my friends going home for Christmas break didn´t help either, but what could I do, I am happy to be in Brazil!
Ok, well I guess that is the extent of my update, but I hope all is well in California!
Belated Happy New Year to all!
Cora