So I’ve been told that the quality of my writing on this site has deteriorated. This is probably the case, since my last couple of posts have been pretty rushed. This one will be no different. Right now I am about four weeks behind and I want to get this thing up to date. Hopefully pretty soon I’ll be able to write like I mean it again. But still I’m playing catch-up, so don’t expect too much.

What’s going on now, in brief? Just finished my TEFL class. It’s worked out pretty well. Will be looking for work soon.

But I’m catching up. Where do I really begin? After I left Iguazú Falls I spent two entire days on a bus coming back to Santiago, Chile. What was it that I mentioned in the last post about the bus ride that was so funny? Up ’til now I still regret not taking a photo of it. I meant to, but the planets were not aligned correctly, or something. So unfortunately I didn’t get the pic, but the whole thing really kept my kicks going for 48 hours.

Across the aisle from me, close enough that I could have touched had I wanted too, sat a transvestite next to a nun. For the entire trip? So much time, you ask? Yes, almost the whole trip. They talked once, though I have no idea of what. It was brief, and lamentably I was too far away to hear.

At Mendoza I switched buses and took off to Santiago. Passed close by the highest mountain outside of Asia; Aconcagua. This trip across the Andes between Mendoza and Santiago is really incredible. Hopefully I get the chance sometime to come up here and spend some time.
Here are some pics that I shot off at the border crossing at El Paso de los Libertadores.

The customs house.

The view in the other direction. This is pretty close to Portillo, one of the more renowned ski resorts in Latin America. Got to make it up here when winter comes.

After that hellishly long bus ride I arrived in Santiago just in time for the first day of implementation of some major changes had been made to the public transportation system, Transantiago. The changes were intended to better integrate the subway and the buses and streamline the whole system but the whole thing has ended up being a nightmare. The first week I was here a couple of city buses were confiscated by angry passengers who had waited for more than two hours for a bus. Thank god that I only needed to use the subway to get to my classes, since at least that’s still functioning much better than the buses. It seems that things are improving slowly and hopefully the whole system will be working as it was intended soon.

Right after getting off the bus from Argentina I went down to the metro station, which was complete chaos. Carrying both of my backpacks it took me about thirty minutes to get downstairs to the boarding platform from the ticket booth, which normally takes no more than thirty seconds or so.

I ended up making it to the apartment just fine, though pretty late. Early the next morning it was straight to class.

My apartment here is in a really nice neighborhood and is very comfortable. There’s a jogging trail really close by and a flock of parrots living in the neighborhood. My roommates are really great and we’re getting along really well. The two are both Colombian doctors. So if I end up staying in Santiago there are a lot of good things going here.

A view of the Andes foothills from my bedroom window.

After my first week of classes I went to Valparaíso for the weekend, which was great. I spent some time with some good friends and picked up my laptop and some other stuff. Don’t know if I’m going to be living there or in Santiago. I would really prefer to be in Valparaíso, but it depends on what kinds of jobs I find.

My TEFL class went pretty well overall, though I had one particular demo class that was pretty rough. It’s taken up most of my time for the last month, but I think I’ve learned a lot and it’s been fun. It will really help me a lot in my teaching.

There was one weekend that a friend of mine gave me a mohawk and the whole crew of us went out for the night.

This is what the ‘hawk looked like. I know you must be thinking that’s it’s pretty friggin’ rad. I had to drink some beer in the picture to make it look even cooler.

My roommate Cesar and me at the club.

Cesar and our buddy Juan, another Colombian. Gotta love the smoke in this photo.

After a while the dj stopped playing music and everyone stopped dancing. This guy in the photo came out and started performing, which all ended up being pretty interesting. The guy is from Ecuador and his stage name is Delfin (which means dolphin). His girlfriend died in one of the World Trade Center towers during the September 11 attacks in New York. The song he played was a sort of dedication to the whole sad business and there was an accompanying video playing on several screens to go with it. Delfin ended up leaving the club at the same time we did and I talked to him for a bit. Pretty nice guy.

Unfortunately, the mohawk didn’t survive the weekend. At least my mom is happy about that. But the thing really is that the awesomeness of the ‘hawk didn’t change the fact that it was too much work to maintain. Here is the set with the other photos I’ve taken over the last month here in Chile.

So finally I am caught up to the start of this weekend. Finally as well the charger for the batteries in my camera showed up. I took some really nice photos around Santiago this past weekend. Should be putting them up soon.

Also, I still hope to post that video from Iguazú Falls, but I’ve had some troubles getting it set up. Hopefully it’ll be here soon.