The last few weeks since my last post have been really active, and I finally I have an opportunity to breath a little and sit down and update the site. Looking back at the draft I wrote just a couple weeks back it seems strange to me that some of these things happened such a short time ago. But let’s go ahead and begin from where I left off in my last post, where I stated I would be headed to Argentina on a trip to renew my visa. I never made it there into the country, or rather I did, but just barely and just for a moment.

Border Expulsion

When I got to the station I found that the buses were all sold out so I hopped on a van (not too much more expensive than the buses) and began the trek up through a pass in the Andes that leads to Argentina. These mountains are truly beautiful, and the main route from Santiago to Mendoza, el Paso de los Libertadores, passes by several of the highest peaks in the Americas, the highest of those being Cerro Aconcagua, at 6,962 meters (22,841 feet). The beauty of these mountains is staggering, and the landscape displays a surprising variety of colors, so much that parts are reminiscent of the Painted Desert in the United States, only uplifted to dramatic new heights. Here is a photo from the customs house on the Argentine side of the border that shows some of these colors

When the bus arrived to customs I closely examined my passport to realize that earlier I had made the innocent (stupid?) mistake of misreading the expiration date on my tourist visa of May 13 as May 18, and consequently realized that my it had expired a week prior. For that reason, I was not allowed to leave Chile (although I was really already a few miles beyond the border) and was left stranded, stuck at the pass. Luckily, I managed to wave down a bus which was headed to Viña del Mar. I had contemplated going to Viña anyway that weekend before I belatedly realized I needed to leave the country for a visa run, so I figured that since I had my things all packed and ready I would just go ahead and spend the weekend there.

The Road to Viña

So we passed through the tunnel in which the border is hidden and stopped at the Chilean customs house a little ways beyond that, where I talked to some authorities about nothing very important, except for the fact that I would have to go to the Department of Foreign Affairs and pay a fine, and then would be free to leave Chile. I didn’t tell them I didn’t plan on leaving, but that doesn’t matter much now.

Here is a photo of one particular peak near the Chilean customs I took that weekend next to an almost identical photo that I had taken about three months (and a week) prior.

Coming up the pass is an endless array of switchbacks, typically and dangerously overrun by countless semi trucks and buses. The photo you see below was actually taken about halfway down the particular set of switchbacks which you see. This scene also happens to be near one of the more renowned ski resorts in the Andes, el Portillo. In some parts of the road are covered so that ski runs can pass over it. Definitely a place I’ll be spending some time at this Winter.

The next few hours of the day were spend on the bus descending the mountains, crossing the central valley and then passing through the equally beautiful coastal mountains until we finally reached the coast and descended once more into Viña del Mar just as the sun was going down.

Return to Valpo & Viña

There I called up a friend of mine, Mauricio, and spent the remainder of the day catching up on things and talking with him and his family. The next day passed pretty casually just walking around the Northern end of Valparaí­so and hanging out on the beach. Here’s a photo of Mauricio and I we took that day.

And a photo of central Valparaí­so across the bay.

All these pictures here are taken from Playa Portales, a small but pleasant beach in Valparaí­so towards Viña del Mar. This is the famous site of “liter on the beach” from way back in the ISA days, for those of you who participated in that.

During this trip I never made it to the heart of Valparaí­so, but I felt the tranquility and well being that has accompanied each of my trips to this city since returning to Chile earlier this year. Already the months I spent living, studying, learning, and growing here seem farther away than they really are.

Sitting on that beach that evening it dawned on me in the clearest possible manner that this is a place I will always love and that I hope to return to all my life, no matter how far away I may find myself in the future. More immediately, I recognized that I need to be spending more of my time here, having thus far spent almost all of my time since returning to Chile in Santiago. Valparaíso and Santiago are only little more than an hour and three dollars apart, after all.

Here’s a great photo of my head being eaten by a giant great white shark hanging next to a restaurant on Playa Portales.

That night we headed for the the bar Journal where I passed the night with a group of Chileans, Germans, and Irish. At one point we headed to El Huevo in Valparaí­so where a pretty decent rock band was playing. After that died down it was back to Journal for the rest of the night.

Pulling Teeth in the Belly of the Beast

The next week in Santiago was spent largely in the catacombs of Chilean bureaucracy and not working. For those in the States who have spend lots of time in the DMV, you can understand to some extent what this is like, although my experiences renewing my license fall far short of this. Arrive early in the morning and wait in line for a number, then you wait. And wait. After your number is called, you are sent to a different office, where you have go through the same process only to be sent back to your original location.

To make matters worse, daytime television in Chile manages to top even the worst that I’ve ever seen in other places. I’m not exaggerating at all when I say this, that the televisions in the waiting area were tuned to a several hour long reality TV program involving dentists or something which almost solely depicted hour after hour of pulling teeth from the various mouths of one unfortunate patient after another. Somehow, I couldn’t really think of anything else more appropriate for the situation.

All in all though it wasn’t quite all that horrible since I came equipped with my ipod and met several really really cool people, while waiting. A few include a soccer player from Brazil, and displaced Indian, and a tour guide from Colombia. And among my encounters with the inevitable inept bureaucrats who sent me pointlessly from one place to the next I came across one very kind woman who actually reprimanded those who had sent me to the wrong places, helped me through much of the ordeal, and even gave me the phone number of her office in case I encountered more problems. Most generously of all she waved my fine.

I finally got through all the bureaucracy and regained my legal status on Friday of that week just ten minutes before I was to start my first class and the new Institute I was working for, and managed to get there just in time.

Snippets From a Life in Transition

Let me briefly sketch a few of the various happenings since then.

The weekend after escaping the Chilean bureaucracy my cell phone was stolen by somebody who grabbed it off a restaurant table and managed to jump onto the back of a motorcycle just before I could catch him. As a result I lost a lot of numbers, including those of the people I met that week while trying to renew my visa. I can think of at least half a dozen people now that I probably will never see again unless either luck or fate happen to intervene. So that’s been a serious source of irritation but I’ve got a new phone now.

The week after that I completed my final week of work at the clinic with the old institute I had been working for. I’m going to miss my students there, but I’m definitely glad I left when I did. Apparently the institute is in pretty major debt right now and is having serious trouble paying its teachers. Being that I’m not working for them anymore, I don’t think I’m top priority on the payroll, so to speak. I’m still fighting with the management there so that I can get paid. I will, but it might take some more time and hassle and a bit of a fight.

My classes at my new institute on the other hand are going really well. I have classes twice a week at the airport near the hangers, which is really awesome. I’ll definitely put up some pictures of that soon. I’m really glad that I’ve moved to this new institute and didn’t get stuck where I was before. For one, I’ll have a contract which means that I’ll have a working visa and won’t have to worry about trips to Argentina every three months to renew my visa. They also have a really good reputation for paying their teachers well (and on time).

I’ve moved into a new apartment in a really great part of town, Bellas Artes, which I ‘m really, really happy with. It’s really nice, with wooden floors and is pretty spacious for one person. Everything I need is within walking distance and I can walk to almost all of my classes as well.

Last weekend I went with a friend from work to a blues festival in a small town outside Santiago called Talagante. I’m pretty sure it was the first time I’ve ever heard the blues in Spanish, which was interesting, although there were a good number of songs in English too. I have to say that I was really impressed with some of the musicians, and now I’m pretty inspired to invest in a guitar here and start playing again.

Blog in Transition

For various reasons, I’ll be writing my future posts in a different style, which I hope will be of a higher quality and I expect should be a little more interesting for the reader. Unfortunately, the frequency of my posts may not improve much, although I will certainly try to avoid large periods of time without an update. In any case, thanks for reading and I hope you’ll continue to visit my site!