January and Pleyades Campo!

January!!

2010 will be great!

In the second weekend of the year I took a Friday off work and went to Pichilemu for a long weekend. This is a smallish coastal town just 3 hours from Santiago with big waves and black sand. (This is actually a killer because it absorbs the heat and you get burnt from above and below...) The buses in this country are cheap, comfy and usually interesting for some reason and so the ride to Pichilemu was predictably eventful.

Sunset in Pichilemu with me freezing my ass off in the water.

It was a beautiful sunny day with no clouds and then, over the horizon, I spotted what looked like a raincloud. This put us in a bad mood that our trip would be spoiled until we noticed the unusual volume of firetrucks overtaking us and realised that the cloud was smoke. It seemed like a vast area of mountains and scrubland was on fire and it was very surreal as we passed through it; like some kind of fairground ride we were suddenly driving slowly and with the windows closed through an orangey, ochre light and looking out onto the scorched, deserted landscape. How poetic. A while later we were on the Pichilemu town boundary and were stopped by a police patrol. They wanted everyone’s I.D. cards or passports and clearly Clay and I didn’t have either of these just to go to the coast so we had to get off the bus and talk with a very self-important carabinero (policeman) who said it was a “grande problema” over and over. He apparently decided we were probably not a threat to the town and let us off with a warning.

VE vs Chile Football in Pichilemu

Once in Pichilemu we found a perfect campsite 50m from the sea, run by a very smiley middle-aged man called Patrick and his brothers. It looked like they had just bought the land and started up the business because it was quite ramshackle and every day we were there they were building or painting or renovating something. However when we asked they said they’d lived there for 5 years. That’s the laid-back, slowly but surely Chilean way I suppose. Anyhow, they let us use their kitchen to cook eggs and gave us beers and sold us homemade bread fresh from the huge coal-fired oven and were generally very good hosts. Everything about the weekend was great apart from the surfing which was strange seeing as that was the reason we had gone in the first place. We hired boards and tried our best but a mixture of unpredictable waves and a very strong current kept sweeping us into the centre of the bay and away from the good spots. At this point we would have to paddle into the beach (against a different current) and walk about 15 minutes back to the entry point on the rocks – not fun. And so, when four more of the guys turned up we gave up on the surfing idea completely and went and bought 5 litres of wine ($2,500; £3 J) and indulged in slightly less active activities such as arm wrestling drunk Chileans, drinking games and cooking fresh fish and clams on a BBQ. (Yes, alcohol does go hand-in-hand with preventing food poisoning.) On the Sunday we walked south to the next beach along the coast called Punta Lobos, the point where international surfing competitions are held and the place where the real guys surf. We watched from the cliffs, empanadas in hand, and it was pretty impressive as they rode what must have been nearly 10 ft waves and pulled all the tricks you’d expect to see on a surf video.

At the beard-off with 3 Chilean friends.

The following week marked the end of a 6 week Beard-Off competition between Team Man that had started at Christmas. The idea was to have the best (not longest) beard and so on the night of Brys’ leaving despedida, everyone found some trimmers and fashioned their new style. Unfortunately I went a bit too far and let the guys loose on my head hair with the trimmers and so ended up having a Mohican for a couple of days. The eventual winner was Chris Wiggins due mainly to the fact that the judges were all the VE females and they felt sorry for his pitiful growth of a full 15 hairs on his chin over the 6 weeks.

Jornada is the mountain retreat for the volunteers organised by VE and it takes place about a month after every new class has started working (3 times a year). Its location is fantastic in the nearby Cajon Del Maipo valley in the Andes foothills. The idea is for everyone to reflect a bit on their work and any goals they may be working towards but also for everyone in the organisation to go away together for the weekend and relax in good company. It certainly was relaxing, lounging by the pool, playing frisbee and eating incredible food prepared by the team in the kitchen (including a certain delicious gluten-free German chocolate cake).

Clay at the summit of La Campana. Aconcagua is visible in the distance to the left.

The children at Pleyades have one two-week holiday a year when they go to stay in a cabin on a farm in the lake district, 10 hours bus ride from Santiago. Each volunteer is required to work for one of these weeks and so I had the last 7 days of January without kids and the first 7 of February with kids literally 24/7 (see below). The idea was to take advantage of the week off and go travelling but, due to a mixture of late notice and no-one being around to travel with, I ended up just going away with Barclay for a day hike. We went to Parque Nacional Campana which is supposed to be only 1 ½ hours from the city. However this is Chile and nothing is as it seems. The bus ride on the way there took us on a very roundabout route to the North which took just over 3 hours and then the following night we completely failed to get a return back to Santiago. The problem was that there wasn’t a bus stop (we’d just been dropped on the side of a random road the day before) and so we followed the locals’ advice and sat on a very particular bit of pavement. For 2 hours. By the time it was dark and clear that there wasn’t a bus coming, we decided to get one to the coastal city of Vina instead as this, despite being completely in the wrong direction, would actually have a bus terminal so we could get back home. However by the time we got to Vina the last bus to Santiago had already left and so we we’re stuck, with our packs and hiking boots on, until 5.30 am. It didn’t turn out too badly because we went to the beach for a bit to sleep and then met one of the other volunteers who was in town with her ‘man’ for the weekend. We sat in the park with her in the early hours, smoked and drank and likened the stray dogs to the drunken Chileans stumbling out of the clubs and bars. The actual hike up La Campana was much harder than anticipated (1880m in 4 hours) and the last 200m was pretty much climbing with hands and feet. However the view from the top made it worth it as the mountain is very central in the country and so looking East you could see Aconcagua in the Andes (at 6,962m, the highest mountain outside the Himalayas) while to the West the Pacific was just visible through the sea mist.

Volcan Llaima seen from the Pleyades cabin.

The Pleyades Campo was by no means as relaxing but that’s not to say that it wasn’t enjoyable. As I said to Tia Miri on the bus back to Santiago, “mucho trabajo pero muy gratificante” and I’ll stick to that. The 10 kids, 2 volunteers and 2 Tias were all staying in a little cabin on a working farm in the lake district, near to Curacautin. The daily routine was for Brooke (the Ex. Director of VE Global and another volunteer at Pleyades) and I to be woken up at about 9 by the kids and then entertain them all until they went to bed at 11 at night. This meant reading, drawing, making bracelets, party games, dancing, going for walks and playing football etc. This really took it out of me as I had to constantly be sorting out issues or thinking of things to do. The fact that it rained for nearly half the time didn’t help as 14 people (and lots of flies) were all stuck inside, slowly but surely developing cabin fever. However on the sunny days we did go on some trips, to the nearby Volcan Llaima and to the fairground in the town (Pleyades vs candyfloss...). The best thing about the week was simply seeing the kids outside of their hogar and out of the city, in a place where they could explore and really enjoy themselves. I clearly remember watching some of them all playing together while running across a field and me having an intensely positive feeling, mirroring their mood, and also a very proud one due to the fact that I was helping that enjoyment come about.

I’m now back to the normal routine in Santiago, empanadas, table tennis, football, Frisbee and planning future travelling trips. At the start of March I will have been her 3 months, time truly flies, and so will be looking for a new place to live as my current contract runs out. This is really exciting both because I get the chance to live with some other people, hopefully not English or American, but also because I can experience another part of the city.

The next thing to get excited about is the trip to Patagonia I’m taking in the middle of March. Seven of us are flying very far down south to Punta Arenas at the tip of the continent and then doing the famous 5-day ‘W’ hike in Torres del Paine. Some of us are then making part of our way back to Santiago by a 4-day Navimag boat trip through glaciers and fjords which is meant to be stunning due to the scenery and ridiculous at the same time due to the fellow travellers and Chileans on the boat.

All will be revealed at the end of March...

Hope everyone is well, love to one and all.