The past weekend was the excursion for the whole Middlebury in Chile program. Everyone in the program travelled from their respective Chilean cities to Viña del Mar to go on a camping trip in a nearby valley.
The 4 of us from Valdivia left on Friday and flew to Viña del Mar, where we stayed the night in the house of the director of the program in a neighborhood called Costa Brava. The windows faced the ocean, where the huge waves were breaking on the cliffs with a spectacular amount of spray. We took a walk along the water as the sun set, looking at the skyscraper apartment buildings right along the coast and watching the waves smash against the rocks. Think of the movie Inception - in the dream world where the city is falling into the sea.
The next day everyone hopped on the bus to the valley, called Colliguay. Our tour included a swimming hole and 2 stops at local micro-empesas, rural businesses. The first was an artesanal wool/knitting/weaving place, and the second was a very senile peace-love-hippie couple who teach yoga and sell soaps and essential oils. We set up camp in a clearing, practiced riding the horses, and had an asado, barbecued meat cooked on a campfire.
Sunday was the big day: the Cabalgata, which basically means horseback ride. A total of 22 people mounted horses with Chilean saddles and headed up the mountain, led by our guides that live in the valley of Colliguay. I became good friends with my horse, whose name was Llanero Soltero. That means, more or less, "single man of the plains" or "solo cowboy" (kind of hard to translate). We had great weather: pure blue sky that set off the dusty paths, rocky summits and prickly green plants. Even though we were travelling up the coastal mountain range instead of the true Andes, the views from the tops of the hills were pretty amazing.
Where are all the pictures???
On Monday, our last day before returning to Valdivia by bus, we decided to wander the streets of Valparaíso. On our way up one of the cerros, hills, a young guy in a white sweatshirt asked us if we were looking for the more touristy cerro, and we didn't really respond but he gave us directions of how to get there, adding that it would be better to go to that hill because where we were at the time could be dangerous. We thanked him and kept walking.
Minutes later, white-sweatshirt kid and two other guys ran up behind us and snatched at our bags yelling "money" in english with thick chilean accents. They couldn't have been older than 18, but one of them had a knife. There were 4 of us, all with cash and cameras. We let them run away with our backpacks and wallets without fighting back.
A witness drove up in a car and helped us talk to the police, carabineros, and all of them were helpful. All of us victims of armed robbery are safe and sound now, we just have to get new Chilean ID cards and replace whatever else they took. Really, all I'm truly missing are the photos I took this weekend, which are still on the camera that they snatched away from me.
No comments:
Post a Comment