This weekend, I went on a trip a few hours north with my program. The great thing about this was that I didn't have to pay for anything, besides the bus ticket which was US$10. Big lunches, sleeping arrangements and activities were all covered. It was nice to be taken care of and be able to just go with the flow. We went to a town up north called Olmué. We arrived in the morning of Saturday. While we waited for the bus to come get us, I met an adorable dog I named Hoja, which means leaf, because the first time I saw her she was rolling around in a big pile of leaves. She came over to say Hi, and I spent some time petting here with she thoroughly enjoyed. Absolutely adorable. There are at least 10 dogs that I would be willing to take home with me!!
We met up with everyone, it was 12 of us, of the 19 people in the group in total. When we arrived, our directors, Pame y Jeff, picked us up and we went out for lunch. Again, it was wonderful to have everything planned out. I ordered Pastel de Choclo which was very good, but I didn't finish it all so I took it to the house we stayed out to eat for dinner.
After lunch, we went to a botanical garden to look at Chilean plants and other Chilean pottery/ clothing. Afterwards at around 7 we arrived at the house for free time. We went outside and kicked a soccer ball around, then played cards. That was a lot of fun. We then had a little dinner, I had the left over Pastel de Choclo. We played another game of cards and then retired for the night.
The next morning, we woke up at 8:15 to eat breakfast and then go to La Campana which is a mountain nearby. We hiked about 5 hours up and another 1 and a half coming down. It was a lot of fun and absolutely beautiful. I took lots of nice pictures with my new camera (My host mom's mom went to NY, and my real mom was nice enough to give her a camera to take back with here, however my real mom forgot to pack the charger and computer connector, so when I buy one, I'll upload the pictures).
We got back to the bottom at around 2 and then went out for lunch. I got a roast beef type meat. It was good and we were all really hungry from the hike. At 5:00, the Santiago girls and I got on a bus to come back to Santiago.
I had a nice time being with all the other Middlebury students and get out of Santiago for a weekend for fresh air. I have traveled a lot in the past few weekends and it has been a great experience to see all of these new places. I need to start planning my traveling after university ends!
Here are some photos!
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| Some cacti at the Botanical Garden |
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| A view while hiking La Campana |
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| This one too |
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| A cave we encountered while hiking |
Please bring dogs home! I want a dog, I want 10 dogs.
ReplyDeleteLove and sorry again about the charger, etc,
Mom