Last Night In Chile

I guess I should start from the beginning. Having finished in Concepcion, I headed North 6hrs to Santiago to meet up with Elle, a friend from Cambridge. I spent Thursday and Friday catching up with her, Claudia, and Ellie, all from Cambridge. I also said goodbye to Paulo, a friend from Conce who I kayaked a lot with (you make remember him from my post about skiing on a volcano). To finish up in Santiago I had a last minute opportunity to go and listen to Diamela Eltit talking. I know I've bored most of you with her story already, for the uninitiated... She is an amazing experimental Chilean author who wrote subversive literature during the Chilean military dictatorship. My year abroad project centres around a translation of her work, 'Por la patria', and what problems arise during the act of translating such a subversive work that tries to give voice to the Chilean subaltern. Academic part over. Basically, Diamela has been really helpful in answering all my questions via email and I finally got the chance to meet her in person to thank her. She invited me to her house to dinner, but I couldn't as I had to catch a night bus almost straight away. If only I'd tried to organise a meeting sooner!!! So both disappointed and incredibly happy, I got on board a 6hr night bus to La Serena with Elle and her friend Lucy.

La Serena is a very peaceful town in the North of Chile. The plan was to spend the weekend exploring the town and the valleys around it, before the girls headed back to Santiago and I carried on my journey alone. We had a great time on Saturday going to the Pisco Mistral factory for a tour in Valle del Elqui, pisco being a famous Chilean licour. The tour ended with some free drinks which we drank whilst watching Netflix back at the hostel, not how I expected to spend the evening but I'm not complaining.

The famous Pisco vineyards

An unexpected end to the day, but relaxing nonetheless

Sunday was a bit of a mixed day. We had a look around the Japanese gardens, I know, weird right? Went to see an animal rescue sanctuary, and spent a while on the beach. I then said bye to the girls and buckled up for the next leg of my journey.

No clue where on earth they rescued this giant tortoise...

I headed North to Antofagasta on a 12hr night bus, sounds horrific but it actually wasn't that bad. Turns out there is absolutely nothing to do in Antofagasta, so I booked another 5hr bus to continue North and get to San Pedro de Atacama. I've not got a huge amount of time to cover the 7500km I need to cover to get to Colombia, so sorry Antofagasta but you didn't make the cut! San Pedro is a small settlement very close to the Bolivian border and it is in the world's driest desert. Jesus it's hot here...

San Pedro, sleepy and dusty

I arrived last night in time for a basic dinner and a good night's rest. Today I woke up early to explore the tiny town, everything was shut but as it turned 9 everybody started to wake up and the place started to liven up, I booked my tour to Uyuni, across the famous Bolivian salt flats which leaves early tomorrow morning and will see me cross the border into Bolivia and go through the salt flats over the following 3 days. I also booked a really cheap tour this afternoon to go and see the Valle de la Luna, the Moon Valley. This is honestly a breathtakingly stunning place, located in the Atacama salt flat only 10 minutes from the town. Our tour guide Mauricio was very entertaining and explained everything about the area.

Flashbacks to 127hrs anybody...?

We saw some of the amazing rock fomations, caverns and salt flats that the valley has to offer. The valley is supposed to be so similar to the surface of the moon and Mars that NASA brought their robots here to test them out! There are lots of lithium mines near the area, 70% of the world's supply is mined here, but all of them are tucked out of sight behind various mountain ranges. After exploring the park with our guide we headed up to the Coyote viewpoint to watch the sunset. It was a beautiful sunset with 360 degree views and the kind of tranquility you can only dream of in London. From the viewpoint I could see the mountain range that currently stands between me and Bolivia, as well as the Argentinian border. Tomorrow I head to Bolivia and will try to update you all on my progress before I leave there.

6 things Chile doesn't do so well...

This post is the follow-up to my other post "6 things Chile does well!" which you can read here: http://whereswahab.blogspot.cl/2016/11/6-things-chile-does-well.html. This one isn't designed to be a negative view of Chile at all, but if you do plan to come out here, there are a few things you should know that can be frustrating, different or just plain weird about Chile and Chileans.

1) Spanish - One thing I mentioned as a thing that Chile does well is slang, unfortunately this means that if you want to practise your nice formal Spanish, you've come to the wrong place. I've studied Spanish for a long time now, but even when I arrived I had literally no clue what people were talking about! At first, I thought that it was my poor level of Spanish, but was then told by many people not to worry, because it's actually the Chileans that can't speak Spanish. If you come here as a Spanish speaker you'll be confronted with all sorts of weird new vocab, verb endings, interjections, idioms, accents, not to mention that they talk ridiculously fast. However, after a couple of weeks of concentrating quite hard, I began to understand more and more of the lingo (better described as chileno than Spanish). Over 4 months in and whilst my formal Spanish went out the window a long time ago, my informal chileno has come on massively. It's definitely a challenge, but in a good way.

2) Punctuality - This is one thing that any English person who's been to Chile will be sure to mention. Chileans suck at arriving on time! It's a really laid-back and relaxed culture, which means that if you come from a time-obsessed place like the UK, you're gonna have some adjusting to do. Here are some tips to help you interpret what the Chileans really mean when they speak:
"Llego en 5" (I'll be there in 5) - "I'll be there in half an hour"
"Nos vemos mañana a las 8" (I'll cya tomorrow at 8) - "I'll cya tomorrow at 9"
"Voy en camino" (I'm on my way) - "I'm still at home, but I'll leave in a bit"
"Voy llegando" (I'm arriving now) - "I'm still at home, but I'll leave in a bit"

3) Bank opening times - I'm aware that this one is very specific, but this is one thing that drives me insane. Banks here open at 8am and close between midday and 2pm... If you work Monday-Friday, nine to five, how the hell are you supposed to do your banking?!?! Also, the fact you have to queue for ages every time you enter a bank doesn't help either.

4) Dairy - Food and drink are generally really good in Chile, there is one area however where it's lacking. Anything dairy based, cheese, milk, yoghurt etc. tends to be a bit rubbish out here. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of regional cheeses and stuff that are great, but I'm talking about the day-to-day stuff that you'd pop down to the local Tescos to get. Unless you can deal with only funny tasting UHT milk, and plastic laminate-style cheese, try and avoid the dairy section of Chilean supermarkets...

5) Machismo - For those unfamiliar with the term, machismo is the name given in Spanish to the macho culture that exists in many Latin American countries. For me directly this has not been so much of a problem, but does affect many of the girls I know in Chile. Some of the girls I know can't walk down the street without being cat-called or go to a club without being touched up. It's not that it makes them scared, Morocco for example is definitely a country where it becomes slightly dangerous, but it is unacceptable and uncomfortable.

6) Planning - Chileans in general are pretty poor planners, they don't really believe in it. It seems that the majority just believes that everything will work out in the end. I'm not saying this is a bad thing at all, it's actually something that I've learnt to adopt. It's not always necessary to have a plan, things do seem to turn out OK in the end.

This post is mainly just to write the other half of the post I wrote such a long time ago, to not leave my blog unfinished. Chile is an amazing country and has loads of great attributes, if you are planning a trip here, these are some things to bear in mind though! 

It's all coming to an end...

So it's official... I suck at blogging! It takes literally no time to write a post, but I always find myself forgetting. Well a lot has happened since my last post. Parent came and went, we had a great time travelling a large part of Chile. Year Abroad Project came and went. Ish. The only academic work I've had to do this year is a project for back home, we're supposed to use the whole year to make it really good. I did a lot of reading around the topic and left all the writing to the last two months (I guess that's on excuse for not writing anything on this blog).

On a side note, physio is going really well. I went kayaking on flat water for the first time since my accident on Saturday and it went really well. My shoulders feel strong and I'm more motivated than ever to get back to where I was. My last water and teaching related activity that I'll be doing here in Conce was a presentation/workshop I gave at the technical university, DuoC, on Monday. I gave a lecture style presentation to a group of tourism students and firemen about whitewater rescue, followed by a 2hr practical workshop outside. I really enjoyed it and after all my work in the field this year, I have a lot of contacts to arrange future trips and courses in Chile.

Back to my YAP. I've been lucky in that the author of the novel I'm writing about, Diamela Eltit, has been really helpful in answering all my questions via email so I've had some input directly from the creator of the novel. I'm now writing this post having completed everything, packed everything, and organised everything at my flat in Conce. Why am I packing? Because it's time to go! Yup, 10.5 months have flown by. Time to go home now.

Well actually... I am going to make my way home, but very slowly. I have until the 26th July to get to Bogotá, Colombia where my flight leaves from. For those unfamiliar with South American geography, this will involve a mammoth overland journey passing through Northern Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. I've chosen to take on the journey by bus because it means I can stop wherever I want and take it all the famous attractions, but more importantly a lot of places off the beaten track that don't see so much tourism. Nonetheless, this mammoth 7500km journey is gonna involve a lot of uncomfortable bus journeys. I'm travelling alone, which will be great because I have no plan or itinerary and can just go with the flow and enjoy myself, meeting new people on the way. If there is anything that I've learnt in Chile, it's that you don't always have to have a plan. If you're vaguely streetwise, have a good grasp of Spanish, and not bothered about comfort, things will always be ok in the end.

On that note, I will tentatively say that I'll try to write at least one blog post per country, but with my new 'screw planning' attitude, anything could happen. Below are some picture of my workshop on Monday. If I don't post before I get back, I'll see you all in 2 months!!!

Shahid in Rehab

OK, it's been way too long since my last post, being punctual is not a Chilean thing, and it seems that it's one thing that I'm slowly adopting... Whoops. Firstly, props to Regan for the creative title. Pretty much sums up what I've been up to for the past month and a half. My road to recovery with my shoulders is still in progress, I started in mid-March with physiotherapy. Physiotherapy started pretty light, physio elastic bands and bouncy balls to help with my mobility. Then, it ramped up quite a bit. I got given a set of weights and a set of four exercises to build resistance, mass and strength in my delts, pecs, rotator cuff muscles, and biceps. Twice a week the physio came and we would add weight and repetitions, the process is quite time consuming, I had to work out three times every day with the weights and the cycle took around half and hour each time. I got used to my muscles being sore all the time, but a kind of reassuring soreness, since I knew I was getting stronger. Now my course of physio sessions is over, but the recovery still isn't. I've been left with the weights and have to do a 40min workout with them twice every day, commitment hasn't really been a problem since I'm keen to get back in shape, or even in better shape than I was before, and get out on the river to do what I love doing.

Early on in the process, this thing has grown a lot...

I guess, not that Regan knew it, but this title also has a second meaning. I'm in academic rehab. That is to say that I've spent so long doing hardly any academic work that I had to work quite hard to get back into the swing of it. This term is when I've really got to put in the hours for my year abroad project. Once I got back into the rhythm of studying and researching I started to have a really good time with my project. I've heard so many year abroad students moan about their projects and how tedious it is, but if you choose a theme that interests you then it shouldn't be an issue! My project focuses around the translation of a very experimental novel called 'Por la patria', by the Chilean authoress, Diamela Eltit. I'm not only trying to translate excerpts from the novel, but also investigating the philosophical, technical and ethical issues that surround the translation of such a work. I've been lucky enough to be in personal contact with Diamela, who has really helped me in my project. I have also received lots of support from Dick Gerdes and Ronald Christ, who are translators of other novels by Diamela. It'll be a massive advantage to get back to Cambridge and be able to talk about a novel that I've actually been able to discuss with the authoress of that novel!

Last week we had a long Easter weekend. I set off with Roberto and Consuelo to go to Santuario El Cañi, a conservation park near Pucón. It's a pretty big area of protected forest, lakes, hills and wildlife. We took the tent and headed off on a very rainy weekend, when we arrived late in the evening we hiked for a while in the dark, up quite a steep and muddy path to Melanie's house. Melanie, somebody who I worked with during my break in Pucón, lives at the entrance to the park and was kind enough to let us stay the night in one of the cabins next to her house. After an evening of listening to Melanie's dad, an Englishman, talk about experiences in the santuario, spirituality, nature, and other interesting things, we set off early in the morning. It's about 4hrs to the viewpoint, up the biggest hill in the park. The ascent is pretty easy and the views are incredible!

When I got back though, somebody had robbed my English phone from my room. Damn. So I am now unable to take any kind of decent photos, nor have any English numbers. A few people have asked why I never reply to my messages, that's why. If you do get a reply from my English phone, it will be from a thieving Chilean...

Today is my last day at work for a week or two. My parents arrive in Chile tomorrow! We're going to spend 10 days travelling around together and I'll be showing them around the country that I now call home. I am expecting it to be a little bit strange to see people from home, since I've spend the last eight months living a completely separate life, but it'll be great to see them again. I hope to update you soon on how our travels go. Hopefully I'll have regained by English punctuality by then!!!

Back in Conce

First day of term. Damn. I was having a pretty great time travelling around and generally having an awesome time. Oh well, I had to come back and do a proper job at some point I guess. It's been a while since I posted so here's an update on what I've been up to.

The famous towers in Torres del Paine

What a dramatic place

I spent 4 days trekking in the Torres del Paine national park. This was truly one of the most spectacular places I've seen in Chile, breathtaking mountains, Patagonian wildlife, pristine rivers and lakes. The weather however was not 100% cooperative... I went with my housemate Roberto, who has a little bit of trekking experience and was also really looking forward to it. Day 1 was a beautiful day, sunny and not too windy. We got a precious view of the 'Torres' ('Towers') that give the park its name and after a decent dinner got some rest. Day 2 onward got worse and worse, driving rain and super strong wind. By the end of Day 3, Roberto had decided he'd had enough of walking in wet and cold clothes. By this time we'd done the whole 'W route' (named after the shape the route makes on a map) and seen the incredible Grey Glacier, and Day 4/5 would be devoted to walking the same paths in reverse, so it's kind of fair enough that he called it quits. From our location, there was a catamaran that zooms across a lake and takes you back to the park entrance. With 5 days worth of food, and I guess energy, left, I was keen to make the most of my time in the park so decided to combine the last two days of walking into one day and marched back across the park, aiming to beat the catamaran. 30km and 5 hours later I arrived at the park entrance, just 5 minutes after the catamaran!

Glaciers all over the place

Day 4 was definitely the worst weather, 70kmph wind and horizontal rain hitting me in the face. For me, that's why I went to Patagonia, to experience how wild nature can be. Some parts of the park, particularly the most photogenic parts and viewpoints were so cluttered with fumbling tourists that those parts lost their magic for me. I really valued the early start and awful weather that convinced people to stay in their tents and gave me a day to myself to experience how wild Patagonia really is.

Arriving back in Puerto Natales, the nearest town to the park (still 3hrs away though!), we had a decision to make, how would we get back to Concepción? If you look at a map of Chile you'll see that the country disintegrates into lots of little islands about two-thirds of the way down. Patagonia is right at the bottom of the island zone, which makes it incredibly slow and difficult to get back up to the North. Having flown in, we had no issues getting South. Roberto panic bought a 27hr bus through Argentina to Osorno... I took a bit more time to find a cheap flight to Santiago, I felt quite sorry for him though... I spent a few days in Santiago with some of the girls from Cambridge, thanks to Claudia and her flatmates for letting me sleep in her flat again! It was nice to see some familiar faces again and catch up with everybody.

Valerie got it right. I was a moron with frozen toes

I came back to Concepción for a day, then Loncoche for a day, then Pucón again. Phew. Busy few days of travelling! I chose to spend the last few days of my holidays in Pucón, one because I had stuff still there, and two because I enjoy spending time with the friends I made there. With Valerie, her boyfriend and Daniel, we went to the Termas Geométricas, the nicest hot springs in the area. On the way, we found a path to explore in the National Park of Villarrica. Safe to say I wasn't prepared to go hiking, I only had flip-flops! I went hiking regardless, but nobody told me there would be snow on the ground!! And then to top it off it actually started to snow, in Pucón, in the summer... It was an undeniably beautiful place though. Then we continued to the hot springs where we spent 4 hours defrosting, awesome.

I was in no way expecting it to be snowing :(

I spent a couple more days lounging around in the shop in Pucón, it's a place that has really shaped me. I'd like to think I'm a much better guide, coach and Spanish speaker than before. I also met a lot of people who helped me have a great time, shout out to Valerie and Daniel. Also thanks to the work-experience guys for generally making me laugh, definitely saw them get a lot better as paddlers over the season.

Shahid and Daniel, guiding dream team

The work-experience kids with the boss before the waterfalls dished out beaters

Now I'm back in Conce to start work, motivated and well rested. This semester will be an interesting one. I've gotta get cracking with my year abroad translation project, start physiotherapy, and go to the gym to build up muscle around my shoulders. I will be updating you soon to let you know how week 1 of classes went!

What a hectic few weeks!

Wow. It's been nearly a month since I last posted and it's been a pretty hectic last few weeks. Ecuador did not quite go to plan... If you want a day-by-day account of the trip, Witty wrote a pretty detailed one here: https://scientistinsitu.wordpress.com/2017/01/30/ecuador-kayaking-day-1/

We arrived at stupid o'clock in the morning and got a taxi to Baeza, around 2hrs from the capital. Baeza is a kayakers heaven, so close to world-class whitewater, cheap food and accommodation and lots of other paddlers around. It's a largely unspoilt area of the country, a very small town nestled in the steamy jungle. The first three days of paddling were absolutely amazing! Some of the most continuous and best-quality whitewater I've ever seen was on the agenda. I was on the top of my game, nailing the lines, super confident.

  

On day 3 of paddling, we were on a section called the "Cheesehouse" section, guidebook says IV+/V at medium levels and V/V+ at high. Ecuador water levels are a bit strange, it's kinda hard to gauge what level they're at, or at least kinda difficult to quantify it. The river was highish and we were bouncing our way down having a generally great morning. There were some harder rapids which I'd felt really good on and we arrived at a rapid called "Piggly Wiggly" (yeah, I know...). None of us could really see the rapid but it all looked fairly straightforward. Alex and Phil decided to portage and Alex had a quick look at the rapid to make sure it was more or less what we expected. Good to go. This was the first rapid of the trip that I went into without feeling 100% confident of a line. I'd formed an initial plan, then backed out and decided to follow another line just before I got on. Now sat on the river, I buckled up and dropped into the rapid. I was slightly surprised to see a big diagonal instead of a hole, but charged forwards anyway, got caught a little bit sideways and flipped. This is where my day took a turn for the worst...

I try to roll on one side and my paddle hits a rock, right shoulder gone. When I say gone I mean half-dislocated (subluxation for the jargon-lovers), out of the socket and immobile but not entirely hanging out. Fine. Try to roll on the other side of course, nope. Left shoulder gone. Adrenaline now kicking in I rolled up and made my way to an eddy at the bottom of the rapid, not in pain but definitely uncomfortable. I give the signal that I need help to Alex, and Witty styles the rapid. At this point I'm in quite a lot of discomfort and want to get my shoulders back in ASAP. I grab a rock on the wall and manage to pull my left shoulder back in, with a couple of attempts I got the right one in too. Witty helps me ferry across in my boat to the other side where there was a beach. I pop a few ibuprofen and show Witty that I've got full range of movement again. "Look Witty, I popped my shoulders back in! I can move the AGHHHHHHH *!@!**"

This is the general style of rivers in Baeza

Trying to show Witty that my shoulders were back in their sockets I fully dislocated my left shoulder. Yes, I know... What an idiot. I talk Witty and Alex though relocating in and we all breath a bit of a sigh of relief as it pops back in. 5 minutes, 3 dislocations and 3 relocations. Time to get off the river and get some X-rays. We walked out of the river and got taken by a local in his van to the hostel where I then made my way to A+E. Now I've had some time to reflect on the incident, it's kind of weird to write about it. It was probably a combination of being a little bit reckless and really unlucky, I could have flipped a million times in that rapid and not dislocated anything, capsizes happen all the time. But now with a 6 month recovery period ahead, perhaps the extra 10 minutes scouting would've avoided it. Oh well, not much I can do to change it now. I really appreciate having Phil, Alex and Witty there, they're definitely one of the strongest crews I've boated with and the atmosphere on the river is always great. Sorry for putting you all in a difficult situation, but realistically, if I was ever gonna have a dislocation, you're the guys I'd want there to deal with the fallout!

What an idiot...

The Dream Team

Don't look too happy to be paddling without me do they...

The rest of my trip was still good fun. Obviously, bitter-sweet seeing the others getting some amazing sections done without me. I went exploring in the jungle and town a lot, we looked around the capital city for a day, I spent a lot of time socialising with the other kayakers and practising my Spanish. Funnily, due to my strange accent and darker skin, all the Ecuadorians thought I was Chilean!

Hot springs in Papullacta.

No bottle of tequila should be this big...

Sketchy hitch hiking experience

La Cascada de San Rafael

A lot of my time was spent like this.

I got back to Pucón to continue my job as a kayak coach and guide. Yup, complicated... My boss was amazing about the whole thing. and in the last 10 days I've taught 5 full day kayak schools in Spanish. One of the work experience students would paddle me around in a tandem kayak, so I didn't have to use my arms, and I would coach from the front of the boat. It wasn't an ideal position but it was great to be back on a river so soon and doing what I enjoy.

Today I left Pucón for good and have started a long journey to Torres del Paine. I had an awesome season overall, and it definitely won't be my last season guiding in Pucon! Thanks to all the team at Kayak Chile for putting up with me and making the season great. I'm currently in Loncoche, waiting for a bus to Santiago (10hr buses suck). Then we'll fly to Punta Arenas and work our way down to the national park, spending a few weeks trekking before I have to be a proper adult and start teaching English again. I'm not sure how good internet access will be down there, and the truth is I want to disconnect for a while. So I'll speak to you all soon. Till Mid-March. Shahid.