Hitchhiking, Baby Goats, and La Siete Tazas

Please notice our facial expressions are exactly the same.

This was at the little school

Last weekend three friends and I headed south of Santiago to visit El Parque Nacional Radal Siete Tazas. We left Friday afternoon, fully planning on arriving to the Park that same day, setting up camp, cooking a nice stew, and getting some rest for our exploration the next day. Unbeknownst to us, there are no buses to the Park past maybe 5 on Friday (we arrived at seven) and wouldn't be any until Sunday. Well that posed a big problem, since our whole weekend plans had revolved around actually being at the park. Not letting this unfortunate news get us down too much, we hopped on a bus that dropped us of about halfway to the park at a "pension" which was someone's house with rooms we could sleep in. The entire trip down we'd had it in our heads that we would be camping the next few days so sleeping inside sounded unadventurous and lame. We chatted with the owner, thanked him for his offer but told him that we were going to walk down the road and find a nice place by the river to camp. He looked skeptical.
About a half hour later, after realizing we had no place to sleep and it was almost dark, we sheepishly headed back to the pension where we were greeted with a "I told you so expression." We didn't get too soft though- we requested that we sleep outside still. I still think he thought we were crazy but he said okay and we setup our sleeping bags. Our host had lived in Boston for sixteen years, and he was excited to talk about his experiences and make sure we were enjoying Chile. Later his family came over. He made us disgustingly strong coke and rums and we hung around the bonfire on the back patio until midnight.

Buenos dias! Night 1

The next day we packed up our stuff and started walking down the road. Our only option was hitchhiking so we stuck out our thumbs and within minutes a truck pulled over. I was giddy with excitement. Since hitchhiking in the U.S. has always been a big no-no, i felt adventurous and dangerous and crazy, crammed in the back of a beat up Ford, making my way through Chile.
A half hour later we arrived at "Radal" which was the town right before the park. The man who picked us up ended up being a principal at the town's only elementary school ( an 8 student establishment! 8 students!!!) He and his wife insisted we come inside for tea and bread, then invited us to a traditional dance recital going on in one of the school's quads. We, with the other 10 inhabitants of the town, watched about 15 women, ages ranging from upper middle-age to straight up old, perform dances from Colombia, Peru, Brazil, and of course Chile. Since there were really only about 10 people in the audience and we made up roughly half, we were noticed immediately and the dancers insisted we take pictures with them. We got lots of hugs and kisses.
Right after we set up camp about 50 yards away from the school at a campsite. The principle (Hector) and his wife were ready to open up their school to give us a room to sleep so that we didn’t have to pay (Again, Chilean generosity never ends!) but we assured them we would be fine. The campsite was picture perfect- we layed our sleeping bags under hundred food high tress and five yards from a river.

The dancers

A bit later we met up with two of our fellow hitchhikers, Sergio and Paulo, two excited seventeen year olds who routinely came to Radal. (They were family friends of Hector) We hiked around seven kilometers ALL UPHILLto Parque Siete Tazas and saw, you guessed it, La Siete Tazas!

The beautiful Siete Tazas

As you can see, the waterfall is absolutely gorgeous. The color of the water is so turqoise it seems fake. The big earthquake in February drained all the water from the “seven cups”. Luckily they had filled back up since then and though the water level was maybe lower than usual, it didn’t seem to be any less beautiful than the tour books promised. We also stopped at a huge waterfall- El Velo de la Novia, which was just as cool as La Siete Tazas.

El Velo de la Novia

We then hitchhiked back down to camp, went swimming in the river, cooked a delicious potatoe-carrot-onion stew, read, enjoyed the weather, drank some wine, and tried really, really hard to understand our new friends. (It was impossible.)

The next day was really low-key. We lounged around, read some more, ate some more, and then hitchhiked back into Molina, our town of origin. We got to the bus station at 5:59 and to our luck, a bus left at 6:05 back to Santiago. Though it was quite possible the hottest, sweatiest bus ride of my life, we made it back to Santiago safe and sound.

All and all, this weekend was one of my favorites yet. We left Santiago completely unprepared and everything ended up working out spectacularly.

In other news. I saw the Chile vs. Uruguay game. Fans are vulgar in Chile. Moms, dads, kids all sang with much enjoyment “Concha tu Madre” (f*** your mother), and un urugayo me chupo por un quinentos which feel free to translate yourself. “Chupar” is the verb to suck.. pretty sure you can figure it out from there!
However the bus ride home was definitely the best part of the night. Four of my friends and I ended up getting on the right bus headed in the wrong direction. Forty five minutes after boarding, the bus driver told us that the route was finished. He opened all the doors to let us out and we stepped down into the GHETTO of Santiago. Dirt roads, tin-roofed houses, no street lights, no cars. It was around 12:30 at night. I have no idea what we would have done had our bus left. Thankfully our bus driver, bless his heart, knew we had gotten ourselves into a mess, told us he wasn’t going to let us get off there and drove us to a bigger street (still in the ghetto mind you) and told us which bus to take back to the center of town. He then parked the bus and waited until he knew we were safe. What a sweetheart! From there we boarded another bus where we were fortunate to have the ONLY slow bus drivers in all of Santiago. Luckily he ended his route in the center of town and we were able to take a familiar bus and then taxi back home. I got home around 2:10 which is definitely late for me on a Wednesday night. The next morning, when I explained to my host mom what happened, she told me that she had never in her life gone to the area we were in and would only visit it if “One of her gringas got lost and she had to pick her up.” Whoops! Now that we are all safe, the situation is hysterical but I will make sure not to make that mistake in the future..

World Cup Player of the Tournament Diego Forlan, aka el amor de mi vida

That’s about it! I come home in exactly three weeks. I don’t know how I feel about this.
Ciao, Nos vemos pronto!!!
Hennessy