Month: November 2020

I can’t believe I’ve already reached 10 posts! I suppose it is only right to dive into more of my adventures in Chile. Before I begin, someone asked me in my last post if I ever thought about how I would have developed differently if I had ended up in a different country, and if I think I would have also learned different things about myself through a different experience. To be honest, I thought about that a lot both during and after my exchange. Whenever I was feeling anxious about making friends, frustrated by something that happened, or just generally insecure and lonely in Chile, I couldn’t help but think about how the situation might had been better if I had been placed in a different country. It’s kind of a natural place for the brain to go when dealing with something difficult or emotional, and I bet some of you may feel the same way about attending Penn State vs another university you were considering.

Looking back on the whole exchange, I think much of the things I learned would have been pretty universal. Of course there were little things I got out of living with the host families I lived with that I may not have gotten out of living with a different host family in another country (like dealing with a divorce! Yes, my first host family whom I lived with for 6 months literally got a divorce while I was with them haha…and let’s just say it wasn’t exactly clean). However, overall, just the general position of being out of my comfort zone, having the spotlight on me 24/7, and having to stand up for myself for the first time really pushed me in ways I can’t even describe. It’s definitely a psychological thriller!

Anyways, lets get back on track. In this final post, I’ll be talking about my trips with the other Rotary exchange students and the one big senior trip through my school.

1. Saltos de Laja

This is the first place I went in Chile after my flight to Concepcion, the largest city in the Southern region. The past Rotary Youth Exchange students who left Chile in High School to study abroad elsewhere hosted the event, so it was honestly an overall blast. We had dance parties every night and went on hikes during the day (and talked in English the whole time haha!)

2. Torres del Paine

There are usually three trips for the Rotary exchange students in Chile: a trip to Patagonia, Easter Island, and Atacama (the desert in the north). My parents said they would sponsor one, so I chose Patagonia (and I’m so glad I did because nobody ended up being able to go on the other two trips due to COVID!)

Patagonia I think is by far the most beautiful place I had ever been. The first day, we all flew to Punta Arenas, a large town at the southern tip of Chile right next to Antarctica. We spent a day there exploring a famous cemetery and climbing to the top of a hill to overlook the colorful town. That evening, we loaded into our bus and set off to Puerto Natales, a very small town bordering Torres del Paine National Park.

Torres del Paine is a gorgeous, mountainous park filled with blue water lakes, snow-capped mountains, and gorgeous waterfalls. I feel like the beauty of this park is so difficult for me to describe in words, so I’ll let you see for yourself through my pictures.

Staying in Puerto Natales was my favorite part of the whole trip because the town was so peaceful and beautiful. One of my exchange friends and I woke up at 5am every morning (and went to bed at 2 am every night! No sleep this week haha) to walk around the town at sunrise and get coffees at local cafes. One morning we saw a triple rainbow!

After a couple of days exploring Torres del Paine and the neighboring national park Bernardo O’Higgins (only accessible by boat), we headed back to Punta Arenas. My exchange friend and I still continued to explore the town early in the morning, even though there were protests going on (Oh yeah, Chile broke out in intense protests for social rights…the people wanted to change the constitution. Many exchange students living in the capital and other major cities got sent home or sent to a new country due to the violence). One night at 2am, a lot of us on the trip took a polar plunge in the Straight of Magellan.

My favorite day in Punta Arenas was probably when we went to Isla Magdalena, an island that hosts hundreds of thousands of penguins! I had never seen a penguin before, so this was quite the exciting adventure. We did get sea sick on the way over, however, so several of us vomited on the way back.

Once we flew from Punta Arenas back to Puerto Montt (a town about 6 hours south of my town and north of the Patagonia region), we spent the whole day exploring waterfalls and visiting Saltos de Laja, the waterfalls I talked about in my previous post. My favorite moment was swimming in a lake right under a giant, snow-capped volcano in the freezing water. It was such a pure moment with my friends!

3. Bariloche, Argentina

The school I went to on my exchange, Colegio Cholguan, plans a senior trip for every class the summer before their senior year. It is called a Gira de Estudio, which translates to a study tour. This tour is actually very common throughout Chile…almost every high school participates in one. My grade chose to go to a town named Bariloche in southern Argentina. To get there, we drove in a TourBus for over 20 hours! This was yet another week that I got maximum 3 hours of sleep a night…

The purpose for us going to Bariloche all together was to have fun and make memories before the final year. Many of the kids in my grade had been in the exact same small, 30 person class since pre-kindergarden, so this trip got very emotional at times when my classmates realized they will be moving on to the university in a year or so.

The bulk of our activities took place outside. We would wake up at 7 am, go to a whole days worth of activities, eat dinner, then get ready to party from 12 am until the next morning at the discoteca and then the hotel after (there was ALWAYS an afterparty after we went clubbing). Some of the day activities included white water rafting, zip lining, hiking, kayaking, ropes courses, taking gondolas to mountain summits, ice skating, and team building activities. It was so crazy how much we were able to fit into a week…I guess we were only able to do it all because we just simply didn’t sleep!

The disco at night was extremely fun as well. Bariloche is known for its world-class clubs, so we would go to a new disco every single night. I remember one of them was six floors high with a different type of music on each floor (but primarily reggaetón, a very popular type of music in Latin America and FANTASTIC for dancing). The whole time I was in Bariloche, I just couldn’t help but think about how half the things we did would NEVER be permitted through school in America. Honestly, that sums up a lot of my experiences in Chile, even with my host families. Lots of crazy experiences…

 

Exactly two years ago, I very spontaneously decided to apply to be an exchange student for my senior year of high school. I remember I didn’t even tell my parents when I sent the first email to my local Rotary club — I had been involved with Rotary since I was sponsored to participate in an outward bound girls leadership expedition (side note: if you are into group backpacking trips, outward bound is great! It appears expensive, but if you reach out to one of the coordinators living in your area, there are a ton of scholarships available and trips that are completely free of cost!). The president of my club almost immediately connected me to the district’s Rotary International youth exchange coordinator, and I began filling out my application to live for a year in a different country (still without my parents knowing…)

A couple weeks later, I realized it was probably time to fill in my parents. They too felt an exchange would be an adventure for me and thought senior year was the perfect time to do it. So, we spent a night editing my essays and sent in the application! My top choices were in South America because I really wanted to learn Spanish, and I was very fond of the food and culture (and had never been!)

About a month later, in the beginning of January, I got a call from the district coordinator informing me that I would be sent to southern Chile! I was beyond excited because I knew the south was filled with mountains and volcanoes. I didn’t know who my host family was until maybe a week before I left, and I really only got to talk to them (over email) once before I was actually on the plane. Trust me, the feeling I got when boarding the plane in Philadelphia was like no other I had ever experienced before. I b had no idea who I would be living with, let alone who I would be meeting up with at the Santiago airport. Butterflies were not only multiplying in my stomach; they were EXPLOADING.

I had a lot of crazy experiences throughout my year in Chile, like unexpected traditional dance performances (and that is why you should actually learn the language and not just agree to everything anyone says to you to hide the fact that you don’t know what they are talking about!) and action packed trips with my host families, Rotary, and my school. I could go on telling stories and talking about culture shock for pages, but I do realize this is a TRAVEL blog. So, if you are interested in hearing more about my stories or even my struggles with COVID in a different country, I did (kind of) keep a blog while I was there. In this post, I’ll talk about the different places I went with my host families when we did get a chance to travel!

1. Las Termas de Chillan

People from all over Chile come to the ski resorts surrounding Chillan. Unfortunately, my host dad was the only skier in the family, and he couldn’t ski due to a recent surgery, so we didn’t end up visiting the actual ski resort. However, we did stay in a cabin nestled right beside Volcan Chillan, which was an epic active volcano I could see in the distance from my town.

My favorite activitiy in Las Termas de Chillan was probably swimming in the hot springs. They smelled like sulfur, but they were very relaxing and literally right at the base of a mountain range. When my host sister and I couldn’t handle the heat, we would leave the pools, jump around the snow in our bikinis, then run back into the thermal pools.

We also visited a park that took tourists on walks through a “mystical” forest. There were real life looking figures from our favorite childhood movies, like Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter, and the Lord of the Rings. This hike was especially fun because both my host siblings were really young and they thought some of the figures were real.

2. Pucon

This was definitely my favorite place I visited with my host families. Pucon is a small tourist town right on the shore of Villarica Lake, which outlooks Villarica volcano. I visited for the first time in the winter/spring (October). It was too cold to swim in the lake (although I did take a dip one of the days), so we spent a lot of time exploring the town, eating lots of asado (barbeque), and going on boat rides.

The second time I went, I was only with my second host family. Although I was still living with my first host family, my second host family wanted to take me on their vacation with them. I remember when they first invited me, I had just finished dance class and was really exhausted. They told me to pack up my stuff because I’d be leaving the next day. I kind of just assumed we would only be there for a couple of days, so I brought maybe 2 shirts, one pair of shorts, one pair of shoes, and like three pairs of socks and underwear. Once I traveled five hours south with them and unpacked my stuff, my host mom exploaded with laughter when she saw that I had almost no clothes. Apparently, we were to be there for a week and a half, not a couple of days. She basically had to buy me a whole new wardrobe…

3. Huilo-Huilo

My second host family took me to Huilo-Huilo while we were staying in Pucon. Because they knew I love to hike, we went on many family hikes through the dense rainforest-like forest and saw lots of gorgeous mountain views. Some of the highlights for me were hiking the La Leona trail to a series of gorgeous waterfalls and taking a gondola to the top of a mountain to see a beautiful snow-capped volcano off in the distance. If I ever get to go back here, I will definitely check out some more hikes because they have some of the best ones in the country!

4. Saltos de Petrohue

The Petrohue waterfalls were probably one of my favorite destinations in all of Chile. Funny story: I actually first visited the falls with my Rotary crew as part of our Patagonia tour. When my host parents mentioned going there, there was kind of a miscommunication with my host parents: I told them (or I TRIED to tell them) I thought the falls were beautiful, as I had seen them with my exchange friends, but they thought I said something more like, “wow, the falls are gorgeous and they are at the top of my Chile bucket list.” So they basically went out of their way to take me to the falls, and at that point, I didn’t have the heart to tell them I had already seen it. But it was so easy to act like I hadn’t seen them before because they really are the most gorgeous waterfalls I have ever seen.

5. Vina del Mar

Vina is a beach town about 7 hours north of my town and one hour west of Santiago, the capital. My first host family LOVES Vina because they love the heat, sun, and ocean. They took me to Vina twice: once in the spring and another time over the summer. We were supposed to go over the summer for two weeks, but my host parents got divorced while I was living with them (story for another time haha), and the apartment was my host dad’s.

Anyways, Vina was super fun both times: we went to the beach almost everyday, drank our pisco sours, and relaxed in the sun. I also went running every morning, which was honestly amazing because I would explore a new part of the city everyday. My “run” would sometimes turn into like a three hour run/walk if I got up early enough.

We were also in Vina during the Vina festival, which is the biggest music festival in South America. Because Chile had many protests since October 2019 when the government raised the metro prices, people were protesting the festival of Vina. They didn’t think it was appropriate to celebrate when Chile still had unjust medical, education and social security programs. As a result, we had to stay in the apartment for the last day and watch protests from above.