I literally could never be a Chilean. My host mom took me on a little trip from Friday night to Monday night and basically planned the entire thing as we went. She originally told em we were going to Chiloe, a huge Island in the south, but we never ended up making it there. We went to Valdivia, Puerto Montt, and Puerto Puelo.It was so great to just be flexible and go with the flow, but I'd say a good 70% of the time I had no idea where we were going, whose house we were at, how far the next leg of the trip would be, or anything. It was almost comical how disorganized and last-minute everything got planned. I'll try to explain a little bit of what we did so you can get just how loco travelling can be down here. Friday afternoon, my host mom told me we'd be travelling for the weekend and leaving friday night. And by friday night she meant 1am on Saturday. She couldn't tell me how many days we'd be gone for, so I just threw some clothes in a suitcase and hoped it would be enough. We left the house at 1am to catch a 2am bus, but I think we missed it or she just had the times mixed up, because we waited until 3am to get on the bus. The bus arrived at Puerto Montt at 9:30am, and the mother of some friend of hers (I think) picked us up at the bus terminal and brought us to their house. So we show up at this house with a grandma, a few kids, a teenager and a middle-aged lady and I'm prety sure my host mom didn't even know then before the trip, but they gave us breakfast and we just hung a out in their tiny little kitchen that you could barely walk in all morning. Later the girl (26yrs old) that my host mom knows, showed up and told me she was taking me to see the center of the city. Turns out she had mothers day shopping to do, so the grandma Maria came along and we ended up shopping in the mall and around the city all day. I literally had just met this girl and had no idea who she was but we spent the day together in the city--I guess that's normal here...? Then my mom got a call from a man at night to go do a house visit for his mother (My host mom's a Machi, a Mapuche healer) How this man got my host mom's number I have no idea, but he basically tolld us he was coming and showed up at the door 2 minutes later. He picked us up in this tiny pickup truck that was only meant for 2 people and brought us to this house that is basically what you would sleep in if you went to a really rustic sleepaway camp, and we just sat there and talked forever. The patient, whoever she was supposed to be, never showed up, so my mom was just like Okay, lets go home now. So this guy drove us home and we went to bed--no house visit done. The next morning, as I was about to get into the shower my host mom told me that the guy with the pickup truck was waiting outside. I literally had no idea we were leaving anytime soon or where we were going, but I took the quickest shower of my life and packed up my things. He drove us for hours into the lake region which was absolutely gorgeous. I was squished and practically sitting on my host mom's lap the entire time but we made it eventually to some little village where we went to two people's houses for lunch and tea. I literally couldn't tell you if I tried how my host mom knew them, and how it happened that this guy who drove us knows them too, but I just kind of went with it. To get to one of the houses we had to climb up a cliff and go by a waterfall, which was pretty cool. and the views were amazing. I'll try to post pictures soon if I can! Then this random guy drove us back to Puerto Montt after a few hours on the windy dirt roads dropped us at the bus terminal so we could go to Valdivia. My host mom hadn't thought to call ahead to check that there were buses on sunday, and there weren't. so she called some relative who lives nearby to come pick us up so we could sleep there until a morning bus left. Then like 2 minutes after that she decided she's rather stay at the house we stayed at before, so she called them again and told them we're coming back to spend another night. Then she ahd to call back the relatvies to tell them that we wouldn't be coming after all, and they shouldn't come to pick us up. They were pretty mad that we told them we were coming and then cancelled, but she didn't seem to be too worried about it. So we went back to the house to spend the night and took an 8am bus to Valdivia. There we met the family of one of her patients, and they brought us to the hospital to visit the patient. We had to go into the hospital in 2 groups and pretend I didn't speak any English and needed someone to translate for me so they would let in more than one person. We visited this random patient (I have no diea how my host mom became his Machi--he lives 3 hours from her) and then I had another random city tour with the patient's 14-year-old daughter. We visited the sea lions in the river and went to the mall. Then we went back to their house and met her brother, who told me to come along because he had to pick something up at his college. Turns out he had an engineering class at that time and was supposed to be in class. He brought me to class which had already started, and the teacher had me introduce myself to all the students and they were all laughing and asking me questions. Halfway through he was like, hey, do you wanna leave? I couldn't believe he could just leave like that in the middle of a class, so I was like no, you should stay. So we stayed and went to another class. The classes were so chill and laid back that people were playing music from their laptops, and this one kid who knows English was talking to me the entire class. Finally the class ended at midnight (Crazy that classes run so late into the night!), we went home to eat dinner at 12:30, and left to go catch a 1am bus home. We finally made it home at 4:30am. And I got up at 6:45 to go teach at the high school.
If all of this seems like a stream of consciousness or a big mess of events and ideas, that's because it absolutely was. It was really frustrating when I didn't understand who people were (I must have met 20 random people) or when or where we were going, but it was a learning experience for sure. And I guess that's just how travel is in Chile--the hour doesn't matter, knowing the people you're staying with doesn't matter, and neither does sticking with your original schedule. I can't describe how wacky and strange it was. ¡Que Raro!
I taught all morning at the high school which was amazing, and I'm doing a big physical therapy observation tomorrow in the hospital. My fingers hurt from typing so much to blog about that some other time. But other than my total lack of normal sleep lately and the cold rain, everything is good!
On another note, my host family in Arica invited me to a family wedding on the 28th! I'm working on switching my flight so I can get back to Arica in time for it--that would be SO MUCH FUN!
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