The Jungle!

I arrived at the park (Ambue Ari) last Saturday. It took a few buses and a lot of hours to get there but I finally arrived! I started training with Leoncio (an adolescent, male puma) on Sunday. The two girls who were working with him for the past month have been training me all week and tomorrow I will start working with him and another volunteer. Even though I have only been here for a week this is already one of the most amazing experiences I´ve had. In the mornings I feed the Macaws, (there are 10 of them here and they´re beautiful birds!) one of them bit me once but it was nothing serious. Ironically, most of the injuries here are not even from the cats, they are from the monkeys or birds. I know some of you were a little worried about me coming here but the organization is awesome and it´s very safe here. They have a medical facility at the park and any injuries that have happened in past years haven´t required more than a few stiches which they can do right at the park.

There were about 45 volunteers here when I arrives but a few people have left and some more are leaving this weekend. Hopefully more people will show up because when they have low numbers the cats only get walked once a day instead of twice. If they do have a shortage of volunteers I will get training to work with another cat and do a half day with each one. Leoncio is adorable and has awesome eyes. I havent been able to take any pictures yet because new volunteers are not allowed to use their camera in the park for a week as part of our training. Better to be paying attention rather than snapping pictures!

There are about 20 cats here and around 30 birds. There are also two monkeys. One is a howeler monkey who does the wake up call every morning at 6:30am and he sleeps in one of the bunk houses ... with a volunteer! I´m in Trinidad today to use the internet and it is the closest ATM (4 hours away!) but I´ll be back at the park tonight. A few other volunteers came too because we all had to use the ATM.

We work everyday except we have a half days on Saturdays. There is another town, Guarayos thats closer to the park and has internet access so next weekend I will hopefully be posting some pictures!

Endeaveors in Bolivia

After two attempts, I was finally able to cross the border into Bolivia. After flying to Arica, I bought a ticket for an overnight bus to Cochabamba. This was the beginning of disaster! I was waiting for the bus on the side of the road with about 40 other people and when we finally got on at about 2am it was gross and smelled awful. When we arrived at the border it was closed (of course) and I was feeling really sick from the altitude! So we waited there for about 3 hours until the border opened ... in the cold. This is when I started really running into problems. When I went to fill out my visa application I realized the price had gone up and I didnt have enough money. I thought I would just go to and ATM, but no - the closest ATM was 2 hours away! Basically there was no way they were giving me a visa and the bus was like we´re leaving so get your backpack. Luckilly another bus came through that was going back to Arica and they let me on for free.

Back in Arica things got much better. I got a hostel, went to the beach and watched the sunset. Then I went out to eat. got ice cream, and bought myself a scarf for my bday :) The day was not a total disaser! I got a new ticket for a bus to La Paz the next morning and this time I took out more than enought cash for the visa. This bus was much better and even included lunch. Choosing a bus company is kindof a crapshoot here beacause you never know what to expect, but I lucked out this time.

When we arrived at the border half of the officials were like hey you were here yesterday! haha not funny ... They only accept US dollars for the visa so I went to change my money from Chiliean pesos to USD when a new problem surfaced. The exchage rate the wonem at the border were giving was horrible and they were only going to give me $129 when I had the equivilant of $160! I was lucky again because the nice couple I had met earlier on the bus paid the difference for me - I did not want to go back to Arica again!

I ended up getting off the bus in Oruro because it is closer to Cochabamba, which was my next destination. Carnival is going on this weekend in Bolivia so everything was a little crazy there. Oruro was pretty cold and it had just started raining so I decided not to stick around to get hit by water ballons (they sell them on the street for kids). I found a bus heading for Cochabamba an hour later and now I´m here!

In an hour Im taking an overnight bus to Santa Cruz, which is my last stop before the animal refuge. A lot of people here are familliar with Inti Wara Yassi and I´ve heard only good things so far. There is no electricity at the park but there is a town about 45 min away that supposedly has a realiable internet connection. As of now, Im planning on updating the blog on the weekends when I go into town. Thanks for all of the birthday wishes! :)

Last Day in Santiago

Today is my last day in Santiago, tomorrow morning I'm flying to Arica. I might spend one night there depending on the bus scheduals to Bolivia. We got back late last night from Con Con and I had a great weekend on the coast. It was Julio's cousin's birthday and his family had a big BBQ. I love the food here! I ate tons of chilean food. Later that night we all headed back to Julio's family's house to hang out and I got mini lesson on how play the conga drums, apparently I was pretty good at it.

Liz, Emily, and I walked around Valparaiso on Saturday and it was very nice. It is often referred to as the city of art because there are many artists living there; and we went into a lot of cute art studios. Unfourtunately, the art has gotten pretty expensive due to the large amont of tourists that visit Valpo. I got a really cute pair of earrings there though. Later Saturday night we went to a salsioteca (like a discoteco, except they play salsa music). Well, to say that I am not the best salsa dancer would be an understatement. I've been taking lessons for awhile now, at school and with friends but I dont think anything I've learned so far was helping me that night. Let's just say I felt bad for my dance partners who got stepped on more than a few times, and I actually accidentally elbowed Julio's cousin in the face :(

After the salsioteca we headed to Vina del Mar where they have a huge clock made from flowers that actually works. I have no idea how, but I took pictures. It's cooler on the coast but the weather was great on Sunday so we all went to the beach. I haven't gotten sunburned again which great because there is a huge hole in the ozone layer abover Chile and the sun is very strong here. We got back to Santiago pretty late Sunday night so I'll be posting pics today. Im excited to be heading to a new country tomorrow!

Tourist Activities!

Today we are going to Concon, which is a popular destination for chilenos during the summer (now). Liz's friend from work, Emily is coming with us as well as Julio's 4 year old nephew who is adorable! We are all going to rent a 3br house and it's only costing $30/day ... total!

In the past few days I've been doing all the touristy stuff here in Santiago. I went to Parque Quina Normal and Parque Metropolitano where there is a huge statue of the Virgin Mary on the hill of San Cristobal, which is visible from the entire city. It is the largest open space in Santiago, complete with two swimming pools and countless gardens. I took the funicular up to see the view which was awesome because you can see the Andes mountains as a backdrop to the city.

I also went to Cerro San Lucia and Plaza de Armas, two other historic sites in Santiago. Cerro San Lucia was built in 1875 and was once a hermitage, then a convent and was converted into a military bastion. There were fountains and winding staircases throughout the remains. I walked around downtown Santiago too and saw La Moneda, where the president works; and some other historic buildings. When we get back on Sunday I'm going to upload my pictures from the past 2 weeks. We probably won't have internet access at the house so until then ... enjoy the snow :)

A busy week in Santiago

After a tiring weekend and lack of sleep we took it easy and decided to stay in Sunday night. During the day we went to the feria, which is a huge market they have in Santiago every sunday. I drank mote, the national chilean drink (according to Julio). It was very sweet and kindof tasted like peach iced tea. We also ate completos, which are hot dogs with tomatoes, avocados, and mayo - very popular here! Then we headed to La Caro to eat lunch with Julio's family and later on Liz and I tried some Chilean wine, which was very good.

I found out about a glassblowing place here in Santiago so we are going to check it out today or tomorrow. Later this week we are going to Concon, which is on the beach near Vina del Mar and Valparaiso (two popular areas to visit). It's about 2 hours west of Santiago. We'll be staying with more of Julio's family there and then come back to Santiago for a few days before we all fly to Arica on the 17th. Liz and Julio are going to Cusco to see Machu Picchu and I'm going to take a bus to La Paz and make my way to the animal refuge. Im really excited to go there! I haven't decided exactly how long I'm going to stay there yet but it will be for at least one month.

I've finally finished uploading all the pictures from Argentina and Uruguay, which would have been impossible if Liz didn't have the internet at her apartment. I've also had a litte extra time on my hands due to a little problem we encountered this weekend. During the bbq we closed the door to the room Im staying in here because a lot of people were smoking (nothing in S. America is non-smoking!). Well, later that night we realized that someone had accidentally locked the doorknob and neither Liz or Julio had a key! So, for the rest of the weekend I slept on the counch and luckilly someone is coming to unlock the door today.

Estoy pasando la raja!

I've been at Liz's for a few days now and Im having a great time here. Getting into Chile was a process though... I noticed that there was a lot of traffic at the border but it was in the middle of the night so I figured I would just go back to sleep. Around 4:30am I woke up and realized that we had to actually get off the bus to go through immigration and customs. It took forever! There were probably over 100people in line already but at least the line was moving. Well, after I waited for about an hour and thought I was all set I realized that I still had my customs form. I was wondering if they were going to check our bags but I figured it out quick enough. We had to take all of our luggage off the bus and get it examined and of course they thought I had fruits and vegetables in my bags which then required extra screening. The whole process took a few hours and I finally arrved in Santiago at about 11am. I realized during all of this that Liz was expecting the bus to arrive at 6am! It's a good thing she wasnt planning on picking me up at the station. Luckilly she's taken plenty of public transportation in Latin America to know that arriving on time means arriving sometime that day.

Liz and Julio both have the next two weeks off of work and they've planned a bunch of stuff to do when I'm here. We went to the mountains one day and went swimming which was a lot of fun. They also had a bbq for me last night and the food was amazing. Tonight we're going to go out with some of thier friends to the discos. It's been nice to sleep in a bed everynight and be able to relax! And I've been able to give my feet a rest from all the walking I was doing before. The weather here is awesome, it' the summer in Chile right now and most days are sunny and between 70-90F. I think I will miss the snow by the time I get home though.

Most of their friends and family only speak spanish so I have been getting A LOT of practice. At first it was really frustrating to not be able to understand everything and even when I could understand I wasnt able to say much. I've been learning a lot and I can already communicate much better than when I arrived. Most Latin Americans will agree that Chilean spanish is very difficult to understand, even for fluent spanish speakers because they speak very fast and use a lot of slang terms. Catchay?

I've stated uploading my pictures and on the right side of the page there are links to the different albums. It's been taking longer than I expected so I'm still adding captions and uploading pictures. Hopefully they will all be up by the end of the week!

Mendoza

Today is my last day in Mendoza. It´s much smaller than Buenos Aires but it is a nice city. They have a huge park with a lake in the middle. Mendoza is right in the middle of the wine country here in Argentina so there are a lot of winery tours. It is a popular place for backpackers to stop but is seems as if many people just decide to stay here. I´ve met a lot of travelers that were passing through and ended up staying for months. Tonight I will take an overnight bus to Santiago, it is supposed to be a very scenic ride so hopefully it will be light enough to see the scenery for some of the ride. My seat is in the front row which is good for the view of the scenery, and bad for the view of the bus flying through the roads in the Andes! The drivers here are a little crazy but accidents are rare. I´m excited to see Liz and finally get to eat home cooked food! (I´m getting tired of bananas) Julio is supposed to be a great cook so maybe I will learn how to cook some Chilean food. They´re having a BBQ on their rooftop this weekend so that should be lots of fun. When I wake up in the morning I´ll be in Chile!

Uruguay for a day

I booked my ticket for Colonia del Sacramento only one day before I wanted to go so I had to take a late ferry and return at night. I was lucky thought, because the sun doesn´t set until 9pm here and I got to watch the sun set over the water before I left to return to Buenos Aires. Colonia is a small historic city, it is considered a UNESCO world heritage site. It was used for many years as a port to illegally smuggle goods into Argentina and to avoid tariffs on imports. The port is no longer used except for recreation. Colonia had a very relaxed, beach city tempo ... the drivers even stop for pedestrians! (In the rest of this continent pedestrians are seen as moving targets) When I returned to my hostel at 11:45 my Brazilian friends were waiting and we all decided to go out for one last night in Argentina together. Buenos Aires is the city that never sleeps. The portenos have dinner around 11, sometimes take a siesta, and then the clubs open at 2am and stay open until people leave for breakfast. No wonder the streets are empty on Saturday and Sunday mornings! I haven´t been able to upload any pictures yet, but when I get to Liz´s in Santiago I´ll be adding them to my posts!