Chile Cotidiana

El blog de una estudiante de intercambio canadiense en Santiago de Chile.

[chilecotidiana]

There are more photographs I could post and more stories I could tell, but...  The chapter of my life of which Chile was a quotidian part is already ended. I've been in Canada for several weeks and at some point must close up this blog. I am so grateful for the wonderful experience I had in Chile and hope I'll be able to return someday. Until then, this blog will remain up as a haphazard record of my time in the Southern Hemisphere. If you're interested in following me elsewhere on the internet, I occasionally reblog/tumble art over at epiphi and even more occasionally post writing at Fear of Letter Writing. Goodbye for now!

[chilecotidiana]

There have been several major fires in Torres del Paine over the past decade; we spent hours walking through haunting dead forests. They seemed rickety, almost sketched-in, their bark and small branches burnt away to leave only a dried white core.

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A little village of tents beneath the mountains. I'd never gone hiking in such a busy place, but I loved the suppertime gatherings around propane stoves, passing spices round to other travelers, trading stories.

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Glacier grey, the mouth of the southern ice field, from near and far.

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I had a wonderful week in Patagonia; now I'm packing my bags for my return to Canada tomorrow. I'll post a few more photographs of my southern travels once the chaos of intercontinental travel has subsided.

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Tomorrow is my final exam, which means today was my final afternoon in PUC's geodesic study domes. I will miss their soft light but not their sweltering heat.

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I went camping in the "Little South" of Chile this weekend, in a national park called Las Siete Tazas. The landscape there felt much more familiar than Santiago's arid, Mediterranean surroundings, but I've never seen a waterfall in Canada quite so splendid as Salto La Leona. We scrambled down the hillside and riverbank until we reached the falls, where there was swimming to be had in the icy, jewel-blue water.

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Final Buenos Aires picture: Avenida 9 de Julio, the world's widest avenue, seen at night. Tune in next week for photographs of me studying for my exams in Santiago (not as exciting).

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El Ateneo, a bookstore built in an old Buenos Aires opera house. It seemed as if half the storefronts in the downtown were cafés or librerías, but El Ateneo was the most splendid of them all.

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According to an Argentinean fellow I met in my hostel, Buenos Aires is the city with the most Jacaranda trees of any in the world. They were blooming all through the parks last weekend.

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One of the pocket-sized postcards I drew while in Buenos Aires. Though I hadn't planned to, it was sort of nice visiting there on my own. I sat drawing in cafés for hours without holding back anyone's travel plans, buying pastries and delicious Argentinean coffee to keep me company.

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I've returned to Santiago after a lovely but near-sleepless weekend in Buenos Aires. More photographs forthcoming when I am better rested! (This is Borges outside the National Library).

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A few more landscape images from Yerba Loca. There's something really special about the stark rock faces of the mountains here, bare of trees and brushes. I feel put in my place by their massiveness in time and space.

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Trekking through the fog in Yerba Loca.

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Views of the trail in Parque Cordillera Yerba Loca, near the beginning and the end of our climb into the mountains. It was hard for my body and my mind, both accustomed to Southern Ontario's horizontal cities, to accept the rapid changes in climate that we experienced as we walked upwards. The hillsides were arid and cactus-speckled, then covered in moss and brushy grasses; then raw, snow-dusted rock faces; then we were at level with the clouds and I watched them hang in the sky beside me, clumps of dense opaque air.

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Some photographs from my Saturday hike up Cerro Alto Las Vizcachas, where I truly felt the meagerness of the ozone later in this part of the world. Blackened branches crumbled along the path, their rotten cores turned to sand in the unrelenting light. The shapes of evening shadows were visible no matter the sun's position, a pattern of damp blue grasses clinging to the dusty hillside. The backs of my ears are still rosy from their burn.

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On Friday, a number of Santiago's museums were open until midnight. In the lobby of Bellas Artes, I lay inside an egg woven from branches and looked up at the rusty dark ceiling. Despite the pulsing synthesizers and murmuring crowd, I felt insulated and tranquil.