Chapter 5: South America

Welcome to my blog! I'm a graduate of UMass Lowell ‘18 where I studied journalism and professional writing, the environment, and art. I'm a passionate sustainability and renewable energy advocate. This is my personal blog about my experience moving from the USA to Chile. Previously, I used this blog to post about my semester living abroad in Costa Rica and to store research notes for my undergraduate courses. Most recently, I documented my research and ideas for my directed study where I studied the relationship between humans and the earth through the lens of art.

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This is a beautiful blog, love u crazy woman!! ..I miss you so much... max

who is this? you sent 1 message so i know you can send another :) 

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Why did I buy a round trip ticket to Lima, Peru

I'm back in Santiago for a few days and there are massive strikes today. The airport is closed, universities are closed, etc because everyone is on strike.

I almost went to Buenos Aires, Argentina to take a ferry to Montevideo, Uruguay this week but I was so exhausted from Lima that I decided to catch up on Z's, write and reflect as it's my last week down here, plan my last few days, and attempt to calculate how the hell I'm gunna bring my new luggage home.

I'm not excited to return to the cold weather. I would much prefer to stay in Spring and Summer down here. Chance of snow at 2pm today in Boston. It's sunny and like 75 degrees Fahrenheit in Santiago.

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Journey to Peru!

I'm standing in line in the airport in Calama, Chile to fly to my long layover in Santiago, Chile to wait for my flight to Lima. I'm excited to see a new city, especially with everything going on in Chile right now. When I was looking at flights to Peru, I looked at places near Calama because I'm so close already I figured it would be easy to get a cheap direct flight. After my search, it turns out the cheapest flights all had layovers. A bunch of them were in Ecuador or Bolivia which could have been cool.

Boarding now! I hope I don't have any trouble with my "personal item" carry on bag.

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Look at this wind power!!!

I love it! A subsidiary of Enel Green Power Chile Ltda operates this wind farm called “Valle De Los Vientos,” or “Vally of the Wind.” 

There are 45 turbines here that have a capacity of 90MW that were connected to the grid in 2014. For more details, here is Enel’s press release.

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Landing at the Calama Airport in the desert in Nothern Chile!

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Views of the Chilean landscapes of the Andes Mountains and the desert are UNREAL from up here

This gif does not do this view any justice.

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First time for everything, right?

First time getting frisked at the airport. Normally if I don't make it through the big metal detector in airport security, someone just uses a smaller metal detector and the issue is my watch or something. This time, the nice lady guard held my watch and my passport in her hands as she patted me down for guns, knives, etcetera. I made it through with no issues. I can’t help but be reminded of the ass-grabbing reputation of the Transportation Security Association (TSA) in the USA. Luckily, she wasn't uncomfortable about it at all. (Although, I totally could've been hiding a machete taped to my inner thigh and no one would've known 😂😂).

Now I'm waiting for one of my travel friend to come to join me to wait for our flights together. Let me just say.. I hate airport prices.

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Ladies & Gentlemen, I am eating raw fish at the central market in Santiago, Chile.

For one of my last days in Santiago, Chile, I had one of my friends show me the notorious Central Market. 

We determined that one of the things in the dish I ordered was seamonster (joke).

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Chile has RISEN

/ instagram.ratstuff /

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Chilean designers are creating info text such as this to share online.

The metro fare raising was the last straw.

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Oct 20

October 20, 2019

Santiago, Chile

Oct20 was trending on Twitter last night in Chile. The role of social media versus media companies is fascinating. The formal news stations, the larger ones, tend to have an angle that doesn’t show exactly what’s happening. There’s a lot of fake news being spread, which is remarkably dangerous.

Most recently, the President said he’s at war, which escalates the situation. the more that language like that is published, the worse.

The New York Times was the first media source that I saw from the USA, and they did an especially misleading job. The title of the article is After Fare Hike Stirs Violent Unrest in Chile, President Suspends It with a subtitle “Demonstrations in Santiago devolved into looting and arson on Friday and Saturday.” You have to scroll halfway down the page to read “Special police units barged into stations and deployed tear gas, beat up demonstrators and violently dragged people from subway cars to take them into custody.”

Things have escalated quite a bit since my last post. I now understand that it’s not just the price of the metro increase that people are protesting, it’s everything...

The cost and access to

Water

Electricity

Transportation

Pension

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I'm learning some interesting vocabulary in Chile

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Crowds, Carabineros, y Casseroles

Coming to you live from Santiago, Chile with ongoing protests, "evasion de metro," or metro invasion. Thus far, I'm understanding that the reason for the social discontent is because the cost of the metro recently increased, and if you take the metro everyday to get to work, forget having social plans, but it's costing a rough guestimate from word if mouth that it's $50K more Chilean pesos a month or $70 USD.

I can't help but think back to when the fare raises for the subway in Boston and people obviously don't like it, but the reaction is nothing like this.

The invasion started yesterday. My friend texted via WhatsApp that she was trapped in the metro. When she was finally let out of the train, there was broken glass and tear gas everywhere. The authorities closed several metro stations, at least eight, including the one I was planning on taking. We all had to walk to the next closest station. I made it home with no issues.

I had plans to go to a cookout tonight with some friends but plans change for protests.

If I go in my backyard, I can hear the "cacerolazo" which translates to casserole but is essentially protesting by banging on pots and pans. Read more in English here and in Spanish here. Essentially, this form of protest started in Chile in 1971 protesting the shortages under the Allende administration and has spread to South America, Turkey, Canada... Participants can support and protest from the safety of your own home with common household items.

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South America brought to you by Disney

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Okay so it's a little hard to be a half vegetarian in Argentina because many of the "have to try" dishes are roasted pork or beef. My friends shared an "asado" which was essentially a roast of all sorts of funny cow parts and seasonings. I'm pretty sure on of the sauces was blood-based.

Above is a photo of my chicken with these adorable fried potato balls and a delicious mushrooms sauce.

We split a few liter bottles of Andes rubia (blonde) y negra (black/dark) that were super yummy. Andes is a brand from Mendoza.

Then we tried to find places to dance.. THAT was an adventure.

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There's wine at the end of the rainbow!

The 5 of us found a place to sleep and then biked around Maipu and toured the vineyards here. We're a bit outside of Mendoza but that's where the wine is at ☺️

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Fruit fright: Chile to Argentina border

Getting through customs was surprisingly easy. Force of habit, I always get a little tense when going across international borders. What if I don't have everything I need? What if I have something I'm not supposed to have and they give me trouble? What if they give me a hard time for any reason at all? What if my checked bag gets stolen or lost?

First they had us get off the bus and get into lines to get our stamps for Argentina! The guard asked questions like where we are going, for how long, what the address is. He took each of our passports and our old Visa/PDI slips, kept the old slips, and gave us tourist blue stamps for Argentina. I assume we'll get new slips when we enter into Chile again.

Then we got back on the bus and waited awhile. That's when they came around with coffee and a snack. Then, we pulled up to a different spot within the checkpoint and they x rayed our checked bags. We stood in a line in the cold waiting for our turn to walk through metal detectors (with our backpacks and shoes on).

The entire time from when we stopped until my backpack was "searched" I was hoping they wouldn't care about the fruit I had. I have read online, heard by work did mouth, and saw signs indicating that they would be strict about fruits and vegetables. I ate and tried to share the two bananas I had while in line and during the snack time. I chanced it with the pear. My plan was to eat it if they gave me shit for it, but also I wasn't that hungry so I kept it in my bag. The women in front of me had strawberries which made me feel a bit better. She didn't think they would let her fruit through either.