Catching up.

After the long story that was my trip to Buenos Aires, I feel like I am falling a little behind. So this post is an effort to get you back up to the present.
Other than some riots in the street that ended up canceling my classes on Thursday night, last week was pretty uneventful. Riots? What? ...Okay I'll explain:

Based on my understanding, which is not terribly good, there were a number of young adults protesting some government policies back in the 1980s. A couple in particular, Rafael and Eduardo Vergara, had some pretty polemic views and were closely connected with the radical left. After getting expelled from school and garnering their reputations as dissident pamphleteers, the brothers continued to proliferate the message of hatred for authority. Along with a couple of accomplices, they planned to rob a bakery as a form of reparation against the oppressive government. Yeah, a bakery. "I have an idea: because the government has been so oppressive, let's hit 'em where it hurts... Let's rob the local Einstein's!" ...Doesn't make much sense to me either.

Anyway, long story short, on March 29, 1985 the kids (they were about 18-20 at the time) got caught before they could take down the fascist 50-year old pastry chef, they fired on some of the police, the police ended up killing them both, leaving their bodies in plan view of the public. For some reason, these hooligans were seen as martyrs, and every March 29th students and young people come into the streets in Santiago throwing rocks and Molotov Cocktails, turning over cars and buses, and just generally running around destroying whatever they can find in a symbolic gesture of how authority needs to fix things that are wrong... This year's docket of complaints included improving the bus system and reforming education; and because of the riots, much of the public transit in the city was shut down, and almost all the schools were closed. Job well done, rioters.

If you understand spanish, you can read more at http://www.emol.com/noticias/nacional/detalle/detallenoticias.asp?idnoticia=250923, or you can just do a google search for "jovenes combatiente, santiago."

In all seriousness, it was a pretty big deal here, and basically everyone was advised to stay indoors and go home early. One of my friends got caught right in the middle of the melée, and as she was sipping on her coffee (or more likely coffee substitute) in a café in the center of the city, the owner sprinted out, told her to leave and began to pull down the iron gates on all the windows of the café. My friend was ushered into the street where the cabs refused to take her anywhere, and tanks rolled up filled with cops firing teargas and spraying firehoses into the bellicose sea of protesters. Fortunately for my friend, she called her Spanish speaking boyfriend and had him persuade one of the cabbies to convey her to calmer waters. I, meanwhile, was sitting in my house, sipping on tea, and watching Spanish soap-operas with my brazillian house-mates.

As for the weekend, I just ran errands and hung out with some friends until Sunday, when we went on a hike about 2 hours west of Santiago. I think the pictures tell a much better story than I could, so rather than explain all the ins and outs of my journey to El Morado, I will just give you some highlights:

1) Our stop at the "rock refuge" (pictured below).

2) About two hours into the hike, we reached a beautiful little campsite (pictured above) next to a glacial lake, whose water's temperature was guessed almost to the degree by Ashleigh, another TIP from my school (she guessed it was 60, my watch said it was 58.8).

3) My serrano ham and cheese sandwiches that I ate next to the lake.

4) Standing under the glacial caves where the streams flowed out of the glacier (below).

5) Noteworthy quotes from Ryan (the tall skinny dude, and also a TIP at my school):
-They were washing their mullets and shaking shaking them dry, so the mirror was all fogged over with mullet-scum.
-The thing is, it's not really even a mullet. It's kind of a weird 'do where the hair looks like it's flying off the back of their head like some sort of Japanese Anime cartoon.
-Yeah, I guess dying is kind of a buzzkill; Death: the ultimate buzzkill.