Fiestas Patrias

More than a month overdue, I am finally going to tell you about the actual day of Fiestas Patrias. For a history surround the most significant of all Chilean holidays, see the "Serenity Now, Part I."

Our return trip into Santiago from La Serena was via bus in what are considered full cama (bed) reclining chairs, that were surprisingly more comfortable than I expected. Still, the 3 hours of sleep I received on the bus was hardly enough to replenish my body after a full weekend of truncated slumber, and upon my arrival to the 'Go, I promptly zonked out in my bed for a few more hours.

Without any initial plans for the day, I ended up getting invited to a fonda (sort of like a fair) at a park near my house. There, I had a grand time watching the spectacle that is Chilean celebrations. For one, the fonda had all the interworkings of a North American Carnival - games, junk food, barn animals - only with their own little Chilean twist. For example, whereas at a theme park or real carnival, you might pay to toss a ball at a stack of bottles or try to land a ring around a peg, in Chile, you step up to toss an aluminum peg into a trough of dirt. The kicker is, if you make it, nothing happens, and if you don't... Nothing happens.

Needless to say, without any sense of competition or personal reward, I quickly lost interest in the games section of the fair. My next stop was to the granja (barn) section of the park, where several barnyard animals we cordoned off in their chicken wire pens. The funny thing was, there wasn't any element of interaction like in a petting zoo or anything. They were just there. Animals including cows and horses sat indifferently, thrilled by this grotesque invasion of privacy as pint-sized chileans laughed and hollered and threw pieces of straw at them in the midst of their bowel movements. Eventually the cocktail of BO, straw, poultry, and fecal matter got the best of me, and once again, I moved on.

Truth be told, while the fonda was quite an experience, I spent most of the time there looking for a bottle of water, which of course I never did find. My best estimate was that there were about 5,000 people milling about, and yet there were only a handful of vendors selling edible sundries to the crowd. Settling on a large corner stand that looked promising based on its long line and huge parilla layout, we waited in line until arriving to the point where the food was served. Alas, we were without our food ticket. The mind numbing and absolutely infuriating Chilean inefficiency once again outwitted me, and it never even occurred to me that the place where you would pay for the food would be around the corner at a little phone-booth like stand, where the food that you are ordering is nowhere in site... GREAT IDEA, Chile!

Either way, I went back, purchased my ticket, cut to the front of the line (no WAY I was going to wait twice), and got my kebob and a beer (still not bottle of water).

From there on out, I spend most of the time watching the cueca (a little cat and mouse type dance a couple just sort of spins around and stomps their feet in a feigned pursuit of the female by the man), Chile's national dance (and one of the many sources of pride for Chileans that we as gringos will never understand).

Having somehow managed to kill off 4 hours at the fonda, I decided to make my way out to the middle of nowhere, or as the Chileans say "donde el diablo perdió su poncho" ("where the devil lost his jacket"), for a parilla with one of the host families for another gringa teacher from another Duoc site (there was probably a better way to construct that sentence, but I am behind, and therefore need to be a little more liberal with my errors in grammar and syntax).

Crashing what clearly seemed to be a World Teach affair, I ended up having a great time eating terrific food, drinking good punch, partaking in a cultural interchange (which was mainly comprised of exchanging silly expressions in English and Spanish) and watching other gringos dance the cueca (rather successfully I might add) with the Chileans at the party.

I called it an early night around 2AM in order to recharge for one more day of Chilean culture and fun in the sun.

Serenity Now, Part II

After a night's sleep that really was closer to a nap than a restful slumber, we transferred all our belongings to a new room in the hostal and set out for the beach. The weather wasn't particularly balmy, but after spending 4 months in the frozen iceboxes that is every building in Santiago in the winter time, 60 degrees felt like a Hawaiian summer (at least at first).

A short while of sunbathing, snoozing, and just in general being bums at the foot of the non-functional lighthouse, gave way to the presence of one of the many soulless stray dogs wandering the streets of Chile, which provided us with the impetus to get up and play some frisbee. My inner hippie sated, we all decided to move on and head to a restaurant supposedly famous for it's gringo-favored fare (namely banana pancakes).

Much to our chagrin, we arrived to a pair of imposing wooden doors shackled and chained as if in the midst of hurricane preparations. Deflated, though not surprised - after all, it was Sunday, and no one eats on Sundays in Chile, especially not at relaxing comfort food places that would provide a terrific laid back atmosphere to pass the day - we set out on a search for another open restaurant. Initially, we were determined to find a restaurant that matched with our mood, that is, what we felt like eating. As our journey through the abandoned and silent streets of La Serena progressed, though, we quickly realized that we would have to take what we could get, or join the dogs in their rummaging through refuse.

We finally found a little hole in the wall restaurant known for it's seafood. Ashleigh won the best order competition, combining a couple of small, cheap appetizers to put together a delectable and satisfying meal for less than half of what I paid for some mystery smörgåsbord of seafood.

Not knowing the "La Serena scene," our next order of business was to find something to keep us entertained for the night. On our way back to some open air markets closer to the town center, we stopped by a pharmacy in what turned out to be some of the most entertaining 5 minutes of my life. We engaged in a series of conversations, first with the pharmacist, then with a random young couple that seemed equally frightened and confused by my quest for information, and left laughing our heads off on account of events that can only be described as "you had to be there."

We regained our composure, wandered around to some open air markets, and then made our way back to the hostel to pre-game once again before heading out for the night. There, we met three girls (swiss, german, and italian) who were also living in
Santiago and traveling for the weekend. We modified the card game "spoons" into a drinking game, but after the swiss girl lost 4 times in a row, we decided to abandon any structure to our consumption.

From there, we headed down to the clubs near the beach based on a recommendation from Ashleigh's military pololo. When we were just moments from our intended destination, the cabbie halted to a series of eardrum shattering screeches and screams emanating from the lungs of Ashleigh and Meghan, who had just identified Cesar, perhaps the coolest Chilean colleague that we have at Duoc, walking down the street with his wife and a couple of friends. Obviously surprised to see us, and apparently somewhat
unprepared for the sudden burst of activity, Cesar quickly redirected us to a club a little down the road while he escaped with his wife for more tranquil endeavors.

We spent the rest of the night shaking our little tail feathers to a much needed dose of hip-hop, a pleasant respite from the ubiquitous house music that most other
Chilean clubs employ. When we finally made it back to our hostal exhuasted and pockets full of miniature chilean flags, the sun was lingering just over the horizon.

I am quickly realizing the length and relative lack of entertainment value of this post, so I will try to sum up my last day in La Serena quickly:

We went to the equivalent of a Southern State Fair, called la Pampilla. In addition to bankrupt clowns begging for work, hoards of trailers, tents, and lean-to's providing shelter on the hill-side, bungee assisted trampolines, and of course copious amounts of fried sweets and alcohol, the Pampilla was made uniquely Chilean by the numerous tents and stands of portable hardward stores selling everything from tires, to carabiners, to mediocre kitchen-ware. We spent several hours just wandering around and marveling at the spectacle before heading back to la Serena, losing a couple buck in the casino, eating some delicious sushi, and catching the overnight bus back to home sweet home in Santiago where we would go on to celebrate the ACTUAL day of Fiestas Patrias and Día de las Fuerzas Armadas.