20 days...Yeah!

Our house

We are certainly learning what it is to share a space. The house is so cute with such an amazing vibe, but it is 4 girls upstairs in a very small space. Shannon and I have to take turns yoga-ing. Amanda and I share a room, Shannon's bed is in the living room. Our kitchen table also serves as her nightstand. We're all the same height, though Amanda totes a half inch superiority. I bet she wishes she could gift that half inch, because none of us can stand up-right in the shower. We are certainly learning how to give space when there is none. 

The night life

The bar scene reminds me of Barcelona. I remember arriving in Spain and being mortified that I couldn't eat dinner until 10:00PM and that clubs were open all night. The same applies to Chile. Most clubs are not even into full swing until 2:00 AM and therefore it is but a simple skip to 5...6...7AM bedtimes. Amanda and Shannon have embraced this. Shannon being the writer and thriving in a Hemingway-esque lifestyle. Amanda being fresh from college and thriving in the freedom of a pos-graduate lifestyle. Me, I'm trying to adapt, and thus far have failed miserably. But it is a work and progress. 

On men

People warn you about Latin American men. But, I feel most independent women have this hubris about them. This feeling that they are not a "silly girl" and that they won't be fooled by false romance. However, these men have a refined-woo. A way to make you feel they see you, that they aren't looking at your breasts--they're staring at your soul through your chest. Our sample subject is Jaun. He owns a hostel here. Drives a BMW (which in my opinion screams douche,). Knows where the salsa nights are and took us on a free trek into the mountains.  With the amount of time Amanda and he spent together, it seemed absurd he could have a wife. It seemed equally absurd that this wife actually owned the BMW (an ironic turn of events). Further, how could "his" hostel that he toted as his prize possession also be owned...by his wife. I think, for wedding rings, we should check pockets before hands. 

Shannon and I are not impervious to this, but in our quest for male friends. For example, Shannon found this guru-esque Chilean man. I mean, they bonded over a pagan prayer circle they conducted outside of a bar. To further prove his "hippie" nature; he, Amanda and I were on a boat together. It started to rain, we all went to the covered portion of the boat...bc it was bloody pouring and freezing. We assumed he had passed out sitting, because they all had gotten in at 6am the night before. Nope. He was meditating. Anyhow, Shannon had been having, in her opinion, a-sexual, monk like conversations with him the whole night. Feeling she was forging a true friend bond. The four of us were walking home, (three girls because our roommate Sara was with us) he turns to us... and offers his bed to all three of us! 

Beauty

Whilst trekking, I found a photo card. Naturally, I figured man who lost the card was my future husband. I'd follow the photo the clues of his life, combing each photo, finding impossible details that would reveal his various locations. After a year, I'd find him, in his favorite, impossibly hipster cafe. We'd be wearing the same glasses, I'd hand him the artistically brilliant scrapbook I'd made of his prints, he'd cry because the book contained the only surviving portraits of his dead grandmother. He'd have a European passport, and we'd live happily ever-after in France. This fantasy was fully developed before I started to sift through the pictures and realize that he looked like this...

Jokes aside, it is sadly impossible to locate this man, but his pictures were amazing. He captured Chile the only way you can...in panoramic shots. The landscape is so vast, the scale is impossible to put into perspective. Simple photos are frustrating and not accurate representations of the majesty before you.  I like to pan-out of my perspective while running here, only in my mind eye can truly see how the lake and mountains are engulfing my small frame. I 'm in a constant state of awe. This is the landscape after which, I'm sure Never-Never Land was created.