Brazil

Our last school trip was to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. After this trip, I could honestly say that I was getting a little tired of traveling. By now I have seen (it seems) the majority of South America. And with just a little over a month of school left, I am ready to come home! But don’t get me wrong, Brazil was fantastic. Rio de Janeiro itself was a city unlike any other. The landscape was very unique in itself. Rio is surrounded by tall dome-like mountains, beaches, and inlets. It’s anything but flat. Yet somehow they manage to squeeze millions of people into the compact “favelas”, which are the endless shanytowns that cover the surrounding hills as far as the eye can see. When I came back to the UAP, I talked with some Brazilians about Rio and they said that it's really violent and the police don’t even go into the favelas. Then they went on how Rio was the most dangerous city in Brazil, even more than São Paulo. I just kind of stood there, nodding my head, imagining myself being sold into slavery or getting stabbed to death. My wild imagination was put to rest when they said things like that usually only happen in the bad parts of town. I just gave a nervous laugh and replied, “Oh that’s good.” Our hotel was right on Copacabana Beach in one of the more touristy spots, so we turned out to be quite fine. Although some of the others were saying two blocks down was the biggest brothel in South America. I don’t really know if that was true, or if it was an exaggeration, but one thing was for sure--I saw prostitutes everywhere! I guess prostitution is very legal in Brazil.

So Brazil was quite a bit different from its nieghboring country that I have spent most of my time in (Argentina). Brazil is huge. Out of all of South America it probably has the strongest economy (however Chile's is the most stable), yet Brazil has a tremendous amount of poverty. I found this to be very true, seeing homeless children everywhere roaming the streets and begging for food. As glamorous as the city was, there definitely was a very unattractive side.

The two big things to see in Rio are Christ the Redeemer and the Sugarloaf. Christ the Redeemer is an enormous statue, roughly the size of the Statue of Liberty, that rests upon the top of Corcovado Mountain with its arms outstreched in sort of a "blessing-the-city" position. Sugarloaf Mountain (or just Sugarloaf), is a picturesque dome-like mountain that juts out of the water at the end of the city. Unfortunately due to some bad weather, it was difficult to appreciate Christ the Redeemer at its finest, but even with the clouds it was still pretty neat.Standing on the other side of the city and seeing a giant statue of Jesus overlooking the city with his arms stretched out is a pretty cool sight.Looking up at the statueEl Pan de Azúcar (The Surgarloaf). Interestly enough, explorers named it after a dessert.This shot gives you an idea of how perfectly shaped it is.They say that at the base of this tree, Vinicius de Moraes wrote out the lyrics to "The Girl from Ipanema" (it's located in a big nature park within the city). I thought that was pretty neat.Copacabana Beach! Right in front of our hotel. Yes, everyone does wear a speedo too. It's normal to walk around downtown in your swimsuit--even if it only covers 2% of you body.On the beach! You can see the Sugarloaf in the background.

Next stop: The United States!

Around the Horn

As “Spring break” approached us here in the Southern hemisphere, plans started to formulate within the different groups of students. While I was in Peru I started to weigh my options. I really wanted to go to Patagonia (Southern South America) but after hearing the average price of that trip from those who went over Christmas, I was a little squeamish. Later my friend Nich approached me and said, “Hey man, let’s go on a cruise around South America!” I thought this was the most retarded thing I had ever heard. Growing up I thought cruises were for old people and the professional spectrum with all the spoiled rich kids. I brushed off the idea pretty quick. However, the next day Nich approached me again. “So dude we already have a group of seven, and we need one more!” I started to think that I should at least look into it. So I did, and as it turned out the prices of a two week cruise around the bottom of South America were better than traveling by land. In fact a lot better! Due to the economic crisis that is supposedly going on at home (remember it started while I was down here!), for some bizarre reason which still does not make sense to me, the dollar has been doing really good in South America. In comparison to past years, traveling/tourism has been really slow—because of the economy. In other words, conditions were perfect! The Norwegian Cruise Line had great slashed off prices.

So now there was a group of eight. We reserved two rooms online through NCL. I was immediately excited! I had never been on a cruise before, so I had no idea what to expect. My friends all said that cruises were super chill and relaxing. Those words were music to my ears! Let me tell you I was ready for some more comfortable traveling. No hostels or bus stations for me thank you! It was a two week cruise from Valparaíso, Chile all the way around the horn and up to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The ship, the Norwegian Sun, stopped in ports all along the way. Among them were my favorites: Punta Arenas, Ushuaia, and the Falkland Islands. The course of the cruise was also a treat in itself. The Norwegian Sun traveled through the Chilean fjords the whole way going south. The views were incredible. I could look out the windows of the ship and see land so barren and so rugged. At times you would think if human life had ever even ventured out to some of those remote fjords. And actually there was one that did I had heard of, and you probably have too—Charles Darwin. Before coming into port of Ushuaia our ship navigated through the Strait of Magellan and the Beagle Channel (my particular favorite of the whole cruise). Imagining sailing ships from the 1800’s like the Beagle in waters such as those and in such a mysterious environment gave me much more appreciation for the average seaman from that era. Joe and Greg, I’d like to think you put a bit of explorer in me by naming me Brendan. Wink wink.

Like we guessed, there was a ton of elderly people onboard. Can I hear a Bingo anyone??? The other half of the ship was full of South Americans on vacation (mostly Chileans and Brazilians). I could probably count all the people our age with my fingers. It turned out to be really fun though, doing activities with the older generations like early morning trivia and mini-golf. It would be really funny when they would say things like, “What are kids like you doing here anyways?” Then you’d try and explain the whole I’m-going-to-school-down-here-and-I’m-on-break shpeal. Some got it. Others didn’t.

And then there was the food. It was from heaven! Remember before this trip I had been eating dry bread and beans and rice. When I stepped onto the ship it was like letting Templeton from Charlotte’s Web onboard. A cruise is a smorgasbord! "Food all around, on the ground!" These words were ringing in my ears. We all got very used to room service too. I believe the ship staff got a little mad at us because we were constantly ordering food. Everyday I was full. But I kept eating! I knew that the dream would end after a couple of weeks.

So that’s pretty much the fun in a nutshell. Below are some of the pictures from our cruise. By the way, you really do gain weight on a cruise. And if you don’t exercise it off, you will feel like a blimp!

We saw some Penguins near Puntas Arenas, Chile

Entering the Beagle Channel

Going through the channelThis was one of my favorite Beagle Channel glaciersThe port of Ushuaia The Falkland Islands. Check out the Union Jack!
And then we swung through Montevideo, Uruguay

Machu Picchu

Alright a few weeks ago we traveled to Peru and more specifically Cusco and Machu Picchu. Out of the four major school trips ACA took us on, Mach Picchu was the one I had been the most anxious for. Machu Picchu is just simply amazing. There's really no words that can describe it. I have a bunch of pictures so hopefully I can get them all to load up on here with our super-duper slow internet. This is Plaza Mayor, the centerpiece of Lima, Peru.The Lima Cathedral.Monastery of San Francisco. This place was awesome. This place still remains today a running monastery. Inside are catacombs and a library with 500 year old books.Sorry for the blurry image. This is the library inside the Monastery. On the right you can see a giant book. It is actually a very old hymnal of Gregorian chants (you can see the blockish notes). This is undoubtedly the oldest piece of music I have seen to date--surpassing even anything from the Baroque era. When I was standing in front of it (an amazing feeling) I hummed a few of the melodies in my head. Scholars believe these eight-modal chants, composed by monks, to be the basis of classical music and everything that has come after it.A hillside overlooking Lima. You can see the many colorful houses of a poor urban sector. Above is the flag of Peru painted into the landscape.Getting to Machu Picchu you have to take a train from Cusco. Mind you this is already at 10,800 feet. This is overlooking one of the neighborhoods perched on the surrounding hills.
A nifty view of Putucusi Mountain, a neighboring mountain of Machu Picchu.Need I say more?These were super cool. You'd find these crafty staircases all over the place. This is how the Incas would climb from one terrace to another.A closer shot of the Western and Eastern Urban Sectors. You can see the rock quarry in the far left.This is The Terrace of the Ceremonial Rock. Ritually significant river rocks are found all over the place. This section was roped-off.A view looking down from The Terrace of the Ceremonial Rock.And here is the Ceremonial Rock. Sacrifices? No one really knows for sure.This is how the Incas did their farming.The Western Urban Sector. Royalty stayed in the higher part while lower classes stayed in the lower part. The Incas related their social ladder with the condor, jaguar, and snake. The highest class of people were represented by the condor, etc. The snake, being the lowest to the ground, was represented by the lowest classes.View from the Western Sector looking towards the Eastern.

An example of Inca genius.

Temple of the Three Windows with enormous polygonal stones, which looks down on the Main Plaza.

East wall of the Principal Temple settled during Inca times.

The river below.

A better shot of the Eastern Urban Sector.Flying over the Andes on our way back to Buenos Aires.

Iquique

Over Christmas break I traveled to the coast of Northern Chile. This was a daunting task in itself just because of the sheer distance. Our group of six initially had thought about flying but we later changed our minds to taking buses since we had a lot of time on our hands and also that we wanted to save money. Below is a map of South America. Our route was west from Buenos Aires straight across Argentina to Santiago, Chile. And then north from Santiago along the coast to Iquique. It might be hard to see Iquique on this map. Iquique is the last bit of vertical beach just before the left-sided bulge of South America juts out into the ocean. The total distance was a staggering 1,700 miles by roads. Getting there we took our time (we stayed a few days in Santiago), however none of us had really comprehended the distance to be so far. Some of the bus rides were a little sketchy. For example from Santiago to Iquique I was surrounded by a Peruvian family with eight or so screaming infants. Let me tell you after 25 hours I was ready to get off that bus! My 7 or so hour trips to school in Eastern Washington will seem like a picnic now. The good news is that our stay in Iquique was superb. Here's some pics. I like to say this was our hostel's backyard. You'd cross the road and the boardwalk and then you'd be here. I'm not kidding you. We stayed their about a week. With food and activities (surfing and paragliding) the cost was just under 100 dollars. Once again thank you Lonely Planet.Right before we went paragliding. We drove up to the cliffs that overlooked the city and pretty much ran off the edge (we were with a guide of course). With the constant warm up-drafts and Iquique's location, the area boasts one of the world best paragliding spots.A view of the entire city. Iquique is a desert city sandwiched between ocean and dunes. Chile itself is an amazing country with its desert beaches. So now for the stories.

My paragliding experience had its share of excitement. We were getting split up with the various guides. They asked us which one of us wanted English-speaking guides. We all could communicate in Spanish more or less so it really didn't matter. But somehow I got stuck with the dude who swore he could speak "great" English. So I thought "Ok fine, this will make things easier." Wrong. While he was explaining the instructions to me in very broken English (it would have been better if he spoke Spanish), I thought I would repeat back his instructions in English as proof that I knew what he was talking about. For example he would say, "Ok you do such and such" and then I replied with, "Ok I do such and such". Except this really ticked him off because apparently he didn't know what the heck I was saying, even though I was merely repeating back his own broken English. I mean for the love of Pete, I was about to go up 3000 feet and I didn't want to screw this up! Now that I look back, I think he thought I was asking him unrelated questions in mid-sentence, interrupting his instructions (which I couldn't understand anyway). So with second thoughts in mind about this guy I simply did the "smile and nod technique".

During take-off you're suppose to do a series of movements to ease the transition of going from ground to air. First when you raise the sail you brace against it. Then when it's ready you let go and it carries you up. In one movement you kind of sit back in an awkward stance and then scootch forward. I did everything fine. Except when it came to the hands. He never even said anything about your blasted hands! About ten seconds after take-off he says, "Ok hands good, hands good." This I thought meant that my hands were good where they were, so I didn't do anything. Then he freaks out and repeats, "Hands, hands here!" But he was driving the chute so he couldn't exaclty show me. So now I knew my hands needed to go somewhere, and I noticed it was probably important because it seemed my friends were all getting higher and that I was getting lower. I looked around and saw loops, cords, and every other matter of rigging imagineable. I dumbly fit my white, clenched fists through two holes, but then the guide totally pitched a fit so I took my hands out again. By now we are going down (flashes of playing Red Baron as a kid were going through my mind) and the guy is panicking. I'm falling out of the sky from 2000 feet and don't know where to put my hands because of some dumb guide that said he could speak English. Finally out of desperation I say, "¿Dónde me quieres a poner las manos?" (where do you want me to put my hands) The guide looked at me in surprise. Finally the world made sense. Soon my hands were in the right place. From then on things went smoothly. I made a point to speak in Spanish the rest of the way, and the guide apologized time after time. To this day my friends still don't understand why I didn't think paragliding was that great. I tell them I almost died. Unfortunately none of them took me very seriously.

On the way back our group of six split up to make traveling a bit easier. We made it back to school in record time (as good as time can get by bus). Our trip back took 52 hours. It was nonstop. The longest time we had to wait was in Córdoba for two hours. We got really lucky with bus times. After living on buses for 52 hours you will feel weird. I don't ever remember being so excited about using my legs.

Two Months Ago

I know it's not Thanksgiving but I had vowed to add this as a part of my blog before the year was over. Around certain American holidays our ACA program will usually get together to celebrate them. It's a feel-good opportunity for all of us to come together to cover up pangs of homesickness that might pop up around times when we would normally be with family. A fellow classmate wrote something to share with our group after dinner. It hit the spot--even more so than the imported pumpkin pie. Hope you enjoy.



For the longest time, I thought that Thanksgiving was a day for food and family. Don’t get me wrong, it is. I can remember getting up early to watch the Macy’s Day parade on TV, or even sleeping in so late that the sounds of my mother cooking and the noise of the game woke me up. As I got older, Thanksgiving meant starving yourself all morning while peeling pound upon pound of spuds. My family is mostly Irish, so Thanksgiving is the perfect time to consume ridiculous amounts of our national food: potatoes. We were always in charge of the mashed potatoes, and all four of us, my dad, mom, sister and I would sit in front of the TV, peeling potatoes, and watch either the game or old Christmas movies, depending on who won the battle for the programming that day.
Later, after we were properly primped and spruced up, and after our entire house was full of the smell of steamy potatoes and chocolate pie, we headed out to the family’s place. There were two options usually: the mostly vegetarian feast with my mother’s family, or the combination of half Italian half traditional genius that makes up the unique experience with my semi-Catholic father’s side. Either way we went, the main part of the experience was to eat more than you could possibly imagine, and then sit around and laugh off the calories by telling family stories and finish off the evening with turkey sandwiches and sing-alongs.
But the past 5 years, being unable to go home for Thanksgiving has given me a new perspective on the holiday: it’s not so much about having to be with family as making those around you a part of your new family. It’s not so much about only eating your favorite recipes as it is eating and communing with others. It’s not even about the traditions you’ve been a part of for your entire life. The original thanksgiving wasn’t about tradition; in fact it was a totally new experience for everyone involved. It was about sharing food with people of a different color, who wore different clothes, ate different foods, and spoke a different language. And as I sit here in Argentina in absurdly hot humid weather and consider taking yet another shower, I suppose that this is, ironically, more like the original Thanksgiving than any I have ever experienced. This is our chance to come together with others, and be thankful for what we have, for life. Our chance to eat some things we might not usually eat. Our chance to encounter a new country, a new language. Count our blessings. In my short time considering the many reasons I have to be thankful, I can’t even begin to comprehend the total. There are a lot. Each of you has been a blessing to me in the short time I’ve known you. I’m so happy to be sharing this time with you. Happy Thanksgiving all, and welcome to a new kind of feast, a new kind of family, and a new kind of holiday.

Marjorie Anne Ellenwood

Buenos Aires

I've been slacking again. I was meaning to update my blog during Christmas break...BUT...you know how that goes. End of November-early December we traveled to Buenos Aires to see the city life. Living in a remote agricultural area has deprived me of some long-forgotten luxuries. Buenos Aires was a good remedy. Two facts: bathtubs are nice, and food is generally better in large metropolitan ares. The following are a few sights of this gigantic South American empire.This is in the middle of the first town square in Buenos Aires. The famous date above is the day that Buenos Aires expelled their Viceroy thus declaring their revolution. This is La Casa Rosa (The Pink House) which would be like our White House.This is El Cabildo in the main town square. It was the first government building in Buenos Aires.La Boca. Tango's really big here. They play tango music in the streets all day long.

Torre de los Ingleses (English Tower). This monument has an interesting story behind it. It was constructed by British residents in Buenos Aires to commemorate their May revolution. 172 years later the Falklands War happened between Argentina and Britain. To make a long story short, Argentina was beaten pretty badly. A monument was soon constructed to commemorate the loss of Argentinean life. Ironically, it was constructed directly across from the English tower on the other side of the street (nobody knows why). Now residents look at the tower with a bit of contempt, especially now that it seems to loom over their monument in a mocking manner. The "eternal flame" can be seen in the foreground of the tower in the photo above. To this day the Argentinean constitution still claims the Falkland Islands as their own even though the British occupy them. A bit of advice: never bring up this subject at the Argentinean dinnertable. And here is Ferdinand.