RTW: Exchange in Chile

Surfin' Easter

The exams are over for another 6 weeks, hopefully I got through them. The high emphasis on applying science to use left me dazzled and for some subjects I frankly cannot say how the exams went. This week I´ll get the final ruling of the teachers..

Otherwise, life here is continuing like usual. Long schooldays and trips to/from school, gym every schoolday, 3-day weekends, lots of DVDs and lots of good, meaty food and local wine. The audience might be pleased to know that I finally gave up the beard-growing and cut it. After all, it was getting to be quite nasty after 10 weeks.

Also, I have now officially experienced the first stomach problem of the trip (I bet you can not wait to read on..). Eating everything everywhere has not affected me yet at all and I was starting to think that my stomach could handle just about anything. But it couldn´t handle downtown Santiago´s Burger King. The MFs probably put some laxative in it, no wonder they were smiling so much when they served the burger. And there I was, happy to get good service.. Anyway, on my way home it really hit me. And anyone who has been in the situation knows that when you gotta go, you gotta go. The nearest place was at that moment the movie theatre, and of course they would not let me use the toilet without being a customer. So I bought a movie ticket and thought that relief was just around the corner -but to top it all off, there was a young couple in the toilet engaging in some other kind of activity, and I seriously felt like Mr. Bean as I sat in the booth next to them. But the movie V for Vendetta turned out quite good..

Easter holiday for semana santa was long enough after all: we got a 6-day vacation instead of the promised 4 days as one of our teachers did not want to work on monday. That's the way to do it! Knowing this it was about time to take upon another trip, this time finally to Pichilemu, the surfer's paradise I had been dreaming about for a month already. And it was just that, a surfer's paradise. The city lies a good 4-hour drive southeast of Santiago, alone in the edge of the Pacific and it just happens to have one of the best left breaks on this side of the continent. It is all about beach, hostels, restaurants, bars and alcohol stores to accomodate all the surfer flocks that go by -especially in vacation times like Easter. Arriving on friday the place was swarming with people and by monday morning it was dead again.

So, I finally got to try surfing with some instruction with the Los Lobos del Pacifico Escuela de Surf. It was every bit as hard as all the other newbies have said. I would estimate snowboarding to be about 5 times easier, or then it is just the Finnish blood talking. Anyway, in a short but a bit rough three-hour "making myself humble again" -session it became clear that I would need some serious practice to really get the most out of this sport. Every time I even got on the board the ride was just about over: "I'm doing it, I'm doing it, I'm really do.. sinking". This is unfortunately one of the sports that are hindered by the old knee injury. I just couldn't jump on the board as my knee would not bend sufficiently -and the struggling method (as my teacher conveniently described it) takes too much time to really start surfing.


Still, a great experience! It is surprisingly tough physically, getting thrown around with the board tied on your ankle, then getting up and fighting the currents and waves, paddling until you catch a good wave -and do it all over! I was so overcome by the experience that I did not feel at all the cold temperature of the ocean (ok, the wetsuit did help a lot). Quite the contrast, as after 3 hours of being in the water I had to wear the warmest clothes I have to survive the sunny beach weather on dry land..

I spent the rest of the weekend with Gael and Cindy riding, lying, walking, talking and drinking on the beaches, just to relax and get our minds off the smogs of Santiago. We also met a nice newly-wed Chilean couple that just insisted that we play cards with them in the camping grounds we were living in. I could imagine something else to do on my honeymoon but they seemed to have fun. Everyone has their thing, of course..

posted by Kassu @ 1:00 PM