Desert with one s. even if you want two of them.

Here We Are:

On this wonderful journey I'm about to take you on, you will embark on an extensive sandy, dusty, windy, cold (yet hot) pathway to the North of Chile, in a place called San Pedro Atacama. We have two program trips during the semester, one to the south (Pucon--you have no pictures of pucon because I took no pictures of Pucon. i refuse to reiterate that all the pictures are from Google. i just reiterated the pictures are from google anyway...however, I will not reiterate the reiteration.) this time we went to the north. called San Pedro. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to find Pedro, the guy who stole my backpack. damn. i reiterated again...

imagine Arizona: (desert). then add colorado (mountains). then add fiji (rasta babies.) no just kidding. unless when i said rasta babies you thought volcanoes. because thats what i was referring to. volcanoes. 

The unfortunate thing about this blog post is that there was honestly nothing to complain about. I literally have no material for an interesting read. if you're looking for harsh criticism or unyeilding ridicule, you're going to be exasperatingly disappointed. Im sorry if it pains you that i had a good time. theres nothing i can do about it. Not to mention I've run out of mullet jokes. and pretty much no one in the north had one. so everyone's disappointed.

 We kicked off the trip with a tour of the land. to better understand my domain, i took an F-ton (censored for Debbie Doolittle <--- Mom.)  of pictures of red stuff.

 DOES THIS LOOK LIKE WE'RE ON THE MOON?? cause thats what i was going for. you can appease me by simply agreeing. i dont care what you really think.

 obviously, the moon dominates all of these pictures. I mean i know. its a desert. there are no clouds. but throw me a frickin bone (hi mom) and tell me the moon doesnt look totally epic. ademas we're in a place called VALLE DE LA LUNA. which actually has nothing to do with the moon. If i wasnt so bored of our tour guide talking i could tell you why its called valle de la luna. but i was. and i cant.

somethin about dinosaurs. i donno. use your imagination.

blurry picture. with lens cap overlap. insert angsty background message for artist combined with severe over-use of conceptualistic vocabulary. this is art school material.

Charlie and I had some inappropriate Shadow Puppet fotos. Unfortunately, of the 12 pictures that we took (exaggerating various features---use you imagination), this was the only one that made the cut. Its appropriate. hi mom.

 THE TUNNEL OF DOOM. actually not of doom. altho it was cold as FLIP. hi mom.

The thing about blogspot, is they dont let you rotate pictures. but I'm going to use that as an excuse to have a second artsy picture. It represents the open-hearted nature of the North, a direction that represents freedom, yet is being quickly enclosed by the darkness of capitalist consumerism, turning the world you understood into a vortex of insecurity and self-doubt. Or. it looks like a giant alligator eating a mountain.

 I always seem to have a random upside-down picture of myself in every post........

THE STREAK CONTINUES.

 Moguls. damn sand-skiers always F-ing up (hi mom) the trails for boarders....

He looks like a gangster. He might even be a gangster. But you and I both know there is no complimenting Charlie on this blog. What a rookie.

hahahahahahahahaahahahaahahaahaha MAN, he looks like a silly ninny.

The epic sock tan continues to rule my life. Shout out to the SSTX (i think that means Carlos, Cami and J SOLO, but if someone else -- and the chances of that are so absurd that its not even worth commenting on. but seeing the nature of this blog I'm probably going to comment on it anyway for at least a paragraph, noting, periodically, how tangential and nonsensical the comment actually is while simultaniously (and miraculously) holding your attention as well as putting two parenthetical expressions (make that three) inside of one parenthesis--  is reading this, you're included)

Yep, that means you.

apparently this is three naturally formed statues of the Virgin Mary. How much faith you have to have in God to see that is a lot more than I had and a lot more than I think Earth had, as it seemed to lose interest with the last one (the one on the left), which apparently looked better but some french guy climbed it and broke it. (the british people in our group decided that was ample opportunity and shouted --WHAT A DICK)

So there are these two mountains, right, and one turns to the other and says, "Dude. we are so high up here." The other one looks at him and says, "whoa. talking mountains..."

F YOU BLOG SPOT THIS PICTURE WAS PERFECT WHY CANT I ROTATE IT

The geisers, as they were called.  in the midst of hundreds of inappropriate jokes that I wont say here (hi mom) Charlie and I also took some pictures. Here they are.

They were warm. but the weather wasnt. Also, we woke up at 4 to go see them. i was reminded of patagonia, packing a wet tent, snow and wind, and hating my life....

 BUT LOOK WHO WORE PANTS THIS TIME

this is 3 artsy pictures in one blog post. this has got to win an award or something. or at least get an exhibition at the RSDI modern art museum?

a real version of the same pic that normal people will appreciate. Don't worry. I look out for you guys too. normal people, that is. 

 ...i think thats a gazelle??

...gotta have at least one silver surfer picture in every album..... C-G-3-LOCK

I'm the only one worth listening to. but there are others...

I realize after some discussion with Sir Charles the first that this diablogue has been a little one-sided. if you'd wish to hear the other side of the story you should check out Charlie's blog as well. he does a spanish bit then an english bit, its definitely worth a read: http://charlieguinn.blogspot.com/

THE LOMITO- the sandwich that saved Chilean cuisine and made McDonald's the healthiest restaurant in South America

after reading the title you're thinking: what the eff-ing eff is a lomito. at which point you would then turn to the body of the blog post and get SMACKED IN THE FACE WITH THIS BAD BOY:

(the cool thing about this picture is 1.) the beer in that one glass tastes the same as those napkins in that other glass. 2.) i got this picture from Google and that's my waitress in the background. 3.) this was the least gross picture i could find)

After feasting your eyes on that guy, slowly feeling your arteries clog and your blood pressure spike, youre probably wondering why anyone would eat such a monstrosity. well, I'll tell you a story.

So one day, after three weeks of eating bread with one slice of cheese on it that Chileans decided to call a sandwich (no chile, that is a piece of bread. and a piece of cheese. thats like me stapling rubber to the bottom of my feet and carrying a shoelace and calling them Nikes.), and after a trip to patagonia, during which Charlie tortured Garrett with the thought of Chipotle, (of which doesnt exist in South America.) <---IM WAITING CARLY), we decided it was time for something new. Our spanish teacher told us about a place to get a "seriously chilean sandwich" which i thought was going to be a piece of bread. with cheese on it. but alas, we stolled in anyway. unsuspecting. much like this cat:

we sit down. Charlie orders a lomito completo. that comes with avacado, sauerkraut (how do you spell that?),  tomato, salsa (think ketchup, not tostitos) and mayo. given the extra 4 seconds to decide what i want, i see this:

quickly decide that i don't want mayonaise and just order a lomito with avacado.

the waitress walks over to the stove, where we expect her to put on some fresh tasty pork and cook it up and put it on a nice toasty bun, place a little avacado on it, bring it over to us and give us a big pile of napkins. well.

the good news is the bun made it on the grill.....

you see that vat of grease on the right? thats where the "fresh pork" came from. the one on the left is where the hotdogs came from. didnt order a hotdog. maybe why im still alive. the avacado came from a big green bowl and god help charlie cause i have no idea where the mayo came from.

as for a pile of napkins, thats what that glass was there for. i will never understand why napkins in chile are so tiny. its like in order to actually get your hands clean, you have to use 40 of them. they are literally like individual squares of single-ply tissue paper. its like. i have to KNOW where my hand is messy so i can spot treat every tiny mess i've made.

there was a point, in between the time i added a kilo of hotsauce and the grease turning the bun to liquid which in turn turned into more grease, that i thought this was a bad idea. i then blacked out and woke up with the first bite gone. I HAVE NO IDEA how youre SUPPOSED to eat this, but there was no fork or knife or spork or machete that is adequate. charlie turned to me, covered in mayonnaise, and said "this is the point when you just accept that this is gonna be a gross horrible mess".

Now this entire time, there has been some A-HOLE reserving two seats next to us. you cant reserve seats at FUENTE ALEMAN. THIS IS A PEOPLE'S RESTAURANT. he's saving it with a giant microphone. he probably thought he was important.

Turns out he was important. at some point between the heartattack i was having from fat intake, and the stroke i was about to have from fat intake, two gentledudes walk in and sit down next to us. only it wasnt just two gentledudes. it was two gentledudes and 4 camera men, some mic dudes and random ass people carrying stuff (probably interns...). They sit down right next to us and there is a whole grand show about ordering and getting a lomito. He looks at me like "hey look how important i am" (the friendly kind of hey look how important i am, not the hey-look-how-important-i-am-and-by-the-way-sweet-fossil-watch-i-have-a-rolex-how-old-are-you-you-look-like-justin-beiber-i-have-an-office-with-my-name-on-the-desk-go-clean-something kind of look how important i am.) i have never seen so many pictures taken of a dude eating a sandwich. in fact, most of these pictures here on google are probably from that day. everyone in the place (the place is packed) is taking a picture of me. or of us. or of him. (doesnt matter if they were only taking pictures of him cause I WAS ALL OVER THAT LOMITO and they had to get that at least in the corner of the frame)

we asked the people next to us, (cause they obviously knew) who the eff this gentledude was. They told us, and it was something that started with an S. due to some spelling difficulties (apparenlty his name is like german or something) they couldnt write it down or spell it right or something cause his name doesnt show up in google and if he's important then IT WOULD HAVE TO BE THERE. the point is that i have no idea who this guy was. but he asked me who i was. i said i was garrett. he said "jerry?". i said. "no. diego." " ahhh. diego! mucho gusto! are you gringo?" "yes. im a gringo. named diego."

albiet a great conversation, he had to depart and take his thousands of entourage groupies with him....i digress.

after eating these delicious, yet filling, lomito sandwiches, i decided. Chilean cuisine. you have shown me another side of you today. you dont just like coffee and salty (insert anything not tasty here), but you can enjoy yourself occasionally with a lomito. unfortunately, you can only occasionally enjoy a lomito once. because it will take your cholesterol, walk it over to mcdonalds, dunk it in the "fry chamber" and laugh because it is no where near done. it will then hand you a lifetime prescription of lipitor...i digress again. at this point i am so hungry i'll do it. I'M GOIN BACK. wish me luck. sweet, delicious, artery clogging luck.

ZOO.

Let's just pretend that I'm a thoughtful person and that i actually remembered my camera this time. or we can all stop lying to ourselves and notice that im lazy. its slightly a good thing that i dont always have my camera, considering i still actually HAVE IT and it hasnt gotten stolen yet.


We went to the zoo today. by accident. Charlie asked if i wanted to go to Bellavista, and as i ate my mcdonalds (OKAY IT WAS THE ONLY THING OPEN ON EASTER SATURDAY)<---is easter saturday a holiday?....---and contemplated how we werent really supposed to go to Bellavista cause our advisor told us it is dangerous. She also told us that sandboarding is dangerous and hiking up volcanoes is dangerous. so i decided bellavista would be AWESOME. we walked all the way down providencia to bellavista which is quite a walk considering i had just walked 3 metro stops in the opposite direction. to get mcdonalds. because it was the only thing open. judge me. see if i care. i happen to love mcflurrys and i dont care who knows it.


We walked thru the cool trendy awesome bars that all sold empanadas. no but seriously there was only empanada stores. youd think that would flood the market. but youd be wrong. laws of supply and demand are backwards in the southern hemisphere. like the way the water spins. and gravity.

as we walked up a hill with a bunch of annoying people playing kazoos that sounded like monkeys, we realized we were entering the ZOO. (kaZOO. yes. its cute. i get it). it was pretty fantastic because they had a bunch of animals. as to what animals, i couldnt tell you. because there were no signs. while it might be diverse, its not the most informative place to go if you want to learn something about animals. or know what that spotted monkey bird thing is. (its not a lion by process of elimination).

considering tomorrow is easter, I thought it would be appropriate to hide all the ostrich's eggs. the zoo keeper didnt think that was funny. he must not know what an easter egg hunt is. or apparently that job is for bunnies only. WHICH THEY DONT HAVE AT THE ZOO. thought maybe i could sub in...is there a grinch of easter?

that's the only picture you get today. because you dont deserve anything cuter than this.

Pucon?

This weekend, we went to Pucon. its in the south of chile, not half as close to Antarctica as we were last time. Conveniently, I forgot my camera. so we're going to borrow photos from our good friend Google, because, well, i use it to translate my homework, might as well use it take pictures for me too. I ACKNOWLEDGE THAT NONE OF THESE PICTURES ARE MINE AND I HAVE NO RIGHTS TO THEM. (if i get sued for making a blog, i will have lost more hope in life than i have already by visiting camp 5. that, however, is another story).

This looks nothing like where we went. in fact, i wouldn't even know that where we went and this picture were of the same place had google not given it as the first search result when i typed in "pucon, chile". but alas, if google says so. then fuck it. Look at this great picture! this is pucon.

Also note that there is a volcano. You can climb that. I didn't. because, frankly, i'm f-ing tired of climbing mountains. if you want to see me climb mountains, you can look at the previous post or of the blog pictures of my friends. (really, im just tired of the team x-treme pose).

since i don't have any pictures of me in pucon, here's a picture of someone else:

Now, to get to pucon, you must take a 10 hour bus ride. This is highly inconvenient, seeing as my backpack had been stolen the very day that we were going to pucon. Of these items, which do you think were important:
1.) wallet
2.) $100
3.) ipod
4.) Chilean ID card
5.) debit card
6.) school notes
7.) did i say ipod yet?
8.) the backpack itself

now youre probably thinking ipod, but as i will disclose in the next few paragraphs of complaining, "all of the above" would have been a thoughtful answer.

have you even taken a 10 hour bus ride? how about a 10 hour bus ride without an ipod? some of you may be thinking, get over it. some people dont even have an ipod. and you would be right in that. I bet the guy who took my backpack, who i endearingly decided to name Pedro, didnt have an ipod. but it seems now that he does. so perhaps that was a poor example. The answer to that question for most of you is either: "why would i take a 10 hour bus ride when i can fly" <-- i'll answer that one later,  "no", or "i don't believe in music or anything that closely resembles happiness".

sure. you can fly. theres the airport.

...aaaaand heres the plane you'll be flying

when we got to pucon, we found ourselves staying in a surprisingly nice hostel/bedandbreakfast/disney land castle/hotel thing. it was called el dorado. yay.



this image came up when i searched el dorado pucon

google must've decided it was a ninja who stole my backpack.


On the first day we were there we went on a tour of the area. it was wonderful. google doesnt have any cool pictures, nor do i remember what anything was called. so please refer to the fighting picture above if youre looking for entertainment.

Most of the program trip was paid for, so naturally, i thought it was a good time to have had my wallet stolen. unfortunately, the activities and lunches were going to be "reimbursed". i never really seemed to like that word. i liked the word less when i realized i had no money to give the waiter and he seemed to not like the word at all.

Luckily, due to Charlie's unyielding kindness, i was "covered". we signed up for a cave tour of the volcanic caves, but due to a miscommunication, we arrived 30 minutes late and missed our tour. weird thing was, we were eating lunch across the street. and watching to see if anyone came or left. they didnt. but somehow we missed them. apparently everyone in chile is a ninja. if you happen across a meeting in chile, it would look like this:

so we went to the beach. which was cool. its a big lake with black volcanic sand. Whats cool about black sand, you ask? well even when its cold, the sand is sort of warm. and, when you sit down you cant see how many spiders there are. unfortunately, my skin isnt black. so there was a point when i noticed.

We then had dinner at a fondu place. how romantic. there were like 20 of us. i was hungry.

The next day, we actually didnt miss the trip and we got to go rafting. it was just the dudes of the group so there were four of us and it was a lot of fun. it seemed kind of lame until they told us we had to get out of the raft. we thought we were done. but when the path lead back to the river, and we saw a giant waterfall, we realized it wasnt that we were done, they just thought we couldnt handle the waterfall. then we followed the guide expecting to be able to get back into the boats, but the path ended 15 feet over the river. the boats were down in the river. Jump, he said. uh. okay. ive actually never been that cold before.

thats a total lie. i have absolutely been that cold before. not only was i an extreme morning dipper at Camp wayfarer (shout out to Jim Bob), I also was on top of a snowcovered mountain in shorts as we waited for sunrise. (Jim bob, if you would like to take Morning Dip to a new level, try it in a glacial river. )

Here's a picture of someone else having fun rafting:

that one guy is crazy....

Since we missed our cuevas trip and our advisor had already paid for it, we decided we would go after rafting. the tourism guide guy was like "dude that cave trip sort of sucks. i would, like, totally not do it bro. horse back riding is gnarly tho dude" or as close to that as you can get in spanish.

so we went on a horseback ride. we walked down to see a waterfall. our chilean guide was 80 years old. he was 80. years. old.
and he SMOKED charlie down the trail. hahahaha. MAN. that was impressive.

Since i lost my Chilean ID, i thought it was important that i get a new one when i got back to santiago. Our advisor recommended i block my old one. I blocked it on thursday. I get an email that says the card is temporarily blocked until monday. today is monday. i still dont have a new card. This brings up a few questions:
1.) what could this ID possibly be used for?
2.)if the answer to #1 is, "nothing" why am i going to go through a hell of a bureaucratic process to get a new one?
3.) if my card is "temporarily blocked" should i reblock it? what good is a block if it becomes unblocked? is there a history of chilean thieves returning ID cards in a four day timeline?

as i thought this out, i realized that i didnt bring any of the necessary paper work with me to the registro civil. this brought up further questions:
1.) I already gave them copies of every important document i have except my pokemon card collection. what could i possibly bring them this time?
2.) why is there always a line of 50 million people in the registro? theres only like 23 million people in chile.
3.) has anyone reading this blog gotten tired of me complaining yet?
4.) so they stole my backpack. i feel like walking around with a bunch of copies of my passport and visa and EVERYTHING information is a bad idea. and i dont have very big pockets...

you're wondering, garrett, were the school notes important? please, tell us. I had actually just taken a test in all of those classes, so no they werent important. im sorry to have mislead you with the "all of the above" suggestion. Having followed that advice, you would gotten that question wrong. Which is funny because that's probably what happened on EVERY question on all 3 of those tests. So perhaps the notes were important. now you get the question right. yay. unfortunately, I still failed. so we're not the same anymore. Here's a picture to cheer you up: