Only a week and half left....
OK, so time is running very short, I have a little over a week left on this continent, so thought it was time for a brief update. Since we last spoke, my bank account devoloped a sudden wormhole, with money dissappearing and appearing in the bank accounts of all of the major airlines on the continent. Basically I've just been chasing various Ultimate Tourneys around the continent, which has been truly grand. Played a great Tourney in Medellin, Colombia a female team from the University de la Sabana de Bogota, a beach tourney in Monte Hermoso, Argentina, with the Argentinian Ulty scene (a mix of Argentinians, Colombians and foreigners) plus pickup games in Buenos Aires and Valencia, Venezuela: next stop, Brazil, to play for the Australian team in the World Beach Ulty Champs!
Have also been doing a bit of walking, taking one trip up to the desert region to do a short solo walk there, where I climbed and descended nearly 2000m in two days without knowing (no wonder it felt so hard!) and one trip with my father to the Torres del Paine, in Patagonia, the very south of chile, which is the park of those classic classic photos of these massive cliffs falling into greeny-blue glacial waters...spectacular. Also went to see the other classic classic national park way in the North of Chile of the smoking volcanos and lake at 4500m. (They claim it's the lake at the highest altitude in the world, but my father, having just come from Pakistan poo pooed that notion, having just been to the "highest lake in the world" at over 5000m. Either way, I have a little more respect for altitude now, since I only had time for the one day blitz tour, which takes you from sea level to 4500m in a day. Yuck.)
As for my life in Chile, well, suffice it to say that I don't know where the last few months have gone. And, as always happens, just at the end of your stay, you discover about a million new friends/ activities/ bakeries that you wish you had discovered at the beginning, but such is life. However, in the short time that I did have, I discovered a great live music scene, and starting playing viola with a tango group, plus found a friend with an amateur recording studio in his room, and recorded some music for him, plus one of my own peices. Also, managed to make it onto national- no continental television with a Milo ad- Milo has decided that Frisbee is "energetic" though only when you do flips before catching the disc and stuff. Consequently, they needed a "double" acrobat to do a flip and catch the disc, and also ANOTHER "double" acrobat to throw a Frisbee in the commercial (me!) , though only those of you who can recognize my backhand from a field away will recognize me because since I was a "double" for the actress and had to wear a 1000 dollar wig and everything! Everyone was telling me that I look heaps better with long hair, but that's only because Chilean men seem to think that it is impossible for a woman to be beautiful and have short hair. The conversation goes something like this Chilean man: "Women with long hair are so beautiful, you should grow out your hair." me "But..." "Sorry sorry, it's not that you're not beautiful already, it's just that you would be MORE beautiful with long hair." Nice work, guys. First rule of holes, right? Stop digging! When it finds its way onto youtube, I will point you in the right direction.
Other than that, I tried to imitate my lovely flatmates in the carreteando (partying- chilean-style) scene, but just couldn't keep up, they are just too crazy, went on a few daywalks with a dodgy dodgy mountaineering instructor, ate lots of baked goods and chocolate, listened to lots of live music, ran the famous nikecorre 10km, along with 10.000 people on the main streets of Santiago, volunteered in a local public school to help out their English program, played Frisbee (obviously) ate lots of street food.
Oh, and I took some classes, some interesting ones, and passed them, which is all I need to know about that!
In sadder news, I was involved in a bad car crash a week ago, but fortunately was wearing a seat belt, so am OK. The driver, my friend Rodrigo believes I saved his life because venezuealans NEVER NEVER wear seat belts, the only reason he was wearing one was because I was, and without a seat belt he would have been dead. There were minor injuries in the other car, heads getting smacked into the windscreen (because as I said, Venezuelans NEVER NEVER wear seat belts) So, a word to the wise: WEAR YOUR SEAR BELT.
For fear of being sickeningly sappy, I won't go into detail, but, I must say after all this tripping around, I am ready to come back to Aus, there are plenty of things and people that I am missing, and am looking forward to seeing in a week and a half.
Well, I've got a plane to catch in a few hours, I'm off to Brazil, to visit a friends for a few days, then to play Beach Ulty!!! (Asuming my neck, which suffered a bit of whiplash, lets me)
Wish me luck!
MICA
