Arena y Montañas

The past two days were full of adventure! Friday, four other girls and I decided to make our way to Concón (a town about a 25ish micro ride from Viña) in order to conquer las dunas (the dunes)!! While we are certainly not experts with the micro situation here (for those who don't know, micro is the equivalent of a bus), we figured that all we needed to do was find a bus that said "Concón" on it, and we'd be in the right place! Easy enough right? Well.... not so right. We did get on a bus that said Concón, and after driving about 20 minutes through some sketchy little towns, we started to think that we may not be in the right place. Turns out we were right when at one point the driver pulled over and said, get out here! There were no dunes in sight... in fact, there was no sand in sight! This driver was pretty adamant however, and as we were not looking to get in a screaming match with an impatient chilean micro driver, we got off.  Then the bus left. And then we were alone. For those of you who have read The Hunger Games, our group decided that the area we were in would be the real life equivalent of District 12.  For those of you who haven't read The Hunger Games, this town was pretty desolate, very industrial, and there was hardly anyone to be seen.  Thankfully there was a policewoman nearby, and the oh-so-brave Katherine went up and asked her how we should get to the dunes.  When she proceeded to laugh at us, we knew we were definitely in the wrong place.  However, she pointed us in the right direction of a bus that would take us to the dunes, and we went on our way (looking very out of our element and very gringa to say the least).  Once we got there, we were amazed at the beauty of these dunes! We were also amazed at the steepness... hello calf muscles!!! One of my favorite days in Chile so far :)

Then yesterday (Friday), a big group of us gringos had planned to go hiking at La Campana, in Olmué! Olmué is a town about 45 minutes away from where we live, so in order to get there, we had to take a combination of the metro and buses.  To get to the starting point of the hike, we had been told that all we needed to do was to get on the metro going towards a town called Limache, the last stop on the metro, and then get on the bus labeled Olmué, and that bus would take us all the way to La Campana! Instead, here is what our morning composed of:

7:40am: Meet at Viña del Mar metro station
8:00am: Get on metro towards Limache
8:30am: Get off metro #1, because it apparently doesn't go to Limache
8:40am: Get on metro #2, go to Limache
9:00am: Arrive at Limache, spend 10 minutes trying to understand metro station worker on which bus to get on
9:10am: Get on Olmué bus
9:25am: Get off Olmué bus #1, because friendly local woman said if we kept going we'd be going WAY the wrong way
9:30am: After walking aimlessly for a little bit, find another friendly local, ask where to get correct bus
9:40am: Catch bus #2, driver said she'd take us all the way to the base of La Campana
9:50am: Driver makes us get out on sketchy dirt road, says walk up the hill about 1km to base
10:15am: After walking 2 kilometers, taking 2 buses, and 2 metros, we finally made it to the base of La Campana!

Note to future travelers of Chile: Most Chileans want to be really helpful when you ask them questions/directions, so even if they don't know where it is that you want to go, they will make something up in order to not have to say that they don't know. For example, when we asked how to get to La Campana, we were told, "Oh it's easy! All you have to do is get on the metro, get off and get right on the C bus to Olmué, and they'll take you the whole way there!"... Obviously, not so much the case.

Once we did get to hiking, it was absolutely beautiful! It felt so good to be hiking/in nature again, I almost felt like I was right back home in Colorado! I think I'm going to have to make hiking a more common occurrence - it just felt so nice to be in the outdoors again! After our 7.5 mile hike ida y vuelta (roundtrip), getting home on the bus/metro combo was much easier than getting there, and once finally home, a hot shower never felt so good! I was nervous there wouldn't be hot water, as there sometimes isn't, but after a couple whispered, "Please be hot water, please be hot water, please be hot water," wishes, when I put my hand under the water, it was in fact hot. Thank goodness! Overall couldn't have asked for a better two days spent with friends in the beautiful paisajes of Chile.