Wow a lot of time has passed since I last wrote. I spent the last 2 days in Iquique walking around and catching up on some emails that I had put off while in Peru and Bolivia. My bus was 25 hours to Santiago, a 4 hour wait in the terminal and another 9 to Coronel, Chile, to meet my sister. The section from Iquique to Santiago believe it or not wasn’t that bad. I had asked for a “cama” bus which means bed in Spanish and the seats were very comfortable, reclining to almost horizontal. The scenery was gorgeous too, I was lucky enough to have a seat facing the west side of the bus and saw the ocean most of the way! I also saw one of the most pointless things on this portion of the bus ride. Customs within Chile´s own country, especially at 2 in morning. The bus waited in about an hour line up at customs, we all had to get off the bus get our bags and place them on a counter. We had to open them up and customs hand searched each bag. I was not looking forward to my backpack being searched, since I would have to pretty much empty its contents for them to see what´s in it. To my right was coming a super picky lady that was opening every pocket of every bag and to my left was a man was scanned to surface of every bag, moved a few things around and onto the next. I was really crossing my fingers that the man would get to me first, fortunately he did and asked me where I was from and just patted the top of my bag, all he could see was my wash kit, and that was good enough for him. I was quite relieved. They didn’t even ask us for any papers of any sort.

Me at the bus station, ready to go!!

The second bus was much less fun; not nearly as comfortable and since it was overnight I had to try and sleep so that I would be exhausted when I reached my sister. My sister and I had agreed to meet at the bus station in Coronel. I knew that after Conception, the biggest nearby I had to start paying attention for when to get off the bus. When we got to the city limits of Coronel I asked the bus driver when we were getting to the bus station, and he informed me that there was no bus in Coronel. I had a mini freak out since Coronel city limits are pretty vast and I had no idea where to get off. I asked the bus drive to drop me off somewhere we I could get a phone at 6:30am. Before that could happen a man on the bus offered me his cell phone, but he was getting off the bus so I decided to get off with him, since I had no idea where to get off. In retrospect this may not have been the safest decision but he turned out to be very nice and waited with me until my sister came. It turns out I got off about 100 meters from where we were staying. I was pretty lucky. Unfortunately when my sister found out there was no bus station in Coronel, they got up at 4:30 and drove to Concepcion to wait for me there. She went to every bus and asked the bus driver if there was a Canadian on board. With no luck they returned to Coronel just in time to get my call.

My sister, he host sister, Ailen and I stayed at a relative’s house for a week (a cousin of the host mum). I didn’t feel very welcome in the house which was unfortunate and was quite bored in Chile. Since Stephanie and Ailen didn´t really know the surroundings either we didn’t have much to do and they were quite bored too. We played a lot of cards, went to Conception and to the beach once. Overall this part of the trip wasn’t that fun. However it was neat to see how a Chilean family lives. The main (and only) meal of the day was at lunch, and consisted of potatoes and meat every day. I´m not sure if this is what every Chilean family eats, but we were all sick of potatoes by the end of the week. Other than lunch all there really was to eat was white bread with ham, cheese or jam (breakfast and dinner). Talk about a lack of fiber in the diet.

Stephanie and I just having set foot in Argentina!

On February 3rd, Ailen, Stephanie and I bused 17 hours to get to General Roca. The bus only drove for 13 hours but we left in the evening and arrived at the border 3 hours before it opened and idled there until it opened. Once arriving to Stephanie´s house I got to meet the rest of her family. They are great people and she is very fortunate to be in such a nice family! Ailen is a year older than Stephanie, there are 3 older brothers, one of which lives at home. We didn´t do much the night we arrived. Ailen and Stephanie did a lot of catching up with their ¨parents¨ while I tried to understand that was being said. My Spanish is coming along slowly. I can now understand most things people say as long as they don´t speak too fast. Speaking is another story and is much harder although I can tell I´ve already improved since being with my sister.

The routine in this family is similar to the one in Chile, where the main meal is lunch. However there is much more diversity in the meals and thank goodness a bit of fruit!! General Roca produces a lot of apples and pears and one of the host brothers works somewhere where he brings fruit home!

One thing I´ve noticed here is families spend a lot of time around the dinner table talking. People don´t seem as rushed or busy and enjoy more simple things in life. One thing that is done everywhere in Argentina is drinking Yerba Mate. It is a very traditional thing and Argentineans drink mate at least once a day. There is one cup that gets passed around, it gets refilled for each person and after they drink it they pass it back to the person that fills the cup. When you are done drinking mate, you say ¨gracias¨ which indicates to everything that you don´t want anymore. There are thousands of different mate cups and different ways to drink it.
My days definitely aren´t as busy as in Peru and Bolivia however it is really nice to experience Stephanie´s and her family´s life here! I am in General Roca for another week or so and then we head to Las Grutas, a beach on the coast for 4 days!