March 19th, 2006, Santiago, Chile

We woke up in our bunks (I am starting to realize that by writing this blog 'journal style' almost every day begins the same way, please let me know if you are getting bored by that as well) and packed up for the bus trip to Puerto Montt that wasn't to depart until late in the afternoon, so we checked out and left our bags with the reception at Casa Roja.

On Sundays in Santiago, the museums are free so we decided to get some more culture by experiencing the Museo Chleno de Arte Precolumbino. The Museo Chleno de Arte Precolumbino is an amazing museum, and is small and located near the pedestrian mall and shopping center we visited earlier.. We walked towards downtown again, hoping to find some breakfast. But nothing was open, except for Subway. And we acquiesced, caving to the pressure of our stomachs. The sub was good, and we ate it on a bench on a plaza across from one of the main administrative buildings in Santiago. Once full and satisfied we found the museum and entered the permanent exhibit hall. It was amazing. Artifacts of all shapes and sizes, materials and construction. Some truly amazing pieces and all of them explained an aspect of the culture from which they came. Some of the most interesting pieces were;

A counting rope, that is a series of strings knotted and tied together to represent the populace of a region. Strings of different color and length are thought to signify different events or people of varying stature or families. When a new child is born a string was tied onto the cord representing the parent at a certain point to show when. The rope overall looks a bit like a grass skirt and I believe that is how it was worn by the person conducting the census.

A ceremonial bowl/plate (pictured below) showing a shaman dressed as a bird with a (presumed) dead animal below. This bowl was thought to be used in preparation of the ceremonial psychedelics commonly used in Peru. This sort of Hawk figure appears all over the world in shamanic traditions.



I also really like this hat.



We left the museum and did a little last minute shopping for our sailing trip. I bought a bathing suite/running shorts and Jojo bought some conditioner because even on a boat, it's nice for us to have soft shiny hair, right? We walked back to Plaza Brazil, stopping for cheesecake and chinese food to take on the overnight bus trip we had ahead of us. The restaurant was grand but the food was lousy. We got back to Casa Roja, grabbed our bags, and of course, our ubiquitous plastic bag of food as well, and set off on the underground for our bus.

By this time we were used to busses and bus terminals, but the lady who scornfully sold us our tickets deigned not to tell us our bus departed from the terminal across the street, so we had to do some hot footing with all our gear to make it, which we did, but we were again a bit out of breath when we got there (which reminds me is a trend on this trip, starting waaaaay back in Miami airport where we had to walk well over a mile to get to our plane to La Paz... mmmm). But aboard we were, in the last row (the same ticket lady had deceived us on this topic as well, but we had more room to spread so it was ok) and ready for a bad night's sleep.

General Sailing Terms

General Sailing Terms:

Tack: to turn the boat and catch the wind from the opposite side of the boat, turning the bow through the eye of the wind (the wind direction). When the wind is in front of you, blowing against the direction you want to go.
Jibe: to turn the boat and catch the wind from the opposite side of the boat, turning the stern through the eye of the wind. When the wind is behind you, blowing the direction you want to go.
Bow: the front of the boat
Stern: the rear of the boat
Port: the left side of the boat.
Starboard: the right side of the boat.
Main mast: the mast that hoists the main sail and the genoa or jib, and has the boom for the main sail and is the middle of the boat. The boom is also attached to this mast, and the main sail is attached to the boom
Boom: A horizontal beam that attaches to the bottom of the main sail. It is used to tighten the bottom or foot of the sail.

Puerto Montt on the horizon

We´re in Santiago, and i'm sitting in a retrofitted spanish mansion in Barrio Brasil that is now an excellent hostel, albeit one for backpackers and partiers and most of the people speak some form of english. It's under construction a bit (but nothing like the internet cafe I slept in in Amsterdam, Tarek, George... you _might_ remember that). It's quite an amazing place actually with 16 foot ceilings and all the original trim and detiling. the doors are all tall double doors with windows at the top and every door and window has shutters over the glass. There are two inner courtyards and they are filled with white plastic porch furniture and recovering tourists. It's quite a contrast, but beautiful none the less.

Jojo and I leave in about an hour for Puerto Montt on an overnight bus. It was all we could find to fit our schedule and budget. Pretty cheap actually, considering. We should wake up in Puerto Montt sometime tomorrow morning early and so will begin our adventure with Deborah and Rolf. My plan is to get off the bus and onto another local bus to the marina right away. If all goes well we might be sailing by the 21st and then... who knows what?

I'm so excited to begin this sailing adventure that this last bus ride seems like it will be even longer than the previous 26 hour ride despite it being half that length.

Oh well, anticipation is always one of the strongest and most confuddling emotions. It warps time and importance and quickens the pulse. Our health is fine and our emotions high. Santiago has been an excellent experience overall and we have slept well, ate well, and expolore much of Santiago on foot. Last night we walked a couple of miles across town to meet some people we had met the night before. We didn{t meet them, and after waiting 45 min we decided we might be in the wrong spot, so we crossed a big busy street full of high speed busses and to our suprise found some capoeira!!!! It was a group called Sur de Bahia or something and they were quite good and very friendly. I was about to jump in after watching for about 20 minutes and making sure it was "my kind" of capoeira when the roda ended and they commenced with samba de roda, more of a dance, and the leader, a Professor de Capoeira, was hilarous and awesome to watch dance.

Well, i've got to get going and catch a bus, so it's goodbye for now. We might get a chance to write one last time but there's no guarentees in South America. Only Best Wishes!

Eli