It has been another crazy and long week here in Santiago and I cannot believe that I only have 2 more weeks left in Santiago! Here is a quick update on my timeline for the rest of the semester:
10/5-10/10: Santiago (last week of spanish and seminar classes)
10/11-10/17: Rural home-stay in Temuco Chile (10 hour drive south of Santiago)
10/18-10/23: Preparation for Buenos Aires (last week in Santiago and Chile)
10/24-11/6: 2 week group excursion to Buenos Aires
11/7-12/4: 1 month Independent Study Project (ISP), I will most likely be spending this time in Buenos Aires
It is crazy to think that I have already been here for 6 weeks and the half-way mark is just around the corner!
This weekend was another wonderful adventure. A group of 7 of us went to Cajon del Maipo, a mountain area just outside of Santiago. We left late Friday night and after being stranded at a bus stop for over an hour we finally made it to La Bella Durmiente (sleeping beauty) where we stayed in a 7 person cabana or cabin as we would say in the US. We got settled in and pretty much headed straight to bed. The next morning a few of us early riser took a nice little walk down the road and enjoyed the many mountains that were surrounding us. In the afternoon all 7 of us went HORSEBACK RIDING in the mountains (aka the Andes!)!!!! Can you believe it?!? We went on about a two hour trek essentially straight up the mountains and then straight down. I think the last time I went horseback riding was when I went to a camp in Long Island with my aunt...and I am sure that was when I was 7 or 8...it was a little bit of a struggle. One of my friends, Meg, horseback rides a lot and she made the rest of us look pretty bad, and another friend, Abby, almost fell of her horse when one of our guides whipped it for eating too much. It was terrifying riding these horses because we were so close to the edge of the mountain the whole way up and down. I had to keep telling myself to breathe and try to enjoy the view even though I was terrified...going down was even scarier!! It was pretty dangerous, which may be why horseback riding is against the rules, but it was totally worth it...check out these photos and tell me if you disagree:
After horseback riding we were all terribly sore and exhausted so we went back to the cabin and relaxed a little. That night we cooked ourselves a delicious dinner of my personal favorite, chicken, pasta, and lemon (thank you gabby), steak, a delicious salad, and grilled vegetables! It was amazing!
This is a picture of all of us right before dinner! We were so hungry, I never realized horseback riding was so exhausting!
We spent the rest of the night relaxing and laughing a lot. It was great to get away from Santiago and the stress of the program, we had all been feeling pretty down last week, they call it the 5 week slump, but having the weekend hidden away in the mountains definitely did the trick for all of us!
As you can see from the schedule above things are coming to an end here in Santiago and this is the last week of classes, which I am so happy about! I have two projects due this week as well as two papers so I will certainly be busy. There are many places I still want to explore in Santiago so I am going to do my best to fit everything in these next few weeks!
Muchos besos y abrazos
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