Rafting

I intend to make all my post titles in Spanish, but here rafting is rafting, so what can ya do...

Yesterday I went rafting in the Cajon del Maipo, with a group from school (one of the selling points of Escuela Bellavista is that they organize optional excursions for their students). Rafting itself was fun--not too scary but still exciting--but the day was ridiculously inefficient. We met at 9:30 at a Metro station in town, and we waited until 10 for everyone to show up. Then we took the Metro to the end of the line and boarded a bus to the Cajon. The Cajon is south of Santiago, and since it is the closest serious recreation area and it is accessible by public transportation, it is a popular weekend destination. But it is still early in the season now--the temperature of the river was about 3 degrees celcius.

Anyway, we arrived at the rafting place around 12:30. So 3 hours between when the group met in Santiago and when we got to our destination. But then Cristian (the school's office manager/excursion coordinator) told us that now we had time for lunch, because we weren't actually scheduled to start rafting until 2:00. Um, so why did we meet at 9:30 again? 2:00 came and went, and around 2:30 they finally rounded us up for our safety briefing and wet suit distribution. I think we pushed off from the shore about 3:30, and finished our run at 4:30. The drove us back to the start, we showered and changed, and then waited around for them to prepare a DVD of the trip (which we bought...and proceeded to share among us, thanks to the wonders of digital reproduction technology...). Then we had to wait for the bus to come by, which it did about 5:30. I got home a little after 8. So, 11 hours out of the house for 1 hour of rafting...

It was fun, though. Class 3.5 rapids. Apparently the river is rated class 4 in season, but the snow has only just started melting now so the river is a little low. The only person to take a dunk was a woman on the boat with us (not from school) who fell backwards when the boat pushed off from shore. Oops.

Photo evidence (of the trip, not of the dunk):

The group waiting to be called to raft...

Some rafting action--I'm second from the front on the right-hand side.

Now you can see my face.

Also this weekend a big group of us went out on Friday night. Friday was the last day of classes for a bunch of people, who are either starting full time work (mostly internships), volunteering, or looking for a job. We started out at a restaurant called Santo Remedio, which serves large "tablas" with a little bit of everything that are good for a group. Here we are:


After dinner most of us intended to meet up with the weekly Escuela Bellavista "happy hour" at this bar called Dos Gardenias, but it was so crowded when we got there that Terri (from Colorado), Katrien (from Belgium), Felipe (Katrien's boyfriend, from Columbia), Taylor and I decided to go somewhere else for a relaxing drink. We ended up splitting a bottle of wine at an outdoor cafe, and it was soooo much better than a loud, smoky bar. We also spoke in Spanish the whole time, and although I probably said the least it was still a fun time!