Pichilemu - Travelling with Chileans

Beach trip with soccer team and extended friends

As we seem to have no shortage of long weekends here in Chile (though I promise I do go to school sometimes), this past weekend I was able to travel to a small beach town in central Chile called Pichilemu. My friend Darcy and I were invited by a few of the girls from our Chilean soccer team who take this trip every year around Halloween with a really big group of friends. Because they apparently find us gringos so entertaining (I think we mostly serve just to amuse them, and they do refer to us directly as "los gringos"), they had us bring a couple of other friends from our AU program to make a decent sized travel group. Unfortunately, I really didn't take that many pictures, but the opportunity to travel with Chilean friends as opposed to only people from our program was certainly an experience to remember.

Pichilemu is most well known as an international surf destination; this past weekend while we were there, the small beach town was packed because they were hosting the women's world championship surf competition. You can access the majority of the town on foot, and our hostel was only a 10 minute walk from the beach.

Since almost everyone on the trip had been to Pichilemu before, this was more of a relaxing trip as opposed to a sightseeing/ activities intensive vacation. We got to play a little bit of soccer, some people in the group took surf lessons, and we mostly enjoyed some relaxing time on the beach. In the evenings, the hostel turned into a big social gathering, and in true Chilean style, most people weren't in bed until around 6 am.

Halloween in Pichilemu

We were also able to enjoy some local seafood, known as "ceviche." It's served in almost all of the food trucks close to the ocean, and comes in this little fruit-cup sized container with half a lemon. We also found this incredible waffle truck, and enjoyed warm waffles on a pretty cold morning complete with manjar (a Chilean caramel type spread) and bananas.

The main tourist destination in Pichilemu is a spot called "Punta de lobos" where the waves are enormous - I cannot imagine a more perfect spot for surfing - and are continually crashing against the coast. When we were there it was windy and pretty cold, but packed with people for the competition and those who were simply vacationing for the long weekend.

Overall, it was a relaxing but unique trip. Normally, we get to practice our Spanish all the time outside of school, but this was different because we were literally surrounded by Spanish 24/7. It was easier to talk to my AU friends in Spanish most of the time because it left me with less of a headache than I normally have when trying to switch back and forth between English and Spanish (this happens to all of us - maybe it means we are slowly but surely becoming bilingual??). It was also nice because our Chilean friends made all of the plans we basically just followed along, though this is what usually happens when we hang out with the soccer team anyway. Darcy and I have decided that our motto for this semester is "¿Dónde estamos y qué estamos haciendo?" (Where are we and what are we doing?). This applies to many things here, but really we love it just because it always means a new experience. It's scary to think that I only have about a month and a half left here (where did the time go?), but I have a few more trips and activities planned so stay tuned!