pack your bags and go!

well, i officially feel like a world traveler. i survived my first completely independent, self planned, self managed, no-one-helping-me traveling experience to distant parts of the world, without bodily harm, emotional scaring, or anything of the sort. the freedom to go where we pleased, do what we wanted, without having a schedule of events to tie us down was really awesome. if you ever want to travel just to get to know a place, buy a plain ticket and a guide book, pack your bags and go (and of course call someone every night to tell them where you are in case something goes wrong, like i did, but that's beside the point)!

the trip consisted of a week down in southern chile, just north of patagonia in the southern part of the lake district and the island of chiloe. we (being myself and my friends katie and mia) flew into puerto montt monday afternoon and then started our traveling in the island of chiloe. we stayed in hostels (or hospedajes), traveled by bus, and met alot of really cool people. i think that meeting the people from all over the world was my favorite part. at one of the hospedajes we stayed at we met people from australia, holand, england, and lithuania. some of them were literally traveling the world, and it was really cool to hear some of their stories. a couple of them had what's called "round the world" plain tickets, something i didn't even know existed, but apparently includes a ton of different flights, literally all around the world. it was also really nice to be in a place with a much slower pace, much fewer people, and wide open spaces just a short walk away. one of my favorite parts of the trip was when we went on a tour that was guided by the owner of the hostal where we were staying. we went with 4 english boys and the guy from lithuania to parque nacional chiloe where there is one of the two temperate rain forests in the world. we also went to the beach on the west coast of chiloe which was really beautiful (really windy, but i really enjoyed it).

below are some of my favorite pictures from the trip. i have more, but these are my favorites. i figured out how to use the manual function on my camera, so i think the quality of my pictures is improving.

haha, this is my starbucks cup from the airport. i took a picture of it for two reasons, 1-note the way my name is spelled, and 2- to show how desperate i am for coffee that i even resorted to drinking starbucks (i figure it's not that bad here, b/c you just can't get good coffee... you know it's bad when starbucks is the best coffee around. chile needs a kennedy's...)

this is a picture of the church in chonchi, chiloe where we stayed for two nights. chiloe is full of these super cool old churches. each is considered a national heritage sight so something like that.this is also in chonchi. these little boats are all over the island of chiloe and make for some really cool pictures.

this are the swans off the coast of an even smaller island to the east of chiloe called lemuy. we went on a wild goose chase one day (get it!) to see these swans and took some wrong roads and didn't exactly know where we were, but we ended up finding them and finding where we were supposed to be so it was all good. just alot of walking (about 7 hours!) and we didn't exactly bring lunch, so we were starving by the time we got back to the hospedaje.this is in the rain forest walk in parque nacional chiloe. it was really different than anything i'd ever been in before. from what i hear, if you get really deep into the forest it's really quite incredible, but we were only on the edge.looking up through the trees in the rain forest. i like this pic!

this is on the beach on the west coast of chiloe. it's more exposed than the beaches here in viña and valpo with alot more wind and much stronger waves. we hiked along two different beaches. i really enjoyed it!katie and mia on the beach.

all three of us girls. i really like this picture too!katie and i took a boat ride on this big lake in mainland chile. the lake was near a town called petrohoe. we went there for a little while one day. the lake is surrounded by mountains and volcan osurno, but we couldn't see all the volcano b/c there were alot of clouds, but it was still quite beautiful.

katie on the boat with the volcano behind her.

the volcano with clouds wrapped around the top. we finally did get to see the top when we flew out in the airliner!this is the church in puerto varas where we stayed for two nights before we flew out.

so that was my trip in a nutshell. i really enjoyed it but i'm also glad to be home. it was weird being gone for a whole week. i have so little time here that i felt like i was wasting the precious time i have to build relationships. i think i'd definitely go again if i was given the chance, i really did enjoy the trip, but i realized that i don't want to spend all my time here traveling, even though there are a million cool places i'd like to go. but really, not traveling now will just give me a good reason to come back!

so for now i'm back home, needing to hit the books again. it's getting harder to motivate myself to study, but i need to more than ever. i also know that, while reading in spanish is super frustrating at times, everything i read will help me learn the language that much better, so i push on! i feel like i have so much to learn here, about the language, the culture, life in general, and the promises and the love the Lord has for me, but processing it all is at times really difficult. well, i'll update again soon, but for tonight, i'm out. i love you all!