Chapter 5 ~ Micros, Colectivos, Metros, and More

In which I explain my first experience in a micro, my first experience on going out in Chile, and my first time going out for my mountain sporting class. Get ready to read...


So I'm sure by now that a fair few of you have been wondering why I entitled this blog "Climbing with Chileans". Well now is the time where I will explain everything. I am taking a class called 'Deportes de Montanas' which is, in essence, an extreme mounting hiking, rock climbing, camping class. As a group, we go on different types of trips, usually to the mountains, or somewhere near the mountains, and we commence the mountain sports. I have just successfully completed my first rock climbing outing. As a class we went out to Las Chilcas and climbed some pretty impressive 'cliffs'. After climbing them we repelled down and started over. I repelled down different canyons about 5 times, and I climbed two different sides of the cliff three times. Side Note: If I knew how to get the pictures up on this site, I would, but until I learn how all of the pictures will be on facebook (sorry to those of you who do not have a facebook page and/or are not friends with me). The experience of saying I have climbed and repelled down a mountain is one that I will remember forever. It was thrilling and exciting getting up that high and knowing that the only thing saving you from plummeting to the ground was a rope and your climbing abilities. It was all the more impressive that the only training they gave us was climbing up one rock wall at their gym that quite frankly my grandmother could have climbed without using her hands. So when I was asked if this class was going to be physically demanding, after only having such little training, I said no. And while it didn't require a lot of physical strength, it was much more challenging than I had anticipated, and yet, everyone was able to climb to the top and everyone repelled down. Its amazing how much we can accomplish if we put are minds to it, even if we did have to meet at 6:30 am that morning.

Meeting that early in the morning was no fun task I assure you, mostly because the metro station was closed and I had to take a micro or a colectivo (which I had only taken once, a taxi with a certain route). As I stated in a previous chapter, I had only been taking the metro everywhere because it was easy, cheap, and impossible to get lost on. Well I knew that the day would come when I would have to take that dreadful micro (a city bus), and it did come, on an unfortunate Friday. This story, as to why I despise all busses requires a little bit of back story, so I will take you back to the not so distant past, in January of 2010. It was on this cold January day, in downtown Minneapolis, that I was required to take a city bus to my school, for the first time in my life. I had been over the route with my roommate and she assured me that it was super easy and that I couldn't mess it up if I tried. Well I didn't try to mess it up, and yet somehow I did. I got off on the stop after mine and had to backtrack a couple of blocks to get to my class on time, which in itself isn't so bad, but it was winter in the midwest, and I had to cross a bridge, on foot. So that started the experience, and then, on that same day, I had to take the bus back home. Well this time I was prepared, I had counted the stops and knew that after so many stops it was mine and I would not mess it up this time. Well, I had no idea that the bus had a few more stops on the way back and so when I was counting out the stops, I had no idea that the bus was not nearly as far as it should have been. So after the number of stops had passed I knew that the next stop was mine and I got off the bus, only to realize a second to late that it was not my stop. I had to walk, in the snowy cold winter, 2 miles to get back to my house, and ever since that day I have despised all busses, even if everything goes well on them, I would just prefer to walk or bike, or crawl, or just about anything but take a bus. To add a little to that story, my sense of direction (while it has improved over the years) is still astonishingly infantile. So when I am in a new area, and I don't have any landmarks to help me know where I am, and don't recognize anything around, I get a little nervous and my brain doesn't seem to work as well. Having said all of that, the story of what happened this last Friday can now begin.

I was to meet my Mountain Sports class in Sausalito at 5:20 that evening, I had a map and the numbers of the micros that I could take. I had never really been to Sausalito, and I knew it was in the hills so I wouldn't really be able to see the ocean to help with my direction, and the fact that it was in a known 'shady' part of town only bothered me a little bit. I had been waiting to take a micro until I had to, and now that I had to, I was wishing I had more experience on them. But I still went to that bus stop, and I had to wait, and watch as 3 of the micros I could have taken passed by. Here in Chile, the micros don't really stop, you just have to flag them down and they'll pull up to the curve and you jump on while its still sort of moving. Finally, after about 15 minutes one of the micros that I could take stopped, all the way, because it was stuck behind a few other micros that were unloading. I ran to the micro, stepped on the first step, and that is when things started going wrong... As soon as I got on, the driver decided to pull away from the curb, into speeding traffic, which threw me against the railing, knocking the wind out of me. Then, I walk up to the driver to pay and tell him where I am going, and he immediately says something that I couldn't understand. So with my look of confusion, and lack of a response, he grins and asks me where I am going. Well I knew exactly where I wanted to go, so I told him the stop that I needed and he shook his head that he understood, told me how much it was (about 1 dollar) and we were off. I was trying to memorize as much as I could about where we were going, and I knew that as soon as we crossed the bridge, I had to count out 12 street crossings and get off the micro at the 12th. Well lets just say that it is almost impossible to do that here. Half of the 'crossings' are only on one side, none of the streets are clearly labeled, and we are going what feels like 300 miles an hour. So after a few minutes I decide that I should just go to the front of the bus and remind the driver that I need to get off at 12 Norte. When I reach the bus driver and ask where 12 Norte is, he laughs and says that we passed it a little bit ago. He then pulls up to the curb and in the words of my dad's girlfriend, I had to tuck and roll, because he was not going to stop. Now, all I know is that we passed where I needed to be, I am in a semi-bad part of town, and I have 20 minutes to get to class. So I start walking, backtracking until the road comes to a Y, and I can't find a street sign, and knowing that if I look too lost, or too much like a 'Gringo' I will be an easy target for pick-pocketing. I decide to go with my gut, which doesn't exactly steer me wrong, and since I have no idea where the other road would have led me, I am going to say I chose correctly. After walking around for a few minutes, I decide to just ask the next person I see how to get to Sausalito. It turned out to be a nice old woman with no teeth, who was almost impossible to understand, but I just went in the direction that she pointed me in, and after a few more minutes I made it to the class, barely late and glad to have made it! My first order of business in class was to find someone who was going to the same place as I was after class and follow them, and what I ended up finding was so much better.

I found a group of people who were planning on going out that night, and were planning on walking to the metro station as a group; just the things I had hoped to find! I got some of their numbers on the walk to the metro station and told them I would call them at 10:30 (the absolute earliest anyone goes out in Chile). I got home and told Hilda that I had plans to go out finally and would be leaving soon. She was really excited to hear this news because I had yet to go out with friends in the 3 weeks I had been here and that is really unusual behavior to Chileans. Every weekend she always asked if I had plans with friends, and every weekend I responded with 'not yet'. So she made me some food, I ate, and then she sent me on my way. My friend called me with a change of plans and said that we were meeting at 10:30 at his place to pre-game a little before we go out, and he asked me to bring something. I stopped at a liquor store to find out about the most amazing promotion I have ever heard of. On Friday and Saturday nights, the liquor stores here have a promotion for a bottle of either pisco (Chilean alcohol that is amazing) rum, or vodka, a 2 liter bottle of soda, and a bag of ice; all for just over 8 dollars. So, now loaded up with booze, ice and a mixer, I head out to my friends house with the directions he gave me, and I could take the metro! It was going to be a great night. I called him when I got to the street he lived on, he met me out by the gate (all houses have locked gates) and we started to climb the 3 flights of stairs to get to his host family's castle. Now I am extremely happy with my host family, they are great and I would never think of trading them, but my friend's host family is in a whole other dimension. As soon as we got to the top of the stairs, I started for the front door, to which he told me no, the party house is to the left. His host family has a separate building for parties!? This party 'room' had a pool table, a flat screen TV on the wall playing music videos, a bar, and seating for everyone. After congratulating myself on friend selection, we began the night. After my bottle of pisco was gone, we decided to go out to a club that his host brothers could get us into for free. At about 3:30 some of our group was a little hungry and a little tired. We went to get a 'completo' (a hot dog with a lot of avocado, mayo, and tomatoes and is equivalent to the US's big mac) and then we called it a night. I had to take a micro home, because the metro closes after 10:30, and once again I got off on the stop after mine. This time it wasn't exactly my fault, I was slightly intoxicated, it was dark, and the driver was speeding. So by the time I realized we were at my stop and I pulled the cord to tell the driver to stop, it was too late. I only had to backtrack a little, but made it home in one piece at around 4:30. It was a successful night.

I would like to add that I have since taken a few more micros and have yet to get off on the right stop, but I have also made it to where I need to go so it hasn't been a complete failure. I would also like to add just one more interesting fact about where I am living. In the United States we have ice cream trucks that drive a little slower and play music (you know the type of music, that high pitched whistling). Well here in Chile, they also have a truck that drives a little slower and plays the same type of high pitched music, except here it is the gas truck (Chileans have propane looking tanks of gas to heat their water and what not, and they have to replace the tanks twice a month). And the last truck that passed was playing the song 'Silent Night'. Interesting....

Anyway I know this was a bit longer than the usual, and I want to thank all of you that stuck through it until the end. I really appreciate it and I hope you are all finding yourselves in good health.
No Vemo Pronto
S.R.