Hey,

Sorry that it's been a while since I've updated.  I really haven't had too much time to go on a computer and I had way too much stuff to write in the time I had.  Unfortunately, that means that now there's too much stuff for me to write no matter how much time I have, so I'll just write some of the highlights (In no specific order whatsoever):

We Tripantu:
I went to a We Tripantu (Mapuche new year) celebrations, which is basically the biggest holiday for them of the year, with Luis (the English teacher in Chol Chol, Mapuche town).  It was interesting to be a part of it, even though it was basically was just walking around in a circle in a giant group around decorated tree branches.  The chief of the area chants for a long time, then spits alcohol at the branches, then climbs them blindfolded where he "enters the land of spirits" and talks to them for a few minutes.  He tells the fortunes for the coming year (unfortunately in Mapudomun, which I still haven't quite gotten the hang of).  Then he gets down and everyone dances and eats.  The entire ceremony took about 5 hours (about 2-3 of them were the walking around in a circle part).  It was a lot of fun though because it was very authentic and it was the first native ceremony I've ever gone to.

Las Cascadas:
I visited Las Cascadas, about 5 hours south of Temuco, where Mariana Elwin (Ex pres' daughter) has a cabin that we were invited to.  It was me, Mat, Jesse, Luna, a few stray bulls, and three peacocks.  That's right... there were three peacocks living there.  I made the important discovery that peacocks like Cheerios (will one day save the world, don't ask how).  It was an absolutely beautiful cabin almost completely secluded in nature, right on a giant lake.  We played Trivial Pursuit in Spanish from the 80's (I highly recomend) while drinking dulce de leche liquor.  Me and Jesse wanted to go canopying, but the guy that does it wasn't where he was supposed to be so we decided to leave.  As we were headed back to the cabin, another guy caught up with us and asked us if we wanted to go repelling for about 30 dollars less (about $10 US).  So we climbed up a really steep rocky wet slippery path with no safety gear (a recommended activity to do with you children), and then jumped off a cliff about 200 feet clinging onto a rope for dear life.  It was actually really amazing, with a great view of a forest, the lake, and the waterfall that was right beside us as we went down.  Next time though, I should make sure I'm wearing a diaper (and bring an umbrella... Jesse went after me and wasn't wearing a diaper either :) ).

Canada Day:
We celebrated it about a week late, but it went off pretty nicely.  It was a great time to give away all of the extra Canada stuff that I brought down.  Yes, that includes the Canada Umbrella-hats which everyone loves! (I think I started a new trend in Temuco.)  There were games and stands and students singing the national anthems of the US and Canada.  Impressively, the girl that sang the US anthem was taught it the day before and sounded amazing even though she knows about 2 words in English.  Those kids rock.  They are also obsessed with candy.... and stickers.

Farewell from school:
On the last day of school, all of the classes had big parties to celebrate the coming vacation and, needless to say, me and Mat were welcome to all of them (I can't remember the last time I had eaten so much cake... or sugar... and that includes that time when I was 8 that I got really sick and all I wanted to eat were those little mediciny thingies that were actually just a bunch of little sugar balls in a tube).  Wow that was a long sentence...  Anyways, the next day we came in for a big end of the semester lunch, and the principal made a speech, and the school gave us a couple Mapuche instruments with Temuco and Escuela Emprender 2006 engraved on them.  It was really nice.  And Gilda (my English teacher) gave us each a giant frame with pictures of all of our classes and random notes from the children.  Also, very sweet... and very big.  A couple of kids also came into school that day and gave us little gifts that they made as goodbye presents which was unbelievably sweet and made me very happy.  It was sad to say goodbye to everyone that we had been around for the past three months, but I think that it probably went as well as it could have.

Buenos Aires:
Me and Mat decided after school ended to bus over to Buenos Aires, where we spent a little less than a week.  It's a huge huge city and after exploring for about 6 or 7 hours almost every day, we explored probably about 1/10 of the city (literally).  We found a bunch of really cool antique stores where we bought various little knick knacks (I got a couple newspapers from 1899, one of which has pics of BA).  We also saw a bunch of cool museums, including one that had interesting, but disturbing, paintings related to children of the disappeared and children of the guerrillas.  While we were in BA, we also met up with my friend from high school Nick Burka, who's going on exchange there for a semester, so it was cool to see him.  I also played soccer with some people from my hostel, where I was the only Gringo... my team lost.... 12-0.
  Towards the end of our trip, we decided to go to Mar Del Plata for a day or two to go to the beach (about 5 hrs south of BA)..  We got there thursday afternoon and needed to be back in Stgo on Sunday morning so mat could pack before he left on Monday.  First thing we did when we got there was go to the bus station and get our ticket back... but the pass from Mendoza to Stgo was closed due to snow, so we looked for a ticket through the next most popular route, Bariloche.  All the tickets were sold out.  So after about an hour of wandering, we found a pass that goes to Temuco.... the guy didn't have any buses from Mar del Plata, but he did from Neuquen (middle of Argentina).  So after about another hour of wandering, we got four tickets from four companies in four different types of buses taking 40 hours (I now officially hate the number four) in two days to get back to Santiago by sunday morning.  All fully complete with a layaway wherelse but in Temuco!  On the upside, I got to see Pirates of the Carribean II and I had my one makeout for the summer in a hostal in Mar del Plata (lip rings are fun to play with :) ).

Now I'm in Vicuña slowly making my way up to Cuzco, only to fly back to Santiago and say bye bye to South America.  It's a really beautiful desert town, and I've been trying to go to an observatory to see the south american stars which is close to here, but unfortunately it's been too cloudy the past couple days... if it's not clear tomorrow, I'm gonna have to miss it :(.  Anyways, that's my quick catch up, lemme know if there's anything else you wanna know or, as always, any thoughts you have.

Also, call me because I'm lonely and travelling by myself.  568-928-1967

-Gil