Hard camino to the sky

I'm writing this on my way back from my second climbing escapade with a smaller cohort of the same Conce climbers, just over a month after the first. This time, destination: Chillan, but just for one night. 

The only downside to these climbing trips, is that you don't get to see anything but the rocks you climb and the immediate surroundings. I'm keen to make sure I get some walking in next time too, so will have to motivate a couple of recruits to come with me. The routes in Chillan are much longer than any I've ever climbed before, and once again it was my stamina that was letting me down, and the day and a half we had wasn't long enough to work up to and get used to the demand like in Peluca back in September.

Much as I really enjoyed the camping side back in Peluca, the weather makes a big difference, and despite the icy peaks just a few hundred metres away, summer is well and truly on its way and I wasn't cold at all. It's nice to feel a bit more integrated too. - I've seen most of the group at the climbing wall since we first met, plus my Chilean has improved (due in no small part to just this kind of trip!), making it easier for me to participate in the jokes and keep up with the banter - certainly no shortage of that!
We ended up leaving earlier than expected since the majority of the group were leaving and the girls were lacking the motivation to stay just the 3 of us. Honestly, I'm a little disappointed since there was a whole other section of climbs that I wanted to try that looked feasible, and we had also planned to go to the hot springs in the night. Two of the group went on Saturday night, but we decided we'd be better off going to bed early and going the following night. Shucks.

My tent and travel buddies for this trip

An important contributing factor to my failure to climb as much as I wanted was the INACAP anniversary staff party on Friday night. It's a big deal there, with a posh dinner, open bar, music, games and performances. I can't say I've ever been to a staff party, but it was certainly more extravagant than anything I could have imagined, and with a carnival theme. I was invited to go get made up with two of my colleagues, with a sister who is a pro make-up artist. Result:

Far more make-up than I would ever do for myself (unless we're talking face paint, I'm fully on board with that!), but the end result was nice. Certainly my colleagues looked very striking with dark make-up and bold colours. Plus there were some pretty crazy false eyelashes involved (not for me though) which were kind of fun too - Jess you'd have loved them!
The party itself was an interesting affair, and an important event on the INACAP calendar; we're approaching the end if term and tensions generally are running high, making this a great ice breaker and conducive to the atmosphere among staff. 

The party went on pretty late, and since the venue was a way out of town, the institution had arranged for minibuses to do a school run and drop everyone home, allowing everyone to let their hair down. Unfortunately I wasn't privy to all the necessary information and missed the first bus leaving at 2. Not that the party wasn't fun, but I had a bus to catch at 8am the next morning. Long story short I got home at 4.30 and slept two hours before getting up to meet the girls at the us station. Kind of explains my lack of energy... 

In other news, I've started doing Capoiera - if you don't know what it is, check it out on youtube, but in short it's a martial arts/dance from Brazil. Forgive me if I'm repeating myself, but it's exhausting and pretty male dominated but a lot of fun all the same, and last week I ended up participating in a demonstration/performance at the youth centre where we have classes. I'm easily the least experienced their but they were adamant that I should get involved. In the end, it did seem to be the participation that counted more than anything, since several people took the trouble to congratulate me specifically for my participation, particularly among the others in the group (and the visiting Capoiera groups from surrounding areas). 

There's also the occasional circus workshop on a Friday afternoon to get involved in, so I now have a basic knowledge of acrobalance positions and rudimentary skills in a hoop.  

So many fun things to play with!

In short, I'm keeping active... and social. Plus next week I'm meeting with someone from a local NGO to see if there's something I can bring to their organisation. So things are moving forward in that direction too. I've also decided that I'll spend Christmas and New Year with two of my housemates, a Belgian and a Chilean, whose family lives in Coihaique. So what I'm hoping to do is spend some of December taking the long way to Coihaique, stopping off on the way to visit whatever takes my fancy, then in January meet up with Alex and Rosh in the South to do some hardcore backpacking and have a jolly good catch-up. Plans are evolving and the future is full of promise. Here's hoping that things continue this way!