Day 6 in Chile: Isla Negra!

 

On Friday, May 13 2011, we left on the bus around 9:30 am to visit Isla Negra. The bus ride took about an hour or so until we reached our destination. Here in Isla Negra we were planning on visiting Pablo Neruda’s house. Pablo Neruda is a famous painter and his home is located in Isla Negra, which makes this area of Chile a tourist location. Unfortunately, for some reason, we were not able to visit his house until 4 o’clock, which meant we had four hours to find something to do in this deserted area. Some of the Chilean students that went on this trip with us asked locals for more interesting places to see. After doing several circles with the bus, we traveled to a poet’s grave where he was positioned straight up and looking toward the sea in the grave. There was a nice little area on top of a hill where he had been buried. After seeing this poet’s grave, we traveled to find something to eat. At this point, we drove where many fish markets were on the street. We ate at a lovely restaurant where the waiters were dressed up and CNN Chile was supposedly interviewing the owner. As far as I know CNN Chile was talking about how good the restaurant was and then they filmed us. I ate some chicken and mashed potatoes and it was made very well. We still had about two hours after lunch until we could visit the house, so we somehow found out that the world’s largest pool was nearby and asked locals how to find it. After a long journey, I must say we did find the world’s largest pool and it was awesome, even though it was not filled with water because of the cold season. Finally, we were able to see Pablo Neruda’s house by the ocean and it was very decorative on the inside. He had collections of many strange objects from around the world, such as figureheads, insects, instruments, and small boats in bottles. In addition, he had one of largest conch shells with a horn of a narwhal in the center. Once our tour was finished, we had to go to the university for our last reggaeton class. At this class, the girls made up a dance and so did the boys. It was very interesting to see what we could make up in five minutes using the basic steps of reggaeton. After this class, I got McDonalds for dinner and got ready to go out. We went to the Hollywood pub and then went to the casino to dance. Tomorrow is a free day for the most part and then we are all going to see a soccer game later in the day, so I am looking forward to it.