Rotary Youth Exchange Chile 2019-2020: PATAGONIA

To be completely honest, the Patagonia trip was one of the reasons Chile was my first choice in countries. Like ever since I was in literally elementary school, the Patagonia region has been at the top of my bucket list. However, when I was sent the itinerary and the dates of the trip, I realized there were several conflicts: first of all, the trip fell right through the center of my host siblings’ birthdays. My host sister would be turning ten, and my host brother would be turning seven. They had BOTH been talking about celebrating their birthdays with me ever since the first day I arrived, so I would have felt terrible missing it. Secondly, this trip was right before my class gira to Bariloche. I would have exactly two days after Patagonia to sleep, pack, and relax. Now this one for me was not a dealbreaker by any means because I am used to packing activities into three week long trips, so if I treated this like one big trip, it would be no different. However, my host family thought it was very little to recover and seemed reluctant to let me go to both because initially, they told me to chose between them for this very reason. And finally, I myself was slightly reluctant to go because I always imagined myself backpacking either with my dad or alone through the Torres del Paine wilderness really ruffin’ it to see and experience everything possible. The Rotary itinerary certainly seemed like a super cool experience, but I felt like if I went, I’d feel slightly restricted the whole time (I would be traveling with a whole bunch of underage kids, so I felt the rotary people would be strict with us and not let us leave the hotel to see more) and would be passing the whole time just thinking about how I want to come back to camp and hike.

However, in the end, I realized this opportunity was not one to be missed. I know I would be back in Chile in the future, but Patagonia is extremely expensive, and if my parents are offering to pay for it now (by the way, I was kind of surprised they were so insistent that I go even though it would cost them a ton of money), now is the best time to go.

Now, I’ve been back from the Patagonia trip for a little over three weeks, totally out of the honeymoon phase, and I can still safely say I had some of the best moments I’ve ever had in my entire life. Like I knew it would be fun before I went and I’d connect with the other rotary kids, but I did not expect to come out of it with one of my best friends for life. I’m not going to go through the itinerary because I feel like I can explain that with my pictures, so now I’m just going to try to describe how I felt on the trip to the best of my ability.

First of all, I’d like to talk about the freedom. There was one rotary woman and one older, male guide on the trip with us and they did not care where we were, as long as we were in the lobby or at the bus when the itinerary told us we should be. So although we barely had free time (our days were PACKED with sightseeing…like we’d start at like 7:30-8am and we’d get back to the hotel at like 8pm, sometimes 9), Rian (the girl I now call one of my best friends) and I would make it a habit of waking up at 5 am to walk around the town, explore cute cafes, and sit silently at the ocean breathing in the fresh air. The nights we didn’t meet up with the other exchange students, we would do the same until like 3 am, just enjoying the tranquility of the artic breezes. We would also talk a lot of the time and decided our dream would be to come back to Puerto Natales (one of the towns we stayed in) and work in a hostel or in a café where we would constantly be meeting travelers, and use the money we made to travel more throughout the Patagonia region. We would also talk about our exchange experiences, give each other advice, and get into deep philosophical discussions. Not to mention, I think I laughed with this girl more than I had ever laughed on the entire exchange (wait honestly probably my entire life…CHEERS) Like we would literally be walking through town cackling, beyond the point of laughing, about the most stupid things because we literally have the exact same sense of humor.

All the freedom we got felt good because we could personalize the trip more to really make the most of our time (because the trip was HELLA expensive) and it felt nice to not have to tell someone where I was all the time. At home in the states, I could drive and my parents weren’t too strict, so I could go pretty much wherever I wanted whenever I wanted. In Chile, however, I’ve found I have less freedom to do things because my host parents find a lot of things dangerous (which I understand because I am a foreigner and they would feel responsible if anything were to happen). Of course I’d never complain about it because I know they are just looking out for me, but at the same time it felt exhilarating to be able to walk anywhere I wanted.

Even though this trip was not by any means a hiking/camping trip like I thought I would have wanted my dream Patagonia trip to be, I left feeling more than satisfied with everything I’d seen and experienced. In fact, this trip was probably one of the highlights of my entire life because I was getting all my intimate nature moments while still enjoying lots of time with the other exchange students. Also, there was so much to see in Torres del Paine that if I did spend the whole-time camping/hiking, I would have totally missed seeing all the waterfalls, wildlife, and unique landmarks I only got to see because we were driving to every possible look out point.

And finally, overall, this trip gave me a ton of confidence…like I said in an earlier blog post, my personality kind of changed in Chile and I’m definitely a lot more reserved and quiet than before, and often find that I don’t have much to contribute in conversations with other people my age…and like I probably mentioned earlier, that was NEVER the case in the States because I was just a literal spaz (we’ll leave it at that). So I sometimes feel like I’m extremely boring here in Chile and that my classmates think the same. And on top of that, I have been feeling slightly trapped and unmotivated. I feel a lot of the time like I don’t have very much alone time. For example, whenever I want to leave the house, I have to invite my host sister to come with me, or if I’m in my room alone doing something like playing guitar, working on college applications, writing what I’m writing right now, she comes in and asks me to do it in her room with her (AHAHHA she literally just came into my room and told me to do it in her room RIGHT AS IM WRITING THIS RIGHT NOW HAIODFJASDF). Its super flattering that she loves to spend so much time with me, and don’t get me wrong, I love the girl to death and love talking and spending time with her, but I come from a culture that is definitely more reserved, and because of that, I had as much alone time as I needed. I also know now that a lot of my feelings of being trapped were in my head. I really do have the freedom to do what I want here, and it just didn’t feel that way because I wasn’t super direct with my host family or my host sister. I was scared to be direct because I really just wanted them to like me and couldn’t stand the thought of getting into a fight with anyone. Now, for example, when I want to go to bed at 10 or 11, I go to bed at 10 or 11 and tell my host sister I can’t watch more TV with her, even if she complains or gets mad at me.

But anyways, this Patagonia trip gave me some time to do exactly what I want when I want which felt AWESOMEEE. And about the confidence…I was able to really connect with the exchange students and have tons of crack head moments, which made me feel like my old self again, giving me confidence in my abilities to connect with people, act goofy, and have super deep or intellectual conversations. And don’t get me wrong, this definitely happens when my only option is Spanish, but it happens a lot less because of that language barrier.

Okay I’m done talking now ahahha so I’m going to post the link to a google drive with all the photos I took on the trip on my camera…I didn’t go through and delete a lot of them so (1) there are over a million and (2) there might be some total spaz pictures so CHEERS😊 https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_kqXwWmH0qx89oFGQwgyxrx6oWZhKebK

Some photos below: