On being a bad dancer...

When I was 7, I took an intro to ballet class.  There, I spent a joyful month plie-ing in my kiddie leotard and bun when suddenly my mother stopped sending me to class.  In my childhood mind, I always speculated the reason she made me stop going: perhaps she was tired of shuttling me to the odd ballet studio or of having to watch me prance around for 2 hours or of having to socialize with the other moms.  I never knew.


Over the years, I tried occasional attempts to recuperate my learning in how to move, by visiting my friend's dance class, by taking a summer dance workshop and by committing an embarrassing dance audition here or there.  It always occurred to me in those moments, that my body never really listened to what I wanted it to do, and I never understood how to mimic other people's movements properly.  Failing to do right gestures in any event where I should have, I was always tense and confused, and in time, I became resentful.


In the end, I decided to hit the source of my problems, the reason why I was a klutz and so ungraceful: my mother drawing me out of my ballet class.


I confronted her about it one day, when I was still an awkward teenager.  I never really braced myself for what her answer was.  "Jiuling, ni tiao de shi hou zong si beng hu hu de. Wo si zai kan bu liao le" which in English, sums to "Anne, you danced silly, and I couldn't stand it anymore". (In this instance the translation of 'silly' means along the lines of 'you danced like a clumsy animal/circus bear')


How can I describe the crushing reality when one realizes that she can not dance?  That she moves strangely?  That she can never be that talented person in center stage or in a Bollywood film?  It took time for me to accept that harsh reality.  I thought I had overcome it only to arrive in Chile, a place far away from my mother and all the reminders of my real dancing ability, a land where I thought I could reemerge as a decent dancer.


Reality though, came in quick.


The first wave came with the salsatecas.  Although the one class I went to was for beginners, I seriously could not get even the most basic step correct.  "Uno. Dos. Tres. Cinco seis siete" was the continual chime of the svelte male dance instructor.  Easy peasy!  Yet I somehow managed to mix up that pattern with "Uno. Dos. Tres. Cuatro. Cinco. Sies."


I made up excuses: so I wasn't a salsa dancer...I could still do the bump and grind, and if all else fails, the trusty rock/shake.


Then, the second punch:  the reggaton in the clubs.  I found myself asking: How the heck do you dance to reggaton? And how do you deal with a dance partner who turns around in a circle during part of the dance?  Do you spin around too?  Is it like hokey pokey?  Furiously shaking through a night of reggaton, I decided to add reggaton clubs onto my list of places where I could embarrass myself.  Amazingly, I was still under the delusion that I could be a fine dancer.  I justified my mishaps by saying that I never learnt how to dance salsa or react to guys who dance reggaeton.


Little did I know the final blow was yet to come...


A little background: for the bicentennial, I attended a CIEE Cueca workshop.  Cueca is the national dance of Chile.  It involves two people (a huaso and a china) dancing around each other.  The best thing about the dance is that it is essentially non-contact and involves mostly mirroring the correct movements and making flirty actions with a panuelo (handkerchief).  I did alright in the workshop.


Thus, to me simple Cueca seemed easy enough that when I saw a few little girls dancing to it in a Mapuche school in Temuco, I joined right in.


I did well at first.  I guided the little 4 year old in a line back and forth.  Then, I clapped.  Then, I started moving when the music started only to realize that I didn't remember the rest of the steps.  Attempting to cover by mimicking the preschooler, I thought I was doing pretty well until my dance partner mentioned to one of her classmates "Esta tia no baila muy bien".


The pain I felt!  The fact sunk into me like a cold wind: No matter what country I am in, I am not still a good dancer.


Thankfully that sad realization didn't stop me from having fun with the 4 year olds.  Aren't they cute?

 My dance partner and I

Chiloe or As Danielle and I liked to say "Northern Patagonia"

So last Thursday night, my friend Danielle B and I left Estacion Central on a 13 hour Pullman bus to Puerto Varas.  Although we only stayed in town long enough to buy a bus ticket to Ancud, Puerto Varas was so beautiful that I wish we could have stayed longer.

Unfortunately, Danielle and I had planned to go to Chepu (a tiny rural town in Chiloe) from Ancud at 4pm so we were tight on time and couldn't stay.  We took a bus to Ancud from Puerto Varas with Cruz del Sur.  Because we were constantly watching the time, it was amazing to us how the buses behaved in the South.  The drivers stop every time there is someone on the side of the road.  There are no such things as "direct" buses and when there aren't enough seats, people stand in the aisle.

Our first taste of Chiloe was the ferry between the port of the mainland and the island.  Danielle and I were excited to get some fresh air after our 14+ hours of bus.  Our ferry was the introduction to the super welcoming/boarding on creepy Chilote guys and the lovely, sunshiney days we encountered in our stay in Chiloe.  Although Chiloe has a weather ratio of 1/3 sun, 1/3 rain and 1/3 clouds, we were lucky and got 98% sun and sapphire skies the 4 days we were in Chiloe.  Thus, the water was always a crystalline blue and so, so beautiful.

The scenery in Chiloe is amazing.  When I close my eyes, sometimes I still see it.


Every time Danielle and I felt lazy during our weekend, we motivated ourselves by saying, "Come on now, we are in Northern Patagonia, we have to do something!"  But the term Northern Patagonia really does not suit Chiloe.  Though the weather is cold enough, the island consists of super green pastures, patches of yellow espinillos (which the Chileans call "the german plague") and rolling hills full of sheep, cows and horses.  I felt like I was a scene from the Sound of Music, but Danielle told me the buildings were not well maintained enough for Chiloe to pass as Europe.

We arrived in Ancud in 3 hours from Puerto Varas after having stopped in Puerto Montt and at least 10 other places along the way.

There we found the harbor of Ancud gorgeous.  Danielle and I chilled there for a little bit and then went up to the rural bus station.


In the next 2 hours, I learned that the rural bus station at Ancud is very, very antiquated, and the rural bus to Chepu is just painful.  The rule about stopping everywhere continues to apply on rural buses which are smaller (looks like a 15 person van) than normal charter buses and much worse when crammed with 40+ people.  Apparently, the rural buses to Chepu usually aren't crammed with 40+ people and usually don't stop every 10 meters, but on the Friday Danielle and I took it, that is what happened.


Finally, we arrived at our lodge at Mirador de Chepu.  Chepu is a town on the outskirts of the National Park of Chiloe and belongs to a union of abalone/mussel fishermen.  The town has a population of 250 people and is very, very quiet.  After arriving, Danielle and I climbed the road as the sun set.

In the backyard where Danielle and I resided was a junction of 3 rivers. At 5 am, she and I woke up to do dawn kayaking.  We set off in a tandem kayak and had fun scaring one another as we were paddling on the river full of mist and dead logs.  Eventually the sun came up and everything was illuminated.

Then we took a boat ride to the delta where one of the rivers met the ocean where large patches of foam floated at the mouth.

Then, led by our boat guide, we climbed up a little hill to a spectacular viewpoint.  But in Chiloe, everywhere is spectacular.  Truly.

After our day in Chepu, Danielle and I got driven to the side of the main road where we waited for a bus to pick us up.  Then we stood in the aisle.  Yes.  We were those people.

But, Castro was so happy and colorful that everything was fine as soon as we stepped down from the bus.

On Sunday, Danielle and I went to Dalcahue.  We took the rural buses from Castro, but unlike the ones in Ancud, they were well maintained and not overcrowded.

We took a ferry to see the church in Achao.  The churches in Chiloe are unique in that they are all wood.

In Achao, Danielle and I climbed up the road to see a breathtaking Mirador de la Paloma.  There were pastures of sheep, a bright town, water, islands and and to top it all off a miraculous snow peaked mountain range in the back.  It was incredible.

Finally, we went back to Ancud.  The harbor is just so exquisite.  It was beautiful, even in the dark; I could imagine a nocturne being written there.  The only lights on the water were from a handful of houses and the sliver of the moon.

After night's sleep, we left Monday morning to see the penguins.  We got driven down a very bumpy road onto the beach where we subsequently climbed into a little fishing boat.

We didn't see very many penguins, but the ones we did see were so cute!  They looked like clumsy little children.  When a line of three Magellanic penguins (the fishermen tried the whole time to emphasize the difference between Magellanic and Humboldt penguins) hopped down from the island to jump into the ocean, the last one got caught in some algae and had to exit another way.  Such adorable things.

After completing our mission to see penguins in Chile, Danielle and I ate some salty curanto and finished our Chiloe weekend.

Ps. Isn't this picture of curanto so sexual?  It's like a Georgia O'Keefe work or a painting of fruit.