Week 22
Day 156 / July 31, 2026
Friday, the last day in July and Tash’s last day in Chile. I left the house solo at 9:00am to pick up a rental car from the airport which Val and I would use for the next two weeks. We still planned for a full day together in Santiago but with no place to put our bags, I figured this would be the cheapest way to do it. While I went to get the car, Tash and Val got ready to check out of the apartment. It was not the quick out and back as I had hoped it would be, and Tash and Val were forced to wait in the lobby. I though I was home free when I eventually got the car from SIXT though upon leaving the airport, I was met with another delay: Friday morning traffic. Instead of the usual 15 minute journey, I finally arrived in front of the Airbnb 50 minutes later at 12:15pm.
Tash and Val loaded in, and Val took the wheel while I inhaled the takeaway breakfast he had bought from, you guessed it, the Original Green Roasters. Before we could settle into the afternoon, there were still errands to be done. Tash was a trooper and agreed to come along for the journey. We started first by picking up my skis from Jesse’s house. After that, I had seen a Talca friend, Hans, Instagram story post asking for help transporting a box containing building supplies. As Val and I were headed towards Talca later in the evening, I reached out to say we would be happy to help. So, we made our way over to the Importadora Dinar just southeast of Parque O’higgins and waited 30 minutes for them to prepare the order. What I had though would be one, maybe two small boxes, was instead 8 large boxes of heavy screws and bolts. It took some serious tetris skills to fit everything around the luggage and humans already in the car, but we managed to make it work.
There was one last errand on our to do list: collect touring rental skis for Val from Andes Touring at Mall Sport in northeast Santiago. It was going to be over an hour round trip, so he kindly agreed to drop us off at The Museum of Fine Arts so we could get some final Santiago touristy things ticked off before her flight.
Tash and I entered the museum just after 2:00pm and explored the various exhibitions on display. We were both particularly captivated by Valentina Cruz’s: De amor humor y muerte (of love, humor, and death). She managed to capture complicated themes charged with acute emotional flair from throughout her life. She even had a special segment of works from the period of the Pinochet dictatorship. There were over 100 paintings, sculptures, and drawings on display spanning 63 years of work.
Between paintings we found ourselves reflecting on the trip, taking about the future, and generally mulling in togetherness. These moments, especially with Tash, are so few nowadays (distance can do that to you) so this was wonderful.
Val confirmed the ski collection was a success and that he had started back en route to Santa Lucia. Tash and I had worked up an appetite by then so agreed to pick a restaurant and send him the details where to meet us. We ended up in the beautiful Casa Lastaria, a building refurbished to match French stone architecture in 1912. Val arrived shortly after, and we put in our order to share a pizza, the sizzling pork, and cheesy shrimp. The food hit so good, but the music even more so! They played Too Shy from Kajagoogoo, a favorite of my mum and certainly not the track I would have expected inside a French inspired restaurant in Santiago.
After the delicious fill, it was time to make the teary trip to drop off Tash at the airport. On our walk over, we passed a huge crowd of women protesting in the street. Typically conscious to avoid large gatherings in new places, I bolted for the other side of the street while Tash and Val took a moment to appreciate what was happening. From a distance then I could see it was a peaceful march, and the banners were calling for action to halt the institution of a new anti-abortion bill titled “Escucha su corazón” (listen to her heart). This law would require medical practitioners to force patients to listen to a fetal heartbeat before making their decision to abort. The parade countered with “Escucha mi decisión” (listen to my decision). To clarify, abortion is still heavily restricted in Chile via a 2017 law solely for use: when the mother's life is at risk, in cases of fetal non-viability, or for pregnancies resulting from rape.
Before we reached the car, we had one more mission, to find an (affordable) alpaca plush for Neve. This late in the trip, we had almost lost hope entirely. However in that short walk to the car park, we happened across a perfect lil alpaca sat in a store front. Things just have a way of working out.
We arrived at the airport around 8:00pm, gave Tash a big hug, then hit the road towards Talca. Val and I arrived at home shortly after 11:00pm and went straight to bed.
Day 157 / August 1, 2026
Tired from a long journey, we slept in the next morning until 10:00am. We had another big drive down to Chillán planned for today, so opted to hit the road shortly after. Just before departing, we did a quick walk around the massive Feria de Chancho (pork festival) tents that were being set up in the Talca Plaza de Armas. We picked up an anticucho (pork kebab) to share and hit the road.
Val took the wheel and we arrived in Chillán in no time. En route we did a quick grocery trip to Lider, and found tire chains for the car. Though we had been hoping to ski that afternoon, it was actively storming. The days prior had brought in more rain than snow meaning the nearby backcountry zones were not skiable. We took a quick trip to Shangri-la to see for ourselves, but quickly decided to turn around for an afternoon coffee at Cumbres instead.
Val had done the research for an Airbnb for the night and we arrived in Pinto shortly thereafter to our converted van-house. There was a sweet mama cat with her two little kittens guarding the door and Val spent a long time giving them head scratches.
The host had kindly prepared chopped wood for us which we used to start a fire inside the stove. It was SO cozy!! The perfect spot! We made a quick ramen dinner, then headed to bed at 8:00pm excited for a day of skiing the next day.
Day 158 / August 2, 2026
Val and I hit the road at 7:00am hoping to arrive to Nevados de Chillán for first lift. The road conditions perfectly fit the definition of wintery mix and it was hard to read when to use chains or not. As there were no other cars on the road at that time, we had nothing to reference. We made it up past Plaza Tata, the lowest lift access point, and decided it would be worth it to park further up near the highest base, Plaza Willy. Before making the drive further up, we agreed it was time to put on the chains. We headed back down a ways to find a pullout. In doing so, we ended up in an unplowed parking lot and immediately got stuck in a foot of mushy, wet, snow. It was still dark out then, and as we were off the main road we weren’t sure what else there was to do. Luckily, a truck with life workers came through and they kindly helped to push us out. Val immediately got to work putting on the chains while I adjusted the tires with the wheel inside the car.
We continued up to Plaza Willy with ease, parked, and booted up at the car. A mix of snow and rain was still falling which meant a number of lifts were on hold. The T bar was open, so we still bought tickets and were in line by 9:30am.
We skied and we skied! We got to chatting with another guy from the US in the lift line, and he told us he had been coming to Nevados de Chillán for the past 11 seasons! That’s a lot!
We stopped for a quick coffee and a muffin at 10:45am (featuring me looking extra goofy in my dad's climbing helmet from the 90s) then layered up and headed back out.
At 1:00pm, we came in again for a quick sandwich lunch. We were wet, cold, lapping just the T bar, but getting miles in nonetheless. After a few more laps, we were both ready to call it a day and headed down to the car at 3:00pm.
On our way back to Talca we stopped briefly for a coffee at Caberu and had a killer slice of tiramisu. It was just the thing we needed after a long day.
Back in Talca, we had a quick shower at home then headed out to the Feria de Chancho once again in hopes of getting a quick snack.
We ended up with a lovely bottle of wine from a local vineyard which we took with us to an asado at Hans’s house. It was SO good! Pablo and Dani, friends from Pared were there too along with Hans’s friends from colegio (high school). The makeshift parilla balanced on two shoe boxes (mad rock of course) was small but mighty. Val and I were handed various cut sections of pork and beef and we were salivating at every bite.
Eventually the tiredness from skiing caught up to us so we said our goodbyes and thank yous, unloaded the boxes of screws for Hans, and headed home.
Day 159 / August 3, 2026
Monday Monday and time to get back to work! After almost a month away wandering with friends, exploring new places, and doing so many fun things, it was about time I did some science.
I started off the day by making my usual breakfast; a quick bowl of oats with some yogurt and frozen strawberries. For lunch I thawed and packed my meal prepped beef and rice, then I made my way into the office.
First things first, I met with Aparna to wish her a belated Happy Birthday and discuss plans for the week. We agreed I should start by making a map of my sampling sites and triple check that the zones I sampled from were all on public land and permissible. Following this background review, I was to proceed with DNA extraction using the Qiagen PowerSoil sample kit.
After completing the map and location review, it was clear that my sample from Salar de Atacama fell into a gray area. Though owned by the Chilean state (CORFO), there are complex indigenous ancestral land protocols to respect the Likan Antay (Lickanantay) population which has inhabited the area for thousands of years. As such, anyone wishing to enter some protected areas must communicate with the Council of Atacameño Peoples (Consejo de Pueblos Atacameños or CPA). Though I am almost certain my two small 15mL samples from the Salar were from outside the protected area, I did not want to risk overstepping. As I had not taken precautionary measures to meet with the Council and ask for permission, we opted not to use these samples any further.
Beyond sample preparation, I also covered a bunch of admin tasks to confirm my course registration for the semester, follow up with my contract to work in Boston, and of course writing the blog.
The lab was going to close at 5:00pm meaning I didn’t have time to do the extractions today and would instead start tomorrow. So, I headed home where Val had a yummy egg sandwich waiting for me.
We ate quickly, changed into gym clothes, and went to Pared for an afternoon climb.
Following two hours of bopping around the gym, we went to Lider for some dinner ingredients, then came home and had salmon poke bowls. SO GOOD!
Day 160 / August 4, 2026
Professor Charles responded to my course registration query and said I was welcome to come to class while everything was still being sorted on the backend. I was up bright and early for his Microbiology class from 8:00am-10:00am. He did a lecture on the morphology and structure of bacteria with his signature creative, board-drawing style of lecture.
After class I headed to the lab and got straight to work on my first DNA extraction attempt (foreshadowing: so many more to come). I fumbled through the protocol doing 2 replicates for each of my, now 6, samples.
By 3:30pm I was all done and cleaning up for the next task, preparing glycerol stocks of my dirt samples. We use a glycerol stock and a -80°C freezer to store dirt, soil, or microbial samples because glycerol acts as a cryoprotectant that prevents ice crystals from tearing apart cell membranes. This means I can save these samples for later use while preserving them as carefully as possible. It took me until 5:00pm to label, then load 96 tubes with my 6 samples.
I was tired after a long day of pipetting and was so excited to head home. I walked in the door at 5:30pm to a warm chicken dinner made by Val.
Day 161 / August 5, 2026
Wednesday was a quiet day in lab. I had to find a way to quantify my DNA extracts but the lab manager in charge of facilitating access to the institutional equipment was out celebrating his birthday. Instead I helped with what I could, a quick bacterial inoculation of six flasks and some washing up.
It meant I got to head home early around 4:00pm and Val had a yummy bowl of tomato sausage penne pasta waiting for me. (It’s really nice having him here :)))
While I slurped up all the pasta, he told me about his day including a run adventure near cerro Peñon where some curious doggos chased him down as well as a coffee that got him thinking about milk. More specifically, Chile’s geography makes it challenging to maintain cold temperatures in shipment. As a result, a lot of perishables are packaged to account for the various temperature exposures in long transport. This means that milk is almost always sold ultra-pasteurized: high-temperature processing that triggers the Maillard reaction between reducing sugars (like lactose) and milk proteins (amino acids, especially lysine). This results in a milk that is stable at room temperature, but sweeter than less-pasteurized milk. If you’re a coffee aficionado like Val, this sweetness drastically changes the flavor profile of any coffees with milk.
Day 162 / August 6, 2026
It was an exciting day in the lab on Thursday as a new piece of equipment, a bioreactor, was having it’s grand opening!! A bioreactor is a controlled tank used to grow microorganisms like bacteria, yeast, or algae under precise environmental conditions. In microbial laboratories like the FuncPoly Lab, scientists use bioreactors to scale up cell cultures, test growth variables, and produce biological products efficiently. That’s to say, this new equipment will help us to scale up EPS production and perform characterization studies with greater precision than ever before! A representative from the company, Jose, came to provide a brief overview of how to use the equipment and walk us through basic functionalities. He will return in the near future for our first practice run!
Today was also a big day in the lab because Albert wrapped up his research stay and will be flying home to Kenya in a few days. We went out for a group coffee and he shared some sweet words reflecting on his visit.
Val picked me up at 4:00pm and we headed to the gym together for a quick afternoon climb. While I was at school, he had done a big grocery shop in preparation for a dinner with friends tonight. After the gym, we headed home and got to work cheffing. The theme for the night was a tour of Asia featuring gyoza to start, then Korean gochujang chicken bowls, and a berry sago desert!
Cami, Elias, and Cristobal arrived right at 9:00pm and we got straight to eating. They practiced their english with Val and learned about his new job, as well as the nearby all-time climbing zone, Rumney.
It was a lovely night in even lovelier company!!
Chau for now! :)
This week seemed a little more relaxed and settled for you. Nice you get to take time for some simple pleasures. I noticed you sampling a pork, instead of llama, kebab this week! Someday you can tell me which you preferred. Chau!