Oh my god guys, we are getting so close to the top.
Every single morning i wake up and i look at that little hill with that statue at the top of it.
But despite the fact I have lived here in Santiago for more than one month, I have never climbed up it.
Hello everybody.
My name is Sam and welcome back to English Sponge.
Today we have a little travel vlog, or i guess today we have a hiking vlog where i will be walking up that hill, as always.
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I know, it's really good value.
So, let's start the journey.
So, the start of my journey actually doesn't start at the hill.
It starts on the streets of Santiago.
I have about a 25 to 30 minute walk before I reach the start of the hike.
I was thinking about taking an Uber or maybe taking the Metro, but there was no time difference in the Metro.
It would only take me a couple of minutes.
It would only be a couple of minutes quicker is what I'm trying to say.
And you know, we have a very beautiful morning here in Santiago.
The sun is shining.
It's not too hot yet.
So I thought, why not?
Why not do the walk?
Why not enjoy the city at its calmest?
So we have just started with the hike upwards.
There are a lot of early morning walkers here as well.
Yeah, it's going to be fun.
It is already a little bit sleep.
I'll show you guys in a minute.
So lots of people trying to get some Saturday morning exercise.
So we have a little junction, a little fork in the road, which means we have a decision to make now.
I actually don't know which way i'm meant to be going, so i'm going to follow the crowds.
What has surprised me most about living in santiago so far is just how green it all is.
The center of the city is very, very great.
There's lots and lots of parks, lots of spaces like this with lots of nature.
Um yeah, it's a bit different from my expectations.
I had expected it to be a lot more concrete, a little bit more like central buenos aires, in all honesty But, as you might be able to hear from my breath panting, from my breath panting I am not in very good shape.
My fitness is really not good.
And even walking.
Well, including the walk here, maybe for about 25 minutes, but I've only been walking uphill for about five minutes if that, and I'm already out of breath.
Maybe I need to slow down a little bit, let my breathing return to normal and take the path a bit slower.
But we know here at English Sponge, we don't do that.
Here at English Sponge, we always push ourselves to be better.
So we're going to struggle today and then next time I come here and next time I walk it, I will be much, much better and much, much fitter as well.
So the first part of the path is actually a road, which is quite nice for people who are walking.
You can already see lots and lots of trees, lots of different greenery and the sound of birds tweeting.
So whilst the views of the city are amazing, what I really want to talk about are these plants here.
These plants are cacti.
We have lots and lots of cacti here.
Some words in English their plurals are not quite so simple or quite so straightforward as the rest.
So multiple cactus is actually cacti.
We have lots of cacti here, so this is where the road stops and the trail begins.
We have changed from the road onto a trail with a gravel path, and somebody drove past on a very, very loud motorbike.
We don't like that in england.
Yes, the trail has immediately got steeper, but look at these views.
Look how incredible.
What a privilege to live in this city.
As any of my students can tell you, i'm a person who really loves mountains, so being here in santiago surrounded by mountains all of the time makes me really, really happy.
It makes me very happy.
The path has definitely gotten a lot steeper in the last couple of minutes, which is why we have these handrails here.
These are handrails, so if somebody needs a bit of extra help, they can hold the handrail to help them up the path.
So guys, by the time this video is released, you can see i'll tie it down.
By the time the video is released, i believe we will be in march.
I think this video will get released in march.
So we are two entire months into the year.
And I wanted to ask you guys and please leave me a comment down below as a fellow language learner.
How is your how are your language learning goals going this year?
Are you making good progress?
Are you a little bit slow with your progress?
Personally, to be honest, I'm really far behind where I expected to be.
As some of you know, I'm learning Chinese.
And right before I came here I hit 100 hours of comprehensible input.
Now, midway through february, i haven't even hit 110 hours, which shows even for us professionals sometimes life gets in the way and sometimes things you know are really difficult.
What i will say as i struggle up this hill is that it's okay to take a break sometimes.
Sometimes our lives are a bit crazy, sometimes we have way too much stuff sort of taking up our mental space.
For me it was the move here.
It's okay to take a break, But what's important is starting again.
And three days ago, two days ago, I started learning Chinese again.
So back on the back on the bike, back behind the wheel, as we say sometimes.
And hopefully, by the end of this year, 400 hours.
That is my goal.
It's ambitious, especially with how busy I am with my private students, with English Sponge, everything like this.
But that's my goal for the end of the year.
And I am determined, determined to hit it.
So let me know down in the comments how the language learning goals are doing.
If, like me, you've fallen slightly behind, take this little segment as some motivation for you.
Because if I can force myself up this hill at eight in the morning, you can do your language learning practice.
So these really steep, almost vertical parts of the mountain, the parts that you essentially cannot climb up or down, these are called cliffs and the very vertical part is called a cliff face.
So here we have some cliffs very, very steep, and you can see on the path it's still difficult, honestly.
Just look at how beautiful this trail is, How beautiful this little path is.
Being surrounded by so much nature, by so much peace, by so much tranquility.
So, so lucky to have this in the middle of a city.
And here we have a little stream as well.
A little stream going down the mountain.
You can see all of this running water and hopefully you can hear it as well.
Lots of people think the sound of running water is very peaceful.
I think so too.
So after, I'm gonna be honest, a difficult walk up, we've made it.
The top is very, very nice.
It's very relaxing.
You might hear some dogs barking in the background.
This is a really, really well-made space.
And as you can see, the sun is still beating down on us, even though it's only 8.30 AM.
The walk up to this point took about 25 minutes, I think, and i'm very, very happy i brought my bottle of water.
I made sure to put lots of ice in it before because i knew even early in the morning it was going to be hot and it was going to be a difficult walk.
It was very, very steep, but We are off the trail and onto the park, which has very nice pavement, lots of beautiful flowers and trees.
I'll show you now.
Yeah, you see this really lovely path, super beautiful to walk on, lots of trees, and that we're heading up there, up towards that.
We are at the top and there is a beautiful little cat.
And as much as I want to stroke it and give it some pets, I fear it would probably scratch me.
So I'm not going to.
Look at how beautiful it's grey fur is.
Oh, off it goes, walking away.
And we have the final staircase up before we get to the statue.
There is this little outdoor seating space so they can have church services outside.
And on this side we have another church.
Well, not another church, but this side we have a church.
There is some really peaceful music playing in the background.
And I'm not going to go in, but here we have the church.
Wow.
This is really beautiful.
There are beautiful stone carvings on the wall showing different biblical scenes more on this side as well, and at the far end we have some amazing paintings, some very holy paintings.
So after a long journey up, we are so close to the top.
We are really, really close to reaching the peak.
So here we have it guys.
We made it to the top and we can see the statue of the Virgin Mary behind us.
It is a really really cool statue slightly smaller than i expected, to be honest.
The fact i can see it from my apartment building.
I expected it to be a little bit bigger, but doesn't mean i'm disappointed.
It is a really really cool statue and this was a fun little adventure.
I did want to speak a little bit up at the top, but there were some signs that said silence.
So I decided to respect the signs and not speak whilst I was up at the top.
For lots of people, that is a very holy place, a place to go and be reflective, a place to think um, a place to, you know, think about god.
I guess i i'm going to end the video here.
I don't know how long it is.
Hopefully it's not too bad.
Most importantly, i hope you have enjoyed it, as always.
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I think you're going to really enjoy it.
My name is Sam and I will see you in the next video.
Bye.
