Well, here we are, nearly 6 months since I set out on this journey and I sit here with 25 hours left in Chile. These past several days have been the perfect way to end my time here. I am so glad that I had this week of chill time to relax and slowly say goodbye before heading home tomorrow. My life here in South America has been so relaxed and not crazy full of plans for the past 6 months, which is a drastic change from my life back at UCLA with band and Psi and classes and running and everything I'm involved in. It has been very nice to take advantage of this last week of relaxation and my South American lifestyle before heading home to my go go go life that looks to be about to take off running the second I step off the airplane in less than 48 hours.
The past several days have involved LOTS of world cup watching. We went to the California Cantina to watch the USA's last game and then I bounced over to Lindsey's apartment on Monday to watch the Chile game versus Brazil, as inevitable as the outcome may have been. That was a particularly fun game to watch since Lindsey's roommate is from Brazil and is soccer obsessed! She even offered us to stay with her in Brazil in 4 years when the World Cup is there, so if I'm rich in 4 years that is definitely where I'll be. She actually told us we are welcome in Brazil whenever, so that is really exciting and someday hopefully I'll be able to see her again and utilize that connection!
After the Chile game, as there was absolutely no one on the streets after Chile having been kicked out of the World Cup and it was a holiday, I headed over to John and Karen's for dinner and to say good-bye since they went to Valpo yesterday for a few days. They fed me an amazing pasta dinner with grogg (warm, sugary wine) and we chatted for a while before we parted ways. It was really great getting to spend time with Karen down here in Santiago, and is especially cool that when we both get back to the USA and hang out in December we will be able to understand this portion of each others lives that will be so foreign and far off to every one else. Yes, I tell you all reading this blog what I do day to day and how I'm feeling, etc. But there is really no comparison unfortunately between being here and doing these things with me, and reading about them.
Yesterday Lauren and I went to the Santa Lucia artesan market and I bought some little trinkets for myself and others and then met up with Lindsey for one last Pastel de Choclo (sooo good) in Plaza de Armas. I got to Plaza de Armas early so I walked around Santiago Centro for a bit trying to soak it all in one last time. It is incredible and almost unbelievable how much this city has grown on me. In all honesty, when I first arrived I thought Santiago was kind of just a massive, uglier Los Angeles. I'm not sure when or how it happened, but now I love it. The european architecture in the centro is stunning and I LOVE the fact that Santiago is such a walking city. It will be so different to be in a city where no one walks anywhere! That is something I will definitely miss. It just gives the city such a neat vibe, and there are always people walking everywhere!
For dinner last night, Lindsey, Lauren, Ariel, Christine and I went to a delicious vegetarian restaurant that I had never been to. It was a great way to begin to end my time here, eating delicious food with my best friends from down here (minus Gina and Kathryn). Today I spent packing packing packing and seem to have successfully fit everything. Thank goodness my Dad came and I sent home y gifts I had bought up until then with him, because otherwise it would have been a lost cause fitting it all. I took a packing break to grab one last ice cream with Lauren at a new shop (gasp! no Bravissimo!).
The plan from here on out is to eat some dinner, head over to Lauren's, and go out tonight. Tomorrow I'm meeting Lindsey for lunch in Providencia before heading to the airport at 4 and heading HOME.
I'm trying to grasp my head around that I am about to end my study abroad experience. This was something I talked about doing since junior year of high school. Before I knew what college I was going to or what my major was, I knew I was studying abroad. I set this goal for myself nearly 5 years ago, having no idea that it is probably the largest, most emotionally investing goal I would set for myself thus far in life. Now, I am 24 hours away from checking it off. Being done. I can almost say "I studIED abroad." It's a pretty incredible feeling.
Hopefully this is a see you later to Chile, rather than a good-bye. At some point in my life, probably in the far future when I can afford it, I definitely want to come back. Hopefully I'll keep up my Spanish and be able to put it to use again! For now, all I can think about is how I am heading HOME, in all meanings, sentiments, and possible interpretations of the word.
Thank you all so much for reading my blog and staying in touch through this incredible experience. You were all here for me, even though you were thousands of miles away, through the beginning, the tough parts, and all the joyous adventures and life lessons and experiences. I'll try and do one last post-home entry in the coming days. I love you all so much and really and truly cannot wait to see you soon.
Much Love, Heather.
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
Friday, 25 June 2010
Happy Winter Break and Mundial Mania!
Hello Hello!
Let me tell you a little something about the world cup in a South American country: IT'S CRAZY! These past 2 weeks have been a blast intermittent between finals and papers because the World Cup is in full swing and Chileans take it VERY seriously. It is the first time in a while that they have qualified for the tournament and just today, they moved on to the second phase. Every day that there is a Chile game, the city goes NUTS. Today, I stood in line in the grocery store for half an hour since it was right before the game and everyone was stalking up. After the games, there are always GIANT gatherings of celebrations (sometimes too much) and today, when Lindsey and I left Karen and Jon's after the game there was literally a parade of people waving flags and blowing horns down the main street of Santiago. People honk their horns, wave flag out of cars, yell, run, and celebrate in every way possible. It's even fun watching the US play in a country where everyone takes soccer so seriously. I will really miss this when I have to finish watching the World Cup in the US where it is not nearly as big of a deal next week. I am so glad I've been down here while Chile and the US have been doing so well, it is awesome to experience! For now, go team USA tomorrow against Ghana, I'll be watching no question about it!
This is what the streets of Santiago look like after Chile LOSES a game. Celebrating because they're moving on!
So it is official, I am done with the semester of school and officially a senior in college. Now that is a sentence that came way too fast, I feel like I was just the little freshman at band camp who didn't know what she was doing or anyone at all, and now I am days away from returning to the incredible people I grew close to in these past 3 years as well as my dear friends from back home and family. A friend asked me if these past 6 months have flown by for me as they had for him and my answer is short and simple. YES, like a blink of an eye this incredible, literally life changing and effecting experience, has come and gone.
I'm pretty sure I finished out the semester with strong grades, but won;t be sure until later in July or maybe even August. I felt strongly about all my finals and escaped having to take a cummulative oral final because my average in the class was high enough. WOOHOO! After 16 weeks of classes in Spanish in a foreign country, I really have learned a lot. I think one of the biggest differences between education here in Chile and that of UCLA back home is the evaluations. It seems like the primary form of evaluation in Chile is regurgitation of facts, and thus simple memorization of material whereas at home I feel like I learn about an idea or concept and then the evaluation involves the application of that concept and putting it to use in real situations. Obviously, classroom education was not my primary goal for studying abroad seeing as UCLA is a world class university that could not be matched by most other institutions in the world, and I must admit it will be nice to return to classes at UCLA in August.
Nevertheless, I have learned things here in Chile that I never in 1 million billion years would have learned had I remained at UCLA this year. Things that have changed my view of the world, my appreciation of life, and the way I will think, learn, live, and travel for the rest of my life. Things impossible to learn in any way except life experiences. Not to mention my Spanish language skills have reached a level unachievable by any way besides immersing oneself in the language. Yesterday, I busted out a 3 page research paper in Spanish in 1 hour. When people speak to me in Spanish, I now react naturally and without previous formation of what I will say in my head.
As far as what else I've been doing, it has thus far mainly been focused around World Cup viewing and finishing up the semester, in addition to an outing to see Toy Story 3 and an incredibly gorgeous hike in the snowy Andes last Saturday with Karen and Jon. Every morning now for the past few weeks I have woken up to incredibly clear, close, snowy Andes. It is an awesome thing to wake up to that I will really miss.
I have now officially come to my final week here in Chile. It's so strange leaving someplace and not knowing when, or even if, you will ever return. I hope I get back here someday with the people closest to me, to show them this foreign, far off part of my life that has had such an impact on me. The end really became real when my roommate and one of my best friends from down here, Gina, left last night. While it was a sad goodbye in Chile, I know I will see her very soon and it is so nice to know that all of us friends down here will always have this experience in common, regardless of where we are in the world.
So, my plans for the upcoming 5ish days before I hop on that plane to the good old USA and say adios to Chile involve 2 days of World Cup action, some artisan market gift shopping, lots of time spent with friends, and of course some bound to be entertaining packing. I may throw in a 10K in the mix on Sunday, and hopefully even some extra fútbol assuming one of my two teams advances further (knock on wood!). It should be a great week, and I'm so glad I have this chill week in Santiago to slowly say goodbye and get things together (including myself emotionally and physically) to return home to my former life that is beckoning.
Time to eat as much pastel de choclo, watch as much fútbol, and savor as much as Chile as possible for the next 5 days!
Let me tell you a little something about the world cup in a South American country: IT'S CRAZY! These past 2 weeks have been a blast intermittent between finals and papers because the World Cup is in full swing and Chileans take it VERY seriously. It is the first time in a while that they have qualified for the tournament and just today, they moved on to the second phase. Every day that there is a Chile game, the city goes NUTS. Today, I stood in line in the grocery store for half an hour since it was right before the game and everyone was stalking up. After the games, there are always GIANT gatherings of celebrations (sometimes too much) and today, when Lindsey and I left Karen and Jon's after the game there was literally a parade of people waving flags and blowing horns down the main street of Santiago. People honk their horns, wave flag out of cars, yell, run, and celebrate in every way possible. It's even fun watching the US play in a country where everyone takes soccer so seriously. I will really miss this when I have to finish watching the World Cup in the US where it is not nearly as big of a deal next week. I am so glad I've been down here while Chile and the US have been doing so well, it is awesome to experience! For now, go team USA tomorrow against Ghana, I'll be watching no question about it!
This is what the streets of Santiago look like after Chile LOSES a game. Celebrating because they're moving on!
So it is official, I am done with the semester of school and officially a senior in college. Now that is a sentence that came way too fast, I feel like I was just the little freshman at band camp who didn't know what she was doing or anyone at all, and now I am days away from returning to the incredible people I grew close to in these past 3 years as well as my dear friends from back home and family. A friend asked me if these past 6 months have flown by for me as they had for him and my answer is short and simple. YES, like a blink of an eye this incredible, literally life changing and effecting experience, has come and gone.
I'm pretty sure I finished out the semester with strong grades, but won;t be sure until later in July or maybe even August. I felt strongly about all my finals and escaped having to take a cummulative oral final because my average in the class was high enough. WOOHOO! After 16 weeks of classes in Spanish in a foreign country, I really have learned a lot. I think one of the biggest differences between education here in Chile and that of UCLA back home is the evaluations. It seems like the primary form of evaluation in Chile is regurgitation of facts, and thus simple memorization of material whereas at home I feel like I learn about an idea or concept and then the evaluation involves the application of that concept and putting it to use in real situations. Obviously, classroom education was not my primary goal for studying abroad seeing as UCLA is a world class university that could not be matched by most other institutions in the world, and I must admit it will be nice to return to classes at UCLA in August.
Nevertheless, I have learned things here in Chile that I never in 1 million billion years would have learned had I remained at UCLA this year. Things that have changed my view of the world, my appreciation of life, and the way I will think, learn, live, and travel for the rest of my life. Things impossible to learn in any way except life experiences. Not to mention my Spanish language skills have reached a level unachievable by any way besides immersing oneself in the language. Yesterday, I busted out a 3 page research paper in Spanish in 1 hour. When people speak to me in Spanish, I now react naturally and without previous formation of what I will say in my head.
As far as what else I've been doing, it has thus far mainly been focused around World Cup viewing and finishing up the semester, in addition to an outing to see Toy Story 3 and an incredibly gorgeous hike in the snowy Andes last Saturday with Karen and Jon. Every morning now for the past few weeks I have woken up to incredibly clear, close, snowy Andes. It is an awesome thing to wake up to that I will really miss.
I have now officially come to my final week here in Chile. It's so strange leaving someplace and not knowing when, or even if, you will ever return. I hope I get back here someday with the people closest to me, to show them this foreign, far off part of my life that has had such an impact on me. The end really became real when my roommate and one of my best friends from down here, Gina, left last night. While it was a sad goodbye in Chile, I know I will see her very soon and it is so nice to know that all of us friends down here will always have this experience in common, regardless of where we are in the world.
So, my plans for the upcoming 5ish days before I hop on that plane to the good old USA and say adios to Chile involve 2 days of World Cup action, some artisan market gift shopping, lots of time spent with friends, and of course some bound to be entertaining packing. I may throw in a 10K in the mix on Sunday, and hopefully even some extra fútbol assuming one of my two teams advances further (knock on wood!). It should be a great week, and I'm so glad I have this chill week in Santiago to slowly say goodbye and get things together (including myself emotionally and physically) to return home to my former life that is beckoning.
Time to eat as much pastel de choclo, watch as much fútbol, and savor as much as Chile as possible for the next 5 days!
Wednesday, 23 June 2010
Recent Fotos!
Hello hello!
Tonight, I was able to upload all of Gina's pictures from June onto my computer so this update will be a foto update of all the events I've missed due to my lack of camera! Some of these I've already written about, and some will be written about in an update to follow this entry!
**Not photographically available yet: Hiking in the snowy Andes up Cerro Provincia with Karen and Jon, World Cup games at California Cantina and Lindsey's apartment.
Enjoy!
Snowboarding at El Colorado in the Andes with Gina, Lindsey, Charlie, and Jessica
Lindsey's 20th Birthday Surprise Pancake Manjar Breakfast!
La Piojera for Terremotos with Lindsey and her boyfriend Tim who visited (plus a whole crew of people)! (also, evidence I really need a haircut)
Last Cafecito on campus before our final yesterday. One of my favorite pictures of the past 6 months, I really love these girls.
El Reloj last night for Gina's good-bye dinner.
Tonight, I was able to upload all of Gina's pictures from June onto my computer so this update will be a foto update of all the events I've missed due to my lack of camera! Some of these I've already written about, and some will be written about in an update to follow this entry!
**Not photographically available yet: Hiking in the snowy Andes up Cerro Provincia with Karen and Jon, World Cup games at California Cantina and Lindsey's apartment.
Enjoy!
Snowboarding at El Colorado in the Andes with Gina, Lindsey, Charlie, and Jessica
Lindsey's 20th Birthday Surprise Pancake Manjar Breakfast!
La Piojera for Terremotos with Lindsey and her boyfriend Tim who visited (plus a whole crew of people)! (also, evidence I really need a haircut)
Last Cafecito on campus before our final yesterday. One of my favorite pictures of the past 6 months, I really love these girls.
El Reloj last night for Gina's good-bye dinner.
Thursday, 17 June 2010
5 months and counting, the end is drawing near
I apologize for the lack of updating over the past week and a half, I fell behind updating and then the task seemed rather daunting after so much has happened. I will attempt to briefly cover all that has happened in the past 10 days, but am bound to forget something. Also, I apologize for the lack of visual aids (fotos), I am still camera-less and Gina has yet to put up pictures so that I can steal them so they will come eventually I promise! I am going to start this entry with a quick summary of the happenings of last weekend/this week and then move on to my thoughts going into this final 2 weeks I have left in this country and with the friends I have grown to love over the past 5 months.
Friday of last weekend was mainly dedicated to studying for the final I had this past Tuesday, so Gina and Lindsey and I sat ourselves in Juan Valdes, a very classy coffee shop, and studied to the best of our abilities for 6 hours. WOAH. Also, I had the best drink I have ever had in Chile. It was called a Brownie Nevado and was basically a Mocha Frappucinno with literally an entire brownie put in a blender and blended into it. I literally was drinking a brownie. SO GOOD. I will have to return for one of these before I leave.
On Saturday morning, 2 of Gina's friends arrived from California and we (along with Karen and Jon and most of EAP to be honest) headed to the California Cantina to watch the USA vs. England World Cup game. It was incredibly crowded and the service sucked, but it was definitely fun to watch the game in a bar, have a few beers, and be surrounded by a country and restaurant full of people who actually care and love soccer; so different of an environment from back home! After that, I went over to Karen and Jon's fancy apartment in the center of Santiago and watched a movie and they made a delcious dinner.
On Sunday, I crossed off one of my ultimate goals of this whole abroad experience of going snowboarding in the Andes in June. Once I have pictures, I will post them! The snow wasn't incredibly impressive as it is still fairly early in the season, but it was SO MUCH FUN. It was incredibly gorgeous to look out from the mountain and just see never ending snow capped Andean peaks and was definitely an experience I will never forget. The Andes truly are spectacular and I am so lucky that I get to see their snow-capped glory every day. That is one of the things I will truly miss about Chile.
Monday was Lindsey's 20th birthday so in the morning, Gina and her friend and I surprised Lindsey at her apartment and made her a pancake breakfast with dulce de leche and nutella spreads. Not only was this delicious, but it was so fun to be able to do something nice for her on her birthday without her expecting it! Then, we returned to our apartment and I ran some errands as Gina met up with 2 more of her friends who arrived. I studied for my Tuesday final all afternoon and then we had a big group birthday dinner for Lindsey at Tiramisu, the delicious Italian restaurant we have become semi-regulars at these days.
Tuesday was my final which I can honestly say I feel very good about, so hopefully that is reflected in my grade! This is for my class where if I do well enough on everything prior to the final, it is possible for me to be exempt from taking the final so I'm keeping my fingers crossed! After school that day, Karen came over and we watched several episodes of Glee and then we had our Farewell Meeting for EAP with our director, all the staff, and all the students. There were a lot of people at the dinner that I hadn't seen for months and the food was delicious! It really made it start to sink in that this is almost over, but more to come on that later.
Wednesday (yesterday) I had my final day at my internship teaching English. The kids made me adorable thank you cards and I got a lot of hugs and kisses. I will miss those kids. In the biggest Chilean news of this update, Wednesday morning was also Chile's first match of the World Cup at the ripe hour of 7:30AM. Let me just say, the environment was absolutely NUTS. As I don't have a TV, I was following the game on the FIFA website which turned out not to be necessary as I could hear the reactions of all of Santiago through my window before the website could possibly update. While usually when I head to my internship at 8:30 the streets are crammed full and it takes nearly an hour, the streets were deserted and it took me about 15 minutes. As the game ended seconds before my first class started, teachers and students alike were running around the school yelling "Chi-Chi-Chi-Le-Le-LE-Vi-Va-Chi-Le! Ganamos! 1-0!". The pride was incredible. It is absolutely awesome to be down here for the World Cup.
Today marked my final day of classes, with all remaining of my semester being Tuesday with 2 finals and a brief assignment due. I would be lying if I said I'm not excited for school to end. It's a shame that studying abroad really involved studying if you ask me hahaha. But in all honesty, I do feel like I have learned valuable things in my classes so it is nice that it doesn't feel like I wasted 2 quarters of academics. Although the amount that I have learned outside the classroom through this experience FAR outweighs anything I learned in the classroom. Tonight, I am heading over to Lindsey's for burritos with her and her boyfriend who is visiting plus some other people before going to La Piojera for Terremotos with all the visitors plus Lindsey and Gina and more! It should be a fun night.
So, I have reached a point in this journey where the end is very much in sight. In a nutshell, I have 2 finals Tuesday, will finish and turn in my internship report Wednesday, and then have 8 days to hang out and do the list of things I have made of things I have missed around Santiago and hang out with friends before getting on a plane and leaving this life I have made for myself down here behind to return to my incredible friends and family. This has become an incredibly strange feeling for me. Everyone who ever told me that a semester abroad leaves you at the end finally feeling like you actually live in the place and beginning to really love it right as you have to leave was so very right. It is also so odd for me since the beginning was so rocky and I always thought I would be so ready to go home when the time came, and now it has come and I find myself genuinely sad to leave my life of the past 5 months behind. Gina leaves in 7 days, which will make this whole leaving thing really real. For now, although everyday I am torn between emotions of sadness for the pending leaving of this place, love for the friends I have made down here, and incredible love and excitement to see my friends and family back in California so soon, it's all kind of surreal.
However, although I will be sad to leave this experience behind, I cannot even begin to express how excited I am to see my Mom, Dad, and Brother who I have now gone longer than I ever again want to go without seeing and love so much, and my friends who I plan on running up to and not letting a single moment of fun and love go to waste. It'll have been 6 months, we have a lot of shenanigans to catch up on.
GET READY!
Love you all!
Friday of last weekend was mainly dedicated to studying for the final I had this past Tuesday, so Gina and Lindsey and I sat ourselves in Juan Valdes, a very classy coffee shop, and studied to the best of our abilities for 6 hours. WOAH. Also, I had the best drink I have ever had in Chile. It was called a Brownie Nevado and was basically a Mocha Frappucinno with literally an entire brownie put in a blender and blended into it. I literally was drinking a brownie. SO GOOD. I will have to return for one of these before I leave.
On Saturday morning, 2 of Gina's friends arrived from California and we (along with Karen and Jon and most of EAP to be honest) headed to the California Cantina to watch the USA vs. England World Cup game. It was incredibly crowded and the service sucked, but it was definitely fun to watch the game in a bar, have a few beers, and be surrounded by a country and restaurant full of people who actually care and love soccer; so different of an environment from back home! After that, I went over to Karen and Jon's fancy apartment in the center of Santiago and watched a movie and they made a delcious dinner.
On Sunday, I crossed off one of my ultimate goals of this whole abroad experience of going snowboarding in the Andes in June. Once I have pictures, I will post them! The snow wasn't incredibly impressive as it is still fairly early in the season, but it was SO MUCH FUN. It was incredibly gorgeous to look out from the mountain and just see never ending snow capped Andean peaks and was definitely an experience I will never forget. The Andes truly are spectacular and I am so lucky that I get to see their snow-capped glory every day. That is one of the things I will truly miss about Chile.
Monday was Lindsey's 20th birthday so in the morning, Gina and her friend and I surprised Lindsey at her apartment and made her a pancake breakfast with dulce de leche and nutella spreads. Not only was this delicious, but it was so fun to be able to do something nice for her on her birthday without her expecting it! Then, we returned to our apartment and I ran some errands as Gina met up with 2 more of her friends who arrived. I studied for my Tuesday final all afternoon and then we had a big group birthday dinner for Lindsey at Tiramisu, the delicious Italian restaurant we have become semi-regulars at these days.
Tuesday was my final which I can honestly say I feel very good about, so hopefully that is reflected in my grade! This is for my class where if I do well enough on everything prior to the final, it is possible for me to be exempt from taking the final so I'm keeping my fingers crossed! After school that day, Karen came over and we watched several episodes of Glee and then we had our Farewell Meeting for EAP with our director, all the staff, and all the students. There were a lot of people at the dinner that I hadn't seen for months and the food was delicious! It really made it start to sink in that this is almost over, but more to come on that later.
Wednesday (yesterday) I had my final day at my internship teaching English. The kids made me adorable thank you cards and I got a lot of hugs and kisses. I will miss those kids. In the biggest Chilean news of this update, Wednesday morning was also Chile's first match of the World Cup at the ripe hour of 7:30AM. Let me just say, the environment was absolutely NUTS. As I don't have a TV, I was following the game on the FIFA website which turned out not to be necessary as I could hear the reactions of all of Santiago through my window before the website could possibly update. While usually when I head to my internship at 8:30 the streets are crammed full and it takes nearly an hour, the streets were deserted and it took me about 15 minutes. As the game ended seconds before my first class started, teachers and students alike were running around the school yelling "Chi-Chi-Chi-Le-Le-LE-Vi-Va-Chi-Le! Ganamos! 1-0!". The pride was incredible. It is absolutely awesome to be down here for the World Cup.
Today marked my final day of classes, with all remaining of my semester being Tuesday with 2 finals and a brief assignment due. I would be lying if I said I'm not excited for school to end. It's a shame that studying abroad really involved studying if you ask me hahaha. But in all honesty, I do feel like I have learned valuable things in my classes so it is nice that it doesn't feel like I wasted 2 quarters of academics. Although the amount that I have learned outside the classroom through this experience FAR outweighs anything I learned in the classroom. Tonight, I am heading over to Lindsey's for burritos with her and her boyfriend who is visiting plus some other people before going to La Piojera for Terremotos with all the visitors plus Lindsey and Gina and more! It should be a fun night.
So, I have reached a point in this journey where the end is very much in sight. In a nutshell, I have 2 finals Tuesday, will finish and turn in my internship report Wednesday, and then have 8 days to hang out and do the list of things I have made of things I have missed around Santiago and hang out with friends before getting on a plane and leaving this life I have made for myself down here behind to return to my incredible friends and family. This has become an incredibly strange feeling for me. Everyone who ever told me that a semester abroad leaves you at the end finally feeling like you actually live in the place and beginning to really love it right as you have to leave was so very right. It is also so odd for me since the beginning was so rocky and I always thought I would be so ready to go home when the time came, and now it has come and I find myself genuinely sad to leave my life of the past 5 months behind. Gina leaves in 7 days, which will make this whole leaving thing really real. For now, although everyday I am torn between emotions of sadness for the pending leaving of this place, love for the friends I have made down here, and incredible love and excitement to see my friends and family back in California so soon, it's all kind of surreal.
However, although I will be sad to leave this experience behind, I cannot even begin to express how excited I am to see my Mom, Dad, and Brother who I have now gone longer than I ever again want to go without seeing and love so much, and my friends who I plan on running up to and not letting a single moment of fun and love go to waste. It'll have been 6 months, we have a lot of shenanigans to catch up on.
GET READY!
Love you all!
Monday, 7 June 2010
Weekend fun and Santiago Lovin'
Another 4 day weekend is coming to a close in Santio-smogo in this lovely season of fall/winter and I, as usual, am here to recap the events of said weekend before they flee from my head with fleeting time. Unfortunately, the current lack of camera leaves this blog entry (and likely the next several to come) photo-less so I'll try and write as riveting-ly as possible so as to make up for said visual aids :).
Friday night Lindsey and Christine and I headed to our soccer team asado out in the comuna of Peñalolen of Santiago. Peñalolen has a very mixed reputation and we quickly learned why. While part of the comuna is very run down and definitely did not appear as somewhere I would want to be by myself ever, the part we went to was a gated community and a house equally as nice as my house back in Long Beach! Talk about contrast! After an hour in the car to get form Las Condes to Peñalolen, party due to rush hour and partly due to getting lost, we arrived to meet some members of our current team as well as some women who had previously been on the team but aren't right now for various reasons. We learned that the women on our team are actually quite a bit older than us (30s) and almost all married with children. As it turns out, they were all engineering students at la Universidad de Chile together and that's when the team started. It was great to be able to meet, talk to, see, and get to know the members of our team outside of just our weekly 1 hour games and I love when I get the opportunity to speak Spanish for a prolonged period of time (which is harder than you would think to find opportunities to do).
The next day, however, it seems my stomach did not in fact enjoy the asado very much. After a somewhat miserable/lack of movement/napping for quite a while however, I pretty much felt back to normal but conceded to lounging around for the rest of the day just to ensure everything was completely better. The rest of Saturday was spent watching silly movies, skyping with Jason and my Daddy, and eating stomach friendly foods.
Sunday, having purged my body of whatever had previously made it unhappy, I spent the day attempting (with only minor success) to do some reading before I received a message from my friend from Long Beach and Arrowbear, Karen, telling me that she and her boyfriend, Jon, had arrived to Santiago after DAYS of buses from Ecuador. Giddy with excitement, I ventured to a very cute little part of comuna Bellavista that I had previously never seen to meet them at their hostel running into a giant hug from Karen! We ventured back to my apartment for an impending Mac and Cheese making fiesta with Lindsey, Christine, and the newly returned from Brazil Gina. We made some absolutely delicious homemade mac and cheese (actually we made wayyyy too much) and indulged.
Today, I met Karen and Jon in the early evening and we walked towards the center of the city, somewhere I had never really been in the evening and is gorgeous when it is all lit up! Santiago really has grown on me so much! The city I originally just saw as any other big city has become something beautiful that I truly am going to miss. However, it's looking like I won't be doing anymore big trips out of Santiago besides day trips so I have a good 3.5 weeks to enjoy it! On the way to meet Lindsey in Plaza de Armas for Peruvian food dinner (something Lindsey has been talking about probably since February) we stopped at a shopping center that was solely musical instrument stores as Karen is in the market for a cello. I got giddy like a kid in a candy shop. I can't believe I've gone this long without playing an instrument and absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on my instruments when I return home. While waiting for Lindsey to arrive, we sat on a bench in the bustling, lit up Plaza. US cities don't have places with that kind of atmosphere of central plazas surrounded by old and gorgeous buildings where people gather. It's such a very South American thing that I have grown to really like! After a successful Peruvian dinner (I ate avocado stuffed with chicken!) we grabbed some ice cream and chatted a bit before parting ways to head home.
It really is awesome catching up with Karen and hanging out with her and Jon down here! I believe we are going to go for a hike someday this weekend in the Andes which should be absolutely gorgeous! It's so crazy to just happen to be living in the same South American country and city as them for this month! I plan on taking full advantage of enjoying it!
It's really crazy how close my departure from Chile/return to CA has become now. Everything people told me was true: just when you are starting to feel really comfortable and beginning to truly truly love Santiago, it'll be time to leave. But, here's to the next 3.5 weeks! I'm going to enjoy this as much as possible before returning home my incredible friends and family and the gorgeous Southern California summer!
Friday night Lindsey and Christine and I headed to our soccer team asado out in the comuna of Peñalolen of Santiago. Peñalolen has a very mixed reputation and we quickly learned why. While part of the comuna is very run down and definitely did not appear as somewhere I would want to be by myself ever, the part we went to was a gated community and a house equally as nice as my house back in Long Beach! Talk about contrast! After an hour in the car to get form Las Condes to Peñalolen, party due to rush hour and partly due to getting lost, we arrived to meet some members of our current team as well as some women who had previously been on the team but aren't right now for various reasons. We learned that the women on our team are actually quite a bit older than us (30s) and almost all married with children. As it turns out, they were all engineering students at la Universidad de Chile together and that's when the team started. It was great to be able to meet, talk to, see, and get to know the members of our team outside of just our weekly 1 hour games and I love when I get the opportunity to speak Spanish for a prolonged period of time (which is harder than you would think to find opportunities to do).
The next day, however, it seems my stomach did not in fact enjoy the asado very much. After a somewhat miserable/lack of movement/napping for quite a while however, I pretty much felt back to normal but conceded to lounging around for the rest of the day just to ensure everything was completely better. The rest of Saturday was spent watching silly movies, skyping with Jason and my Daddy, and eating stomach friendly foods.
Sunday, having purged my body of whatever had previously made it unhappy, I spent the day attempting (with only minor success) to do some reading before I received a message from my friend from Long Beach and Arrowbear, Karen, telling me that she and her boyfriend, Jon, had arrived to Santiago after DAYS of buses from Ecuador. Giddy with excitement, I ventured to a very cute little part of comuna Bellavista that I had previously never seen to meet them at their hostel running into a giant hug from Karen! We ventured back to my apartment for an impending Mac and Cheese making fiesta with Lindsey, Christine, and the newly returned from Brazil Gina. We made some absolutely delicious homemade mac and cheese (actually we made wayyyy too much) and indulged.
Today, I met Karen and Jon in the early evening and we walked towards the center of the city, somewhere I had never really been in the evening and is gorgeous when it is all lit up! Santiago really has grown on me so much! The city I originally just saw as any other big city has become something beautiful that I truly am going to miss. However, it's looking like I won't be doing anymore big trips out of Santiago besides day trips so I have a good 3.5 weeks to enjoy it! On the way to meet Lindsey in Plaza de Armas for Peruvian food dinner (something Lindsey has been talking about probably since February) we stopped at a shopping center that was solely musical instrument stores as Karen is in the market for a cello. I got giddy like a kid in a candy shop. I can't believe I've gone this long without playing an instrument and absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on my instruments when I return home. While waiting for Lindsey to arrive, we sat on a bench in the bustling, lit up Plaza. US cities don't have places with that kind of atmosphere of central plazas surrounded by old and gorgeous buildings where people gather. It's such a very South American thing that I have grown to really like! After a successful Peruvian dinner (I ate avocado stuffed with chicken!) we grabbed some ice cream and chatted a bit before parting ways to head home.
It really is awesome catching up with Karen and hanging out with her and Jon down here! I believe we are going to go for a hike someday this weekend in the Andes which should be absolutely gorgeous! It's so crazy to just happen to be living in the same South American country and city as them for this month! I plan on taking full advantage of enjoying it!
It's really crazy how close my departure from Chile/return to CA has become now. Everything people told me was true: just when you are starting to feel really comfortable and beginning to truly truly love Santiago, it'll be time to leave. But, here's to the next 3.5 weeks! I'm going to enjoy this as much as possible before returning home my incredible friends and family and the gorgeous Southern California summer!
Friday, 4 June 2010
Hello academic productivity, it's been far too long + some soccer
As ironic as this title is as I am still sitting at Starbucks as I have been for the last 5 hours, I definitely finally got some valuable academic productivity time in today. This is very very good seeing as my schedule is the following:
-2 days of all 3 classes followed by no more culture lectures
-Tuesday 6/15 test that can make or break whether I have to take a cumulative oral and terrifying final, class Thursday 6/17
-2 Tests on 6/22 and then pretty much DONE with school and academics (pending a decent grade on the test on 6/15)
Today I went to Starbucks (and am still there) with Lindsey and Christine and hammered out two missed biweekly report for my internship and my last assignment for any class besides tests. All I have left to do now is readings and study for the three pending tests in the next 2.5 weeks and 1 more internship report at the end (no more than 1 page so no biggy). I will likely need to hermit myself or cave up in a Starbuck a few more times to power through these tests, but the end is in sight.
On a completely different note, tonight Lindsey and Christine (straight from here) are heading to a little Asado (bbq) with our soccer team since we had left over money from our fees to participate in the league. It is at the house of one of the women on our team and should be fun and delicious.
On a similar soccer note, I had been feeling somewhat frustrated with the whole soccer thing as our captain tends to nag and complain to me a lot about how the team or me specifically has been performing. However, she was not at this past weeks game as she is currently injured and it ended up being an absolute blast of a game! For some reason, unknown to me, we had a coach this week who noticed I was apparently fast and paired me up back on defense with a fast forward on the other team telling me to stick to her and not let her get away with anything. I took that to the fullest extent and feel like I finally really remember how I used to play soccer and had an absolute blast! Not only was no one telling me every single little detail I did wrong, but the new coach actually kept telling me I was playing "súper bien" and it felt GREAT to be back in the game like I used to be! I would love to find a way to continue to play soccer somehow when I return to Los Angeles and think I will look into opportunities when I get home.
Today I received an awesome envelope full of several letters from various people from my church! This made me so happy and smile and I can't wait to return to church and see everyone in a month!
So, life is very good. It's a four day weekend, academic productivity is being achieved, I'm off to a soccer team fiesta, I'll be home and with everyone I love so much in 4 weeks, and Karen will be popping up in Santiago sometime Sunday or Monday. Life is good.
-2 days of all 3 classes followed by no more culture lectures
-Tuesday 6/15 test that can make or break whether I have to take a cumulative oral and terrifying final, class Thursday 6/17
-2 Tests on 6/22 and then pretty much DONE with school and academics (pending a decent grade on the test on 6/15)
Today I went to Starbucks (and am still there) with Lindsey and Christine and hammered out two missed biweekly report for my internship and my last assignment for any class besides tests. All I have left to do now is readings and study for the three pending tests in the next 2.5 weeks and 1 more internship report at the end (no more than 1 page so no biggy). I will likely need to hermit myself or cave up in a Starbuck a few more times to power through these tests, but the end is in sight.
On a completely different note, tonight Lindsey and Christine (straight from here) are heading to a little Asado (bbq) with our soccer team since we had left over money from our fees to participate in the league. It is at the house of one of the women on our team and should be fun and delicious.
On a similar soccer note, I had been feeling somewhat frustrated with the whole soccer thing as our captain tends to nag and complain to me a lot about how the team or me specifically has been performing. However, she was not at this past weeks game as she is currently injured and it ended up being an absolute blast of a game! For some reason, unknown to me, we had a coach this week who noticed I was apparently fast and paired me up back on defense with a fast forward on the other team telling me to stick to her and not let her get away with anything. I took that to the fullest extent and feel like I finally really remember how I used to play soccer and had an absolute blast! Not only was no one telling me every single little detail I did wrong, but the new coach actually kept telling me I was playing "súper bien" and it felt GREAT to be back in the game like I used to be! I would love to find a way to continue to play soccer somehow when I return to Los Angeles and think I will look into opportunities when I get home.
Today I received an awesome envelope full of several letters from various people from my church! This made me so happy and smile and I can't wait to return to church and see everyone in a month!
So, life is very good. It's a four day weekend, academic productivity is being achieved, I'm off to a soccer team fiesta, I'll be home and with everyone I love so much in 4 weeks, and Karen will be popping up in Santiago sometime Sunday or Monday. Life is good.
San Pedro de Atacama
(Disclaimer: Excuse the excessive use of adjectives such as amazing, awesome, incredible, etc. There are not enough words in the English language for me to express some of the things I saw this past weekend. A thesaurus may have been helpful.)
I spent last Friday-Tuesday in the north of Chile in San Pedro de Atacama and its surrounding areas, the driest desert in the world. It was absolutely incredible and unlike anything I have ever seen or experienced before in my life and am so glad I had the opportunity to go! Although a lot of this recap, as I just realized, is full of funny oddities and quirks and strange occurances, it was an absolutely incredible vacation and location. To the extent that I didn´t even realize most of these quirks until just now when I went to recap it, which tells you just how amazing it was!
Friday:
For once in our traveling around South America lives, we did not have an airplane leaving at the booty crack of dawn which in and of itself was rather glorious. Lindsey and I, who both arrived to San Pedro before Christine and Kathryn and left after them, experimented with a new (cheaper) way of getting to the airport and succeeded in metro and bussing there and arriving in plenty of time for our flight to Calama, a city that Lonely Planet literally describes as a ¨shithole¨ rich off of copper mining about 1 hour northwest of San Pedro de Atacama. After taking a taxi from the airport to the bus station (where we later learned many people get robbed, doesn´t Calama sound like a lovely place?) we successfully purchased bus tickets to San Pedro, the funny part is it was then 2pm and we were sold tickets for the 130 bus seeing as it hadn´t yet arrived nor did it arrive until 3:30pm. Apparently the rumors that bus travel in the north of Chile is far worse than any other part of the country are true. However, by about 5pm we had successfully arrived in San Pedro, having been dropped off in the outskirts of a little adobe village in the middle of a vast desert valley. After going to our hostel and realizing they had lost our reservation but successfully re-reserved 4 more beds and this time at a cheaper rate, Lindsey and I decided to go for a run to see the town a little bit and partly to ditch a smoking French man that had decided he wanted to hang out with us. Having been ignorant of the fact that we were about 5,000 feet of altitude and having not run for 2 weeks, the run was a bit labored but it was absolutely gorgeous. We ran through the tiny dirt roads surrounded by adobe houses while surrounded by a setting sun and massive Andean volcanoes as our backdrop, probably the most incredible run I have ever been on.
After the run, we went to dinner at a very cute little restaurant called The Cave and figured out our tour plans (basically you have to do a tour do see most of the things up there because they are a ways out of town) while we shared a pizza and a bottle of wine while being slightly entertained as a massive group of Stanford students sat at the table beside us. Then it was an early bed time with a brief waking up at 12:30 for me when Kathryn and Christine arrived and an hour waking up at 2am for poor Lindsey as the dinner did not seem to like her stomach (luckily it was brief).
Saturday:
Saturday morning we awoke with Christine and Kathryn having arrived (and had a ridiculous night in their hostel room finally resulting in switching to ours after a cop had to be called to chill out crazy french man Linds and I had previously ditched via our run) and we indulged in the (pathetic) hostel breakfast of a piece of bread with coffee without milk or tea. Then, we rented bikes and road out to some Atacameño ruins called Pukará de Quitor. It was about a 2 hour ordeal back into an absolutely incredible valley and then a hike up to the top of the hillside covered in the old ruins that served as a fortress against the Inkans. It was really cool and got me very very excited to hike Machu Picchu next month! I´ve decided riding my bikes when I´m traveling is one of my very favorite things to do because it allows you to see so much, is cheap, and is always fun!
After the bike ride we grabbed one of the million set lunch menus at one of the restaurants in town (San Pedro has definitely taken full advantage of the fact that it has quickly become a tourist destination) and ate a 3 course meal before heading out to SANDBOARD! Our guide, who kept telling us his name was Kelly Slater and he was from Huntington Beach while he was clearly Chilean and also started smoking a joint while taking pictures of us sandboarding/ was absolutely hilarious, picked us up and drove us to Valle de la Muerte to a massive sand dune, handed us some snowboards and some wax, and we trekked up the massive dune to have our first go at it. In the end, we trekked up the massive dune 6 times improving each time on the way down and having TONS of fun while looking out on an incredible view and getting sand places not even imaginable. One of my favorite parts was when I was up on the dune waiting to go down and saw about 7 horses on the horizon of a dune peaking over the top on the dune and then trotting down the front of it. It was absolutely epic and picturesque like something out of a movie set in the Sahara. As part of the tour after sandboarding in Valle de la Muerte, we were driven to Valle de la Luna and served Pisco Sours while watching the sunset over one of the strangest landforms I´ve ever seen: a dessert that really does look like the moon full of craters.
That night (sans shower and thus still very sandy due to the fact that our hostel failed at having hot water quite often and the nights were freezing so wet hair at night=bad idea) we went to a ridiculously cheap dinner of chicken and fries followed by a beer with our hostel roommate including a guy from Canada, a guy from England, and a girl from New York. Then it was to bed early again 1) because there´s nothing to do in this tiny desert town at night any how and 2) because we had a 3:30am wakeup call the next morning!
Sunday:
After a 3:40am alarm and some very quick throwing on of tons of layers (which still proved to not be enough) we were picked up by an absolutely ridiculous truck that must have been bigger than the streets themselves of San Pedro and headed 90km/2 hours out of town up into the high plateau of the Andes to the Geisers del Tatio. Our guide suggested we sleep since the terrain was going to be rough, and he wasn´t kidding! Needless to say, little sleeping actually occurred as it was also very very cold. When we arrived, we got to wander the geyser field at 13,000+ feet of altitude while the sun rose and the moon was still in the sky. It was beautiful and insanely remote and gorgeous; it was also insanely cold (14 degrees) and my toes were literally in pain and took a good hour to feel normal again but it was definitely without a doubt worth it! The tour also included an awesome breakfast cooked out of a magically appearing stove out of the side of our massive truck/christmas train/garbage truck of fresh pancakes with dulce de leche, ham and cheese sandwiches cooked to delicious meltiness, and coffee and tea (with milk!) all served while sitting in magically appearing chairs and tables in the middle of the geyser field. Needless to say, far better than our hostel breakfast :). On the way back into San Pedro, we saw groups of vicuñas (smaller llamas) wandering the plateau and stopped in a village called Machuca with a population of 10 (plus about 60 tourists at any given time) where Lindsey and I tried (and enjoyed) llama meat kebabs!
If you ever get a chance to try llama meat, do so and you will be pleasantly surprised! I figured, when the heck else am I going to have the opportunity to eat a llama kebab?! The last stop we made on our return trip to San Pedro was in the middle of a mountain side covered with an endemic species of cactus with a little river flowing between the two hillsides in the middle of the high plateau.
We grabbed a quick lunch of empanadas before being picked up for our second tour of the day to the Salt Lagoons in the Salt Flat of Atacama. I was a little skeptical as some of our previous hostel mates had said that the Laguna Cejar, one of the places we were headed, was missable. However, I think they were very very mistaken as this was possibly the most fun tour we did! We first went to the Laguna Cejar where we swam in the lagoon in the middle of the Salar.
It is like the dead sea in that it has such a high salinity content that you literally just float which is a very strange, cool, unique sensation! Then we headed to the Ojos del Salar which are two twin lakes very close to each other in the middle of the Salar with reflective water.
(moon walking on saturn. . .aka in the Salar near the Ojos)
After that, we drove to someplace in the middle of the Salar to watch the sunset, take pictures, and have Pisco Sours and chips.
This, unfortunately, is where my camera met its end falling into the Salt Flat after the string portion I was holding it by decided to separate itself from the rest of the camera. Though this is clearly upsetting, there was nothing I could have done and was not even that upset about it at the time as I was surrounded by the coolest most aw inspiring view of my life. We basically had a 360 view of the sun setting and turning the surrounded volcanoes pink as they reflected in the water of the Salar. It was absolutely majectic. We spent some time salt island hopping before the sun completely set giving way to the most incredible (I really need more adjectives) starry night sky I have ever seen with Venus shining brighter than I´ve ever seen a planet in the sky, an amazing shooting star, and the Milky Way. We also ended up having an impromptu dance party with a tour group full of Indians and our Chilean tour guides for a good hour before deciding the time had come to return to town.
I took the fastest/coldest shower ever that night as I was absolutely covered in salt before heading out to a quick dinner with our hostel roommate Rachel again and then crashing having been awake since 3:40 and had another tour at 6am the next morning. The day had been absolutely indescribably perfect.
Monday:
Once again on Monday morning, we awoke before the sun at 5:40 to leave for our final tour which started again back at the Salar at the Reserva Nacional los Flamengos where we watch an epic sunrise over the Andes while looking out at Chilean and Andean Flamingos in the salt lagoons in the middle of the Salar. We walked around the reserve a bit before eating breakfast in the sun (it was definitely cold, but not nearly as bad as the day before) and then heading up in the car back to high altitude of nearly 13,000 meters through a town called Socaire. We briefly stopped in Socaire on the way up to reserve lunch on the way down and visit the tiny church and see the Inkan plateaued agriculture. The town had a very tiny population of almost all indigenous Atacameños, and we were told we could take pictures but to be careful and not accidentally take any pictures of the indigenous people. From there, we continued gaining altitude up the plateau until we arrived at an incredibly secluded, absolutely sublime view of two high plateau lakes surrounded by snow capped 6,000+ meter Andean Volcanoes with llamas drinking out of the lakes. It was almost a surreal view it was so absolutely incredible and easily and without a doubt among one of the coolest most awesome things I have ever experienced without a single soul besides us in sight. Absolutely stunning.
On the way down from the lakes, we stopped and ate a 3 course lunch in Socaire made in a tiny little restaurant in town that was clearly just someones dining room and kitchen. It was delicious! Then we continued down the mountain to a town called Toconao (population 700, we're getting bigger!) and stopped for a bit to shop in the Artesan stores and wander the town before heading back to San Pedro.
(A llama that I saw herding some goats :) )
That afternoon, Lindsey and I took the free afternoon/evening oportunity to play a little catch up by going to an internet cafe, doing some shopping around town, reserving our transfer to the airport for the following day, and showering while Kathryn and Christine got ready and left for their flight home that evening. Lindsey and I ate some absolutely delicious canelones with wine at a very cute restaurant in town and then did some reading and packed up before crashing early after two very early wake up calls in a row.
Tuesday:
On our last half day in San Pedro, Lindsey and I woke up early enough to grab a quick hostel breakfast before renting bikes for 2 hours to bike out to Valle de la Muerte (where we had sandboarded) before catching our transfer back to Calama. The beginning of the ride was a bit tumultuous as a pack of stray dogs decided they were going to follow us and I am very very afraid of being bitten by a stray dog. However, we soon figured out that these dogs were not going to bite us and figured they wouldn't go past the city limits. Wrong. They followed us the entire 2 hour bike ride along the highway, back on the sand path into the stunning valley, and even after we ditched the bikes to walk the last bit towards the dunes! After realizing they were nice, however, it turned out to be pretty funny! It was an incredible bike ride, definitely the coolest I've ever been on and a great way to finish out an absolutely amazing trip up to the Atacama desert.
We returned the bikes, grabbed some quick empanadas, and hopped on our transfer back to Calama to board our plane back to Santiago.
It was a trip I will absolutely always treasure and never forget, full of landforms and views unlike anything I have ever seen before that were truly spectacular. I'm so glad I got to go!!!
SEE YOU IN 4 WEEKS <3 :)
I spent last Friday-Tuesday in the north of Chile in San Pedro de Atacama and its surrounding areas, the driest desert in the world. It was absolutely incredible and unlike anything I have ever seen or experienced before in my life and am so glad I had the opportunity to go! Although a lot of this recap, as I just realized, is full of funny oddities and quirks and strange occurances, it was an absolutely incredible vacation and location. To the extent that I didn´t even realize most of these quirks until just now when I went to recap it, which tells you just how amazing it was!
Friday:
For once in our traveling around South America lives, we did not have an airplane leaving at the booty crack of dawn which in and of itself was rather glorious. Lindsey and I, who both arrived to San Pedro before Christine and Kathryn and left after them, experimented with a new (cheaper) way of getting to the airport and succeeded in metro and bussing there and arriving in plenty of time for our flight to Calama, a city that Lonely Planet literally describes as a ¨shithole¨ rich off of copper mining about 1 hour northwest of San Pedro de Atacama. After taking a taxi from the airport to the bus station (where we later learned many people get robbed, doesn´t Calama sound like a lovely place?) we successfully purchased bus tickets to San Pedro, the funny part is it was then 2pm and we were sold tickets for the 130 bus seeing as it hadn´t yet arrived nor did it arrive until 3:30pm. Apparently the rumors that bus travel in the north of Chile is far worse than any other part of the country are true. However, by about 5pm we had successfully arrived in San Pedro, having been dropped off in the outskirts of a little adobe village in the middle of a vast desert valley. After going to our hostel and realizing they had lost our reservation but successfully re-reserved 4 more beds and this time at a cheaper rate, Lindsey and I decided to go for a run to see the town a little bit and partly to ditch a smoking French man that had decided he wanted to hang out with us. Having been ignorant of the fact that we were about 5,000 feet of altitude and having not run for 2 weeks, the run was a bit labored but it was absolutely gorgeous. We ran through the tiny dirt roads surrounded by adobe houses while surrounded by a setting sun and massive Andean volcanoes as our backdrop, probably the most incredible run I have ever been on.
After the run, we went to dinner at a very cute little restaurant called The Cave and figured out our tour plans (basically you have to do a tour do see most of the things up there because they are a ways out of town) while we shared a pizza and a bottle of wine while being slightly entertained as a massive group of Stanford students sat at the table beside us. Then it was an early bed time with a brief waking up at 12:30 for me when Kathryn and Christine arrived and an hour waking up at 2am for poor Lindsey as the dinner did not seem to like her stomach (luckily it was brief).
Saturday:
Saturday morning we awoke with Christine and Kathryn having arrived (and had a ridiculous night in their hostel room finally resulting in switching to ours after a cop had to be called to chill out crazy french man Linds and I had previously ditched via our run) and we indulged in the (pathetic) hostel breakfast of a piece of bread with coffee without milk or tea. Then, we rented bikes and road out to some Atacameño ruins called Pukará de Quitor. It was about a 2 hour ordeal back into an absolutely incredible valley and then a hike up to the top of the hillside covered in the old ruins that served as a fortress against the Inkans. It was really cool and got me very very excited to hike Machu Picchu next month! I´ve decided riding my bikes when I´m traveling is one of my very favorite things to do because it allows you to see so much, is cheap, and is always fun!
After the bike ride we grabbed one of the million set lunch menus at one of the restaurants in town (San Pedro has definitely taken full advantage of the fact that it has quickly become a tourist destination) and ate a 3 course meal before heading out to SANDBOARD! Our guide, who kept telling us his name was Kelly Slater and he was from Huntington Beach while he was clearly Chilean and also started smoking a joint while taking pictures of us sandboarding/ was absolutely hilarious, picked us up and drove us to Valle de la Muerte to a massive sand dune, handed us some snowboards and some wax, and we trekked up the massive dune to have our first go at it. In the end, we trekked up the massive dune 6 times improving each time on the way down and having TONS of fun while looking out on an incredible view and getting sand places not even imaginable. One of my favorite parts was when I was up on the dune waiting to go down and saw about 7 horses on the horizon of a dune peaking over the top on the dune and then trotting down the front of it. It was absolutely epic and picturesque like something out of a movie set in the Sahara. As part of the tour after sandboarding in Valle de la Muerte, we were driven to Valle de la Luna and served Pisco Sours while watching the sunset over one of the strangest landforms I´ve ever seen: a dessert that really does look like the moon full of craters.
That night (sans shower and thus still very sandy due to the fact that our hostel failed at having hot water quite often and the nights were freezing so wet hair at night=bad idea) we went to a ridiculously cheap dinner of chicken and fries followed by a beer with our hostel roommate including a guy from Canada, a guy from England, and a girl from New York. Then it was to bed early again 1) because there´s nothing to do in this tiny desert town at night any how and 2) because we had a 3:30am wakeup call the next morning!
Sunday:
After a 3:40am alarm and some very quick throwing on of tons of layers (which still proved to not be enough) we were picked up by an absolutely ridiculous truck that must have been bigger than the streets themselves of San Pedro and headed 90km/2 hours out of town up into the high plateau of the Andes to the Geisers del Tatio. Our guide suggested we sleep since the terrain was going to be rough, and he wasn´t kidding! Needless to say, little sleeping actually occurred as it was also very very cold. When we arrived, we got to wander the geyser field at 13,000+ feet of altitude while the sun rose and the moon was still in the sky. It was beautiful and insanely remote and gorgeous; it was also insanely cold (14 degrees) and my toes were literally in pain and took a good hour to feel normal again but it was definitely without a doubt worth it! The tour also included an awesome breakfast cooked out of a magically appearing stove out of the side of our massive truck/christmas train/garbage truck of fresh pancakes with dulce de leche, ham and cheese sandwiches cooked to delicious meltiness, and coffee and tea (with milk!) all served while sitting in magically appearing chairs and tables in the middle of the geyser field. Needless to say, far better than our hostel breakfast :). On the way back into San Pedro, we saw groups of vicuñas (smaller llamas) wandering the plateau and stopped in a village called Machuca with a population of 10 (plus about 60 tourists at any given time) where Lindsey and I tried (and enjoyed) llama meat kebabs!
If you ever get a chance to try llama meat, do so and you will be pleasantly surprised! I figured, when the heck else am I going to have the opportunity to eat a llama kebab?! The last stop we made on our return trip to San Pedro was in the middle of a mountain side covered with an endemic species of cactus with a little river flowing between the two hillsides in the middle of the high plateau.
We grabbed a quick lunch of empanadas before being picked up for our second tour of the day to the Salt Lagoons in the Salt Flat of Atacama. I was a little skeptical as some of our previous hostel mates had said that the Laguna Cejar, one of the places we were headed, was missable. However, I think they were very very mistaken as this was possibly the most fun tour we did! We first went to the Laguna Cejar where we swam in the lagoon in the middle of the Salar.
It is like the dead sea in that it has such a high salinity content that you literally just float which is a very strange, cool, unique sensation! Then we headed to the Ojos del Salar which are two twin lakes very close to each other in the middle of the Salar with reflective water.
(moon walking on saturn. . .aka in the Salar near the Ojos)
After that, we drove to someplace in the middle of the Salar to watch the sunset, take pictures, and have Pisco Sours and chips.
This, unfortunately, is where my camera met its end falling into the Salt Flat after the string portion I was holding it by decided to separate itself from the rest of the camera. Though this is clearly upsetting, there was nothing I could have done and was not even that upset about it at the time as I was surrounded by the coolest most aw inspiring view of my life. We basically had a 360 view of the sun setting and turning the surrounded volcanoes pink as they reflected in the water of the Salar. It was absolutely majectic. We spent some time salt island hopping before the sun completely set giving way to the most incredible (I really need more adjectives) starry night sky I have ever seen with Venus shining brighter than I´ve ever seen a planet in the sky, an amazing shooting star, and the Milky Way. We also ended up having an impromptu dance party with a tour group full of Indians and our Chilean tour guides for a good hour before deciding the time had come to return to town.
I took the fastest/coldest shower ever that night as I was absolutely covered in salt before heading out to a quick dinner with our hostel roommate Rachel again and then crashing having been awake since 3:40 and had another tour at 6am the next morning. The day had been absolutely indescribably perfect.
Monday:
Once again on Monday morning, we awoke before the sun at 5:40 to leave for our final tour which started again back at the Salar at the Reserva Nacional los Flamengos where we watch an epic sunrise over the Andes while looking out at Chilean and Andean Flamingos in the salt lagoons in the middle of the Salar. We walked around the reserve a bit before eating breakfast in the sun (it was definitely cold, but not nearly as bad as the day before) and then heading up in the car back to high altitude of nearly 13,000 meters through a town called Socaire. We briefly stopped in Socaire on the way up to reserve lunch on the way down and visit the tiny church and see the Inkan plateaued agriculture. The town had a very tiny population of almost all indigenous Atacameños, and we were told we could take pictures but to be careful and not accidentally take any pictures of the indigenous people. From there, we continued gaining altitude up the plateau until we arrived at an incredibly secluded, absolutely sublime view of two high plateau lakes surrounded by snow capped 6,000+ meter Andean Volcanoes with llamas drinking out of the lakes. It was almost a surreal view it was so absolutely incredible and easily and without a doubt among one of the coolest most awesome things I have ever experienced without a single soul besides us in sight. Absolutely stunning.
On the way down from the lakes, we stopped and ate a 3 course lunch in Socaire made in a tiny little restaurant in town that was clearly just someones dining room and kitchen. It was delicious! Then we continued down the mountain to a town called Toconao (population 700, we're getting bigger!) and stopped for a bit to shop in the Artesan stores and wander the town before heading back to San Pedro.
(A llama that I saw herding some goats :) )
That afternoon, Lindsey and I took the free afternoon/evening oportunity to play a little catch up by going to an internet cafe, doing some shopping around town, reserving our transfer to the airport for the following day, and showering while Kathryn and Christine got ready and left for their flight home that evening. Lindsey and I ate some absolutely delicious canelones with wine at a very cute restaurant in town and then did some reading and packed up before crashing early after two very early wake up calls in a row.
Tuesday:
On our last half day in San Pedro, Lindsey and I woke up early enough to grab a quick hostel breakfast before renting bikes for 2 hours to bike out to Valle de la Muerte (where we had sandboarded) before catching our transfer back to Calama. The beginning of the ride was a bit tumultuous as a pack of stray dogs decided they were going to follow us and I am very very afraid of being bitten by a stray dog. However, we soon figured out that these dogs were not going to bite us and figured they wouldn't go past the city limits. Wrong. They followed us the entire 2 hour bike ride along the highway, back on the sand path into the stunning valley, and even after we ditched the bikes to walk the last bit towards the dunes! After realizing they were nice, however, it turned out to be pretty funny! It was an incredible bike ride, definitely the coolest I've ever been on and a great way to finish out an absolutely amazing trip up to the Atacama desert.
We returned the bikes, grabbed some quick empanadas, and hopped on our transfer back to Calama to board our plane back to Santiago.
It was a trip I will absolutely always treasure and never forget, full of landforms and views unlike anything I have ever seen before that were truly spectacular. I'm so glad I got to go!!!
SEE YOU IN 4 WEEKS <3 :)
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