fly me to the moon

This weekend, my study abroad program took us on a trip way up north to the Atacama Desert. It was a good 2 hour flight that brought us close to the border of Bolivia. I was happy to go so far north because a) I was desperately craving some warm weather and b) I'd to cover as much of the longitude of Chile as possible during my time here.

After coming home, I wanted to get a little perspective on exactly where I've been traveling Chile thus far, so I decided to make a Google map pinpointing my Chilean destinations [along with a few important locations in the states :)] I'll try to remember to update it as I go along.

So yes, back to the trip.

Friday we left the Santiago airport around 2:30. Flew on Sky Airlines, which we all immediately fell in love with when they passed around little hard candies after everyone boarded the plane! Such a small gesture, but something we all appreciated, especially when companies like American Airlines are making you pay to avoid dehydration. We were also served a meal, which was served in pleasant bright green plastic containers. Although it probably tasted the same, the food seemed better than the food served in Delta's dreary grey containers.

After a brief stop at the Antofagasta airport, we landed in Calama around 5:30. Getting off the plane felt like we had landed on the moon - plopped in the middle of the desert with nothing surrounding us but rocks and dirt. Drove a good 2 hours north to get to the super-touristy town of San Pedro de Atacama. Checked into the very nice Casa de Don Tomas and then went for a walk to orient ourselves with the town. However, before we went to admire the adobe and artisans, we took some time to admire the absolutely incredible night sky. Never in my life have I seen such magnificent stars - hundreds upon hundreds of them filling up every inch of the view up above. PLUS, cutting across the sky was a line of cloudy murkiness, which turned out to be the Milky Way! Superbakán. Definitely tried to take pictures but I don't think it was possible with my camera. And if it was possible, I was just too photographically-illiterate to know how.

Ate dinner at a touristy restaurant because there weren't many other options. Had delicious salmon and quinoa (a local, couscous-like grain, known as the "mother of all grains" for it's rich protein content).

Saturday we woke up bright and early and boarded a bus to go exploring. This whole weekend was quite a treat because a) we didn't have to pay for it (theoretically we paid for it through the program cost though..) and b) we didn't have to plan any of the logistics. So basically when I boarded the bus on Saturday morning, I had no idea where we were going for the day and I was perfectly fine with that because I knew we were in safe hands with our trusty tour guide Claudio.

So we're driving and driving and driving through the desert and it's quite bizarre looking out the window and seeing miles and miles of pure nothingness (unless you count rocks and dirt and mountains and volcanoes). Occasionally we'd come a cross a line of trees, which pinpointed the route of the few rivers in Atacama. Occasionally we'd also pass by a random desert village. Seeing those places really blew my mind, considering most of the towns did not have cars, gardens or visible water sources. However, one of the towns did have a full-size dirt and pebble soccer field. I definitely would NOT want to be a goalie diving for saves in that town!

After driving for awhile and taking a few "Japanese tourist breaks" to take run out of the van to pictures (Claudio's term, not mine!), we eventually arrived at our first destination: el Salar de Atacama (the Atacama Salt Flat).

As if I'm not already disoriented enough about the weather right now, this trip to the salt flat tripped me up even more. Why? Well in my head, it is August, so therefore it must be super hot and humid. But in Santiago, August means wet, cold winter. However, for the weekend, we're in the desert, which means it is hot and dry. BUT, this salt flat makes it look like there is snow and ice on the ground, so I kept thinking I was going to slip and fall onto cold ground. See why I'm so confused?

Another confusing thing about the salt flats was the wildlife inhabiting the area - the flats are home to what else but FLAMINGOS! How bizarre. Spent awhile admiring the 3 different species of flamingos. Even watched some of them in flight!

But soon we were back on the bus again, this time taking a brief stop in a desert town to see an artisan shop and learn about desert irrigation systems. Carefully touched a cactus. Went inside an adobe church (that stuff really insulates! while it was toasty out in the sun, we were freezing inside the church!). Saw an artisan making alpaca sweaters on a loom adorned with a bull skull. And saw the biggest lemons I've ever seen before - almost the size of my two fists together!

Drove back to San Pedro de Atacama for lunch, then got back on the bus to see Valle de la Muerte (Valley of the Dead) and Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon). Spent the afternoon hiking through various rock formations and admiring the wind-shaped creations. The entire day felt like a trek through different movie sets. We traveled through Apollo 13, Star Wars, Lion King (saw a rock that looked like Pride Rock!).

And then finally, we were in Aladdin. Around 5PM, we trekked to the top of a sand dune (MUCH harder than it looks - almost like walking uphill in the snow, but harder. Then waited at the top so we could watch the colors of the sky reflect on the mountains and valleys all around. Afterwards, a few of us ran/slid down the dune, just to make sure we got as much sand as possible in our shoes.

Back to San Pedro for a delicious pizza dinner. Then to bed around 10PM so we'd be able to hear our 4AM wake up call...

Sunday meant time for Geysers del Tatio. Woke up bright and early so we could see the geysers in their emerging beauty. The ride up was kind of a challenge too- the altitude change and unpaved roads really got to some people. I got a nasty headache which luckily passed after sipping on some coca leaf tea.

The day before, Claudio warned us to dress warmly because the outside temperature at 5AM would be around 5-10 degrees CELSIUS below zero. Too bad we weren't warned about that when we were packing! Fortunately, I brought some pretty warm clothes, but unfortunately they were not quite warm enough. Seeing the geysers was really cool, but pretty hard to enjoy when my toes felt like they were going to fall off. Most of us took quick pictures then ran straight to the bus to defrost.

Eventually the sun showed it's beautiful face and a few kids from my program took a dip in the hot spring bath. I forgot my bathing suit, so I skipped out on this adventure, but I'm definitely planning to enjoy other hot springs in future expeditions.

Umm yes so then we stopped in yet another desert town, where a lady was selling llama-kebabs! I shared one with a friend and am now looking for somewhere to invest in llamas because I'm betting it's gonna be the next great culinary craze. Mmmm the meat was so delicious and tender..tasted like lamb but less lamby. SO good.

Unfortunately, right after we digested our llama, we stopped on the side of the road to take pictures of a herd of live llamas. I don't think the vegetarians in our group were too excited about this series of events. I definitely felt a little guilty, but then again I was also wondering where I could find llama meat in the states...

Came back to San Pedro, ate a yummy vegetarian sandwich with goat cheese (mmm) and then we headed to the airport.

Uploaded pictures from the trip and other adventures here if you care to get visuals on the aforementioned travels.

Got home around 10:30 and recounted the weekend's adventures to Victoria and Vecita (who just moved out of her apartment and is now living with us for good! hooray!) Victoria told me about her adventures at the casino in Vina del Mar on Saturday (boy does she love casinos) and how although she didn't win the jackpot, the trip was "free" because she earned enough money to cover the cost of travel. Haha...cute cute.

Monday:
In my "Feminine in God" class, our teacher informed us that our Wednesday quiz would not be covering just 3 readings, but in fact 7 readings. Oh goodness. Then she assigned us a reading from one of Laura Esquivel's works called Intimas Succulencias, a novel which I happened to randomly pick up in a bookstore the other day! What a coinky-dink. Esquivel wrote Like Water for Chocolate which I read senior year of high school and loved, so when I saw the book the other day, I picked it up for pleasure reading. Now I'm zooming through it-- I think I might even like it better than Like Water for Chocolate...

Went to work, worked on this manual thing. Came home early and went for a run in the beautifully warm weather outside. Found a cool path near my house that should make for more nice runs when the weather gets permanently warm.

Monday night = Donce at El Oasis - the Christian fellowship I've been going to. Had a good time as always and my table won the trivia game for the night [unfortunately, I was no help-- we had to finish Chilean phrases and I didn't know a single one :( though last week I did help out matching popular song names with their respective bands (good thing I know my Backstreet Boys and John Mayer).

Tuesday:
Watched "Una Verdad Incomoda" (An Inconvenient Truth") in my Sustainable Development class. It was quite funny listening to Al Gore dubbed in Spanish.

Wednesday:
Had my first quiz in my religion class. It was only 6 short answer questions, but still tough...especially since on one of the questions I didn't know a word and hence might have interpreted the question wrong...yikes. We shall see what happens.

Grabbed a to-go cup of coffee and of course the store didn't have any lids because why in the world would someone walk around with a cup of coffee? The only places I've found with real carry out cups of coffee are Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts. And I hate going to those places, but sometimes it is just necessary.

Mkay time for homework.

Ciao!

Lindsay