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Published: January 30th 2007
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The ocean
This was the view from the cliffs ¿¡¿Que pasa amigos?!?
I can´t believe my time in Santiago is flying by so quickly! This Thursday, February 1st, I leave Santiago to begin my free travel throughout the southern cone of South America. We are planning on traveling to Mendoza (Argentina), Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Punta del Este (Uruguay), Iguazu Falls (Argentina), and Viña del Mar (Chile). This past weekend, January 25th through January 28th, was my last weekend in Chile with the Delaware program and was our "free weekend" where we could choose where, if anywhere, we wanted to travel. A group of 11 of us (10 girls and 1 boy, lucky him!) traveled to northern Chile, first to Chañeral to see the desert and then to Caldera and Bahia Inglesa to the beach!
The weekend began with a 13 hour overnight bus ride on Wednesday night/ Thursday morning. I was dreading the bus ride all week because I don´t sleep very well on buses and I always am so sore afterwards. However, this bus ride actually was fairly nice. I watched 2 movies on the bus while simultaneously writing my final paper for my culture class (got to multi task here in Chile so I have time
El desierto!
Me in the desert with a cactus :) to do what I want, haha!) and then actually slept for the rest of the trip. When we got to Chañeral on Thursday morning, the town was absolutely deserted. It was kind of funny because the town is very run down and off by itself in the middle of a desert! After dropping our stuff in the hotel, we found a guy who told us he would drive us to Parque Nacional Pan de Azucar which is a national park in Chile in the middle of the desert. It's so good that we found this guy to stay with us all day because it turned out that we really needed him! We thought we could just catch a taxi to the national park (which was probably about 20 minutes outside of Chañeral) and that we could walk around all day. Not the case. The park is so big, and to get to different viewpoints in the park took anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes driving! We definitely would not have had a good time walking around aimlessly in the desert all day!
Our guide took us to these amazing views all day where you could look over these cliffs
Skeleton
Not too much survives in this desert, I guess.... to the ocean while standing in the middle of the desert! It was a very weird feeling. The desert was so dry that the cactus were dying as well, I´m not kidding! Our guide told us that it hadn´t rained there in over 10 years. Farther up north, they claim it has never rained...
That afternoon, we took a boat tour out to an island where we got to see penguins and sea lions! Can you believe it? Penguins in the desert?!?! Apparently in Chile... It was the first time I´ve ever seen a penguin in the wild. We also learned on this tour why the park is called "Pan de Azucar." In English, "pan de azucar" means "sugar cube." Apparently, when the English came over to Chile, they saw that the cliffs and rocks on the coast here all are white capped, so it reminded them of the sugar cubes they put in their tea. Well, the funny thing is that the cliffs are white capped because of all the pelicans and seagulls pooping on them all day!! So there´s your interesting fact of the day, haha!
After the "penguin in the desert" tour, we played on
Dying cactus
Even the cactus were dying with no water the beach a little before heading back to Chañeral. We wanted to go out that night, but literally, there is NOTHING in Chañeral so it was an early night for everyone.
On Friday, we took a 7 a.m. bus to Caldera (only 1 hour, so not too bad). We then had to take a taxi to Bahia Inglesa (3 miles down the road) to our hostel. Our hostel was so cool! It was this huge doom building and all the rooms were individual doom tent-like structures. We spent the day on the beach, and everyone got burned. I only got burned on my back because that´s the one place where I forgot to reapply sunscreen. We met these really nice Chilean guys on the beach who go to the Military Academy in Santiago, so we played frisbee with them for awhile as well.
That night we went to a discoteca in Bahia Inglesa. I have never been to a club quite like this one. It was free entrance and open bar for girls from 12 to 1 a.m., then normal for everyone after that. Only 5 of us went (all girls, of course), and it was so strange
Penguins!
Penguins without ice! You can see in this picture the "white" rocks! at first. In the beginning, there were absolutely NO guys and about 200 or so girls getting all these free drinks and just waiting for the boys to show up. It was kind of intimidating to tell you the truth! So between 1 and 2, the boys finally show up, and the party really gets started around 2 a.m. By that time, it was pretty even numbers between guys and girls. We left the discoteca around 3:30 or so then hung out on the beach for awhile afterwards. Ashley tried to convince me to stay up all night with her and watch the sun rise, but I was too tired! She did and was hurting the next day because of it!
Saturday we went kayaking on the ocean and then just hung out on the beach all day. We took a 9 p.m. overnight bus back to Santiago and got in around 10:30 a.m. on Sunday morning. This bus ride was miserable because all of us were sunburned! I probably only slept 2 hours on the bus...
On Sunday, January 28th, Ashley, Falko (a new student from Germany who now lives in the house with us as well...),
Our hostel in Bahia Inglesa
Random doom-like tents that we stayed in at Bahia Inglesa! and I took a cable car up the side of San Cristobal, a giant hill in Santiago, and went swimming in a pool that's at the top of it. It was really neat because you could see the Andes mountains as you were swimming.
Yesteday, Monday, I turned in my final paper for my culture class (written on the bus, of course!), today I have two presentations, and tomorrow a test, so I really am doing work here!. Tomorrow is the last day of class. Crazy how fast this term has flown by.
I probably will write again after getting to Argentina. Until then, que pases bien!
Besitos,
Laura
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