Two amazing weekends in El Yeco and Valle de Elqui.

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Yeco

A few weeks ago my house mates and I spent a great weekend in Yeco, a small pueblo about two hours from Santiago. My landlord’s grandma owns a small wooden cottage there, near the ocean. It was a very relaxing weekend; we spent hours climbing around on the cliffs and drinking beer on the beach, watching the waves.
The first night we went into the forest to a nice spot on the cliffs where we made a fire and played guitar all night long. As it got darker and darker, most people started to walk back to the house until it was only four of us left by the fire. Finally me and one of my house mates decided to go back as well, and since I have absolutely no sense of orientation, I left it up to him to get us home. Turns out it was not a very smart idea, because he was just as clueless. We got lost, and I mean completely totally hopelessly lost. After spending about an hour walking around the forest (which in the end, after looking at a map the next day, turned out to be very tiny and not even worth being called „forest“) we saw lights and came to a small village. We got very excited, but it turned out to be the wrong village. So we went back into the forest to get lost once again. After another two hours we finally heard my two other house mates who had just left the fire as well and who knew (thank god) how to get back to our house.
Oh, did I mention I’m scared of the dark? Horrible night. But looking back, it was actually quite funny... as long as it doesn’t happen again.

Valle de Elqui

The weekend after Yeco we went to Valle de Elqui in la Serena for a few days. By we, I mean my house and three other big houses just like mine. Lots of people, so we had to rent our own bus. After a night of partying on the bus, and 8 hours later, we arrived at Valle de Elqui at a beautiful campsite surrounded by mountains and a gorgeous, but freezing cold river. We put up our tents and - exhausted from the previous night – most of us went to nap in the sun. The whole weekend went by in a flash. It was a strange feeling being there – we didn’t have any plans but just lived in the moment and did whatever we felt like doing. During the day we went hiking or swimming and during the night we made fires and played music or danced all night long. I think it must have been one of the most beautiful weekends I’ve had here, the nature up there is breath-taking and even though everything has become one big blurry memory, I was strangely happy throughout. Coming back to Santiago I needed two days to get back to reality because I felt so unconnected and everything felt unreal and dull.


What else?

...I have my final schedule now, and I only have classes Monday and Tuesday which gives me time to travel.
My psychology classes are very useless, because I don’t understand a word of what my teachers are saying. I already failed my first exam in psychology of law class, but apparently it’ll all work out somehow – I guess I will be able to do extra homework for my marks.
My painting class is a lot of fun though; I’ve bought lots of colors and been painting non-stop.

Other than that, I’ve just come back from the desert, and I will write about it as soon as I get the pictures figured out.
Hope everyone is well, take care!

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Photos

Valle de Elqui
Our campsite.