Iquique

After an overnight bus from San Pedro de Atacama, Marissa, Kate, Liz, and I arrived in Iquique at 5:30 am.  We checked into our hostel early and took naps, then woke up a few hours later, showered, ate breakfast, and went out to explore the city.  Iquique is completely different than San Pedro, as it's right on the beach, chilly, windy, and more of a city than San Pedro is.  It was absolutely beautiful, though, and after a few problems with getting bus tickets we went and had a picnic on the beach.  We spent the rest of the day exploring at eating at the market.

Iquique:

Cool graffiti!:

Getting ready for Fiestas Patrias:

The next day, we got up and went... paragliding!  It was absolutely amazing (I'm beginning to realize I use this to explain everything, but it's the truth!).  We spent about 40 min/person flying over the city of Iquique.  It's said that Iquique is the best place in South America to paraglide, so of course we had to jump at the opportunity!

Liz getting ready to jump:

In the air:

We spent the rest of the day going to artisan markets and exploring a little more.  That night, we took yet another overnight bus to Copiapó, Chile (this is the northern city where the 33 miners are stuck underground).  Copiapó was pretty lame... except for me almost getting robbed by a gypsy!  Because our buses were messed up, we all ended up having to take different buses to get back to Santiago.  I was sitting on a bench reading my book when all of a sudden this gypsy lady comes out of nowhere and sits next to me... she starts talking to me in Spanish about money, and I specifically told her that I didn't have anything to give her.  She's said, "Please? I can read your hand!" And then proceeded to take my hand and kept being like, "oh yes, una vida larga" about my palm, and when I tried to grab my hand away she just tightened her grip, takes her other hand, and starts feeling up my pocket on my left hip. She was like, "oooh, I feel money in there" and starts to take the things out of my pocket (which by the way was just a bobby pin and a bus ticket) and I got SO freaked out and told her to stop bothering me and to go away!  I finally grabbed my hand away and I told her to stop bothering me a few more times, when she finally went away but then went and huddled with this elderly gypsy and her small child, who were looking at me and pointing... I got soo freaked out and I grabbed all my stuff and ran to a cafe. I got harassed by a few more people who tried to read my palms but after that I just didn't make eye contact with people.

Copiapó:

That night, after meeting up with my friends and their different buses, we took yet another overnight bus back to Santiago.  Out of the 8 nights we were up north, we successfully only spent 3 of those in hostels... I was dirty and tired by the time I got back, but I was happy to say that I did everything I wanted to without spending too much money... haha!

San Pedro de Atacama

I just got back from a super epic trip to the Atacama desert in the north of Chile.  I went with 3 friends: Marissa, Kate, and Liz.  After a 24-hour bus ride, we were advised to spend as little time as possible in San Pedro because it's super expensive, so we packed as much as we could in our 2 days and 2 nights there!  Some pictures from the trip:

Our hostel:

Geyser/hot springs tour that meant getting up at 4 am:

Our tour guide also took us on a "special hike" that lead us through the desert to a waterfall:

...and to a town of 40 people with wild llamas!

That same day, we did a tour of Lagunas Cejas, which have so much salt in them that you literally just float as soon as you jump in.  They were FREEZING but so cool!

The next day, we borrowed bikes from our hostel and rode around in the morning, and then in the afternoon we went sandboarding!  Besides from my camera getting severely messed up, it was soo fun!

Bike riding in San Pedro:

Valle de la muerte:

...and sandboarding!

And finally, the sunset at Valle de la Luna:

It was a trip full of no sleeping and lots of activity, and we were in the driest desert in the world!  So cool.  We made our way up to Iquique after our packed trip at the desert... pictures soon!

Goodbye, Host Family, Helloooo Residencia! :)

As part of my program, everyone was required to live with a Chilean host family for our first 6 weeks in Chile.  That way, we'd be more adjusted to the culture and speaking Spanish daily.  I opted to live with my family for a second month after the required first session.  I lived in a really convenient location--3 blocks from the metro and the center of Providencia--and all of my meals, laundry, and utilities were included in my rent.  I lived with my host mom, Gladys, her two daughters, Carolina (33) and Roxanna (26), and their two daughters, Martina (6) and Josefa (2).  I also had two host brothers--Francisco and Nico (both mid-20's) who came over every day to eat.

My house (we lived in the flat up top):

At first, it was like being a little kid again--I would come home to a warm meal on the table and my host mom would wash and fold all of my laundry once a week.  I appreciated that, but after a while it got old and I was tired of eating the same things over and over (I can't even tell you how many times I ate lentils with bread for dinner) and I constantly felt like I was intruding on my family's space.  I also ate on a schedule (if I missed a meal there was no making it up--I either had to buy my own food or starve) and I lived with 2 small children--2 and 6--who always got up super early to scream and run around while I was trying to sleep.  There were two rooms adjacent to the living room (above) that another girl from New York lived in and I lived in, and then there was a door that shut us off from the rest of the house.  While I appreciated everything my host mom did for me, I never really felt comfortable there--it felt more like a boarding house than a family environment.  So, I moved out on the 1st of September to an actual boarding house for international students, and I love it!  I can cook for myself (YAY for portion control!) and I'm surrounded by other students--the majority of which don't speak any English, so I am still forced to practice my Spanish.  While I don't have any pictures of the residencia, here's a link for those who are curious:

http://www.residenciapvn.cl/

I'm going to be staying here for the rest of my stay in Chile until I leave to travel at the end of my semester!  As much as I love the residencia, though, I will miss my little buddy, Josefa (age 2) who I lived with at my host family's house :)

Villa Grimaldi and the Grand Cemetary

A couple of weeks ago I visited Villa Grimaldi and the Grand Cemetery of Chile.  Villa Grimaldi  was a complex used for the interrogation and torture of political prisoners by Chilean secret police during the government of Pinochet during the mid-1970s.  During the 4-5 years that Villa Grimaldi was in use, about 5,000 political prisoners were brought there, and about 250 of those were declared "disappeared" or killed by the secret police.  

Our tour was lead by a man who stayed at Villa Grimaldi for almost 13 months.  He described torture methods and brutal living conditions to which he was subjected--it was extremely emotional for him, and ended up being a depressing experience for all of us who attended that day.

Almost all of the buildings at Villa Grimaldi were torn down by the Pinochet government, so a park was built there in honor of all the people that were subjected to staying there during the era:

These memorials are all over the park, commemorating buildings that stood where they are placed:

Our tour guide standing in front of a wall that commemorated people that "disappeared" or were killed from Villa Grimaldi:

A picture showing how people were tortured in the tower at Villa Grimaldi:

Exhibit to commemorate more people whose lives were lost:

After Villa Grimaldi, we went to the Grand Cemetery in Santiago.  This cemetery holds over a million inhabitants in family and individual tombs, and is also the home to Salvador Allende's memorial tomb.

Salvador Allende's memorial tomb:

It was also interesting because the cemetery is distinctly separated by class--just as the Chilean society.  At the front of the cemetery, there are intricate and expensive tombs that belong to the wealthiest families in Santiago, but as you start to walk towards the back of the cemetery the tombs get closer together and shabbier, and at the very end of the cemetery there are deteriorated graves with signs that remind family members to pay rent for the grave or their deceased family member will be "evicted".  

At the beginning of the cemetery:

Middle-class tombs:

At the very back of the cemetery:

In the end, a very depressing day, indeed.

Lagging...

Just wanted to say that I'm sorry I haven't been able to update my blog in a while! I just went on an amazing trip to San Pedro de Atacama (the desert in northern Chile) and some more adventures within Santiago that I will write about in the next coming days, but as for now I've been swamped with school work and internship stuff. I'll try to write and add pictures in the next coming days, but I just wanted to post to say that I'm still alive!

Skiing in the Andes!

Last weekend I went skiing for the first time in about 5 years... in the Andes!  I went with a couple of friends from my program to El Colorado ski resort, which is about an hour out of Santiago.  We got up super early and took the metro to the ski rental place, where we got our skis/snowboards and a ride up to the mountain.  It was absolutely beautiful, and I forgot how much fun skiing is!  All of us were at about the same mediocre level of skiing, so we were all able to keep up with each other.

El Colorado looks out on Santiago, so we would've been able to see the city if there wasn't so much smog!  It gets worse as the day goes on, but when I would look at the city from the mountain all I could see was a giant basin of black haze.  Gross!  But it was so nice to be in the fresh air.

In front of the smog! :

Riding the ski lift:

The whole group after a long day of skiing:

I would love to go again, but the snow is almost all melted from the mountains!  Even though I just went last weekend, it's obvious that most of the snow is gone.  I was lucky to have gone when I did, though--the first Friday of off-season at a student discount=$30 for an entire day's lift ticket (with no lines!) at the most popular ski resort in Chile!  

Peru: the súper flaite way! (Puno to Arica- Part III)

The next morning, Edgar, Jessica, and I woke up in our hostel after sleeping for about 12 hours apiece, and were eager to go out and explore some more.  We packed up our backpacks, grabbed some breakfast, and walked around a little before we grabbed another sketchy 10/23-person van back through the Sacred Valley.  We were curious, though, as to what the rest of the Sacred Valley was like, so we stopped in every little town on the way, and caught sketchy buses/vans when we wanted to go to the next place.  Peru was celebrating its independence, so there were celebrations everywhere, and it was awesome to see!

Celebrations:

We finally made our way back to Cusco, and after some trouble with the hostel that we were staying at (they made us pay for an extra night, even after we called and canceled, and had our stuff stored in the back... I threw a fit, but I couldn't even think of Spanish fast enough and just ended up yelling at the owner in English), we walked around Cusco for a while longer, said our goodbyes to the lovely markets and food, and embarked on a night bus to Puno.  This bus ride was by far our most flaite experience--not only was I sitting next to 4 live chickens, but there was a cat in the seat in front of me and a girl sleeping in the aisle (when the National Police came on, they had to step over her several times to check for valuable goods).  We also stopped about 25 minutes before Puno in the middle of nowhere and the bus company made us sprint to another bus (without any of our luggage that was under the bus) that would take us to Puno.  When we finally got to Puno, we found a hostel, took warm showers, and passed out for a few hours before we got up early to take a tour of the Titicaca islands.  The islands are on Lake Titicaca, which is on the eastern side of Peru, and is half in Peru and half in Bolivia.  All of us were pretty anti-tour group, so we contracted the cheapest company possible to just take us out to the islands.  It ended up being an amazing day, filled with market food, floating islands (the man-made islands are basically reeds on top of 2 feet of dense dirt, and float on the lake), shopping, and lounging on boats.  It was wonderful!

Entering Uros, the main floating island:

Uros:

What the islands are composed of:

Islands:

The crafts made on Uros.  The people literally told us, "Please buy our crafts.  If you don't, we won't have any money, and our children won't be able to go to school and get educations."

Getting boat rides from one island to the next:

Sooo relaxing!  Especially after a long week of no sleeping, hiking, and Machu Picchu-ing!

Another island of Uros (Quechua is the language that they speak on Uros):

It was absolutely beautiful.  That night we went to an independence day celebration (because it was July 28th that day--the actual day of independence for Peru) with live music and festivities.  However, I wasn't feeling too hot (I had consistently been ordering the cheapest menu items in order to save money.  Not one of my most intelligent moments) and I had to go home early, which I was a little bummed about.

The next day, we got up early (again) and explored Puno more.  There wasn't much to do, but we DID encounter a giant slide!  ...Needless to say, we had quite the exciting day after the slide.

Top of the slide:

That day, we also went to a fertility temple outside of Puno.  We had read that it was a great temple, but it ended up being a little box of rock penises.  How exciting!  Not really though.  What was actually exciting was a llama we met there that played soccer.  Well, it played soccer with us for a while (it kicked the ball back and forth!) until it finally just collapsed over the ball, made a weird screeching noise, and then spat at whoever came close to it.  Hahaha.

Fertility temple:

Llama! Before:

...and after (it wasn't very happy...):

We eventually made our way back to Arequipa, where I got really sick (food poisoning!  ugh!), and then eventually made our way back to Tacna, over the border again, and into Arica.  We spent a day and a night in Arica before taking another 28-hour bus ride down to Santiago again.  It was so nice to be back in Arica!  I hadn't even realized that I had missed Chile, but it was nice to use soap (Peru has NO soap, especially in public bathrooms), eat at a restaurant, and not fear for my life every time I crossed the street (drivers in Peru are insane!).  We went up and visited yet another Jesus statue (because what is a trip to South America without a trip to a religious statue?!?), walked around for a while, ate, and the next day, headed back to Santiago.

Jesus statue in Arica, Chile:

How to tell you are back in Chile: no more sun!  As soon as we were driving over the border from Peru to Chile, the fog started up again.  Arica, Chile:

 It was an amazing trip and I was so happy to be able to experience so much... especially for so little money!  We definitely took a hard route by choosing to bus everywhere, but it ended up working out for the best for all of us.  Yeah, Peru!  Oh, and Chile.  Chile is cool too.