San Pedro de Atacama!

Hi all! This week has been nuts with work! I am glad its over! I had two tests yesterday and I've been studying for this god awful oral exam I have. All the while trying to catch up on sleep from my weekend in San Pedro de Atacama!!! So here's how the weekend went:

On Thursday I hustled to get my work done before my bus at 10pm. I took the bus into Santiago with Asa and Michelle. Anastasia and Sonja decided to get there way earlier, which was dumb but their choice. Our flight was at 5am on Friday. Asa Michelle and I got there around midnight, grabbed some food at Dunkin Donuts (not the same, no French Vanilla) and then met the girls at the gate. We tried to sleep but we were all so amped! ...and it was the airport, not so conducive to sleep. So finally we boarded, and I had a seat by myself because with Lan you pick your seats and I checked in apart from them. I didnt mind too much except that it was really turbulent and scared the crap out of me. Anyway, we got to Calama at about 7am and the guy from the hostel was there waiting for us. It was FREEZING! 27 degrees F to be exact, and the airport was one of those tiny ones where you get off the plane and then walk to the building. So we piled into this hostel man's truck, stopped for breakfast, then drove about 2 hrs to San Pedro. When we got to the hostel Asa Michelle and I slept and the ladies went to explore. When we finally got going it was really nice out!We walked around the tiny centre of town (the whole place is one big tourist trap) and got lunch at this cool hippie place that had soy, good for our lovely lactose intolerant Michelle. Then the group decided they were renting bikes to go to Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley). So, I looked around and found an excursion that went there too. I had a great time! We stopped at the Cordillera del Sal (Salt Mountain Range), Valle de la Muerte, part of the salt flat, and then finally to a sand dune in Valle de la Luna to watch the sunset. It got very very cold! I met up with the group on the dune, but they were struggling! They didn't realize how far it was to bike, especially in such a high altitude. But, I had a great day :). During the tour I hung out with a kid from Spain who was also alone. It was good, I wasn't lonely and I had someone to take pics of me :) That night we made dinner at the hostel and fell into bed. Our excursion the next day started at 7. So, yet another night without much sleep.

Saturday we got started bright and early to go to the Salt Flats and the Lagunas. It was a long long day! We went about an hr and a half more north and saw the flamingoes. It was so cool and I took lots of pictures. My camera has incredible zoom so the pictures actually came out really well. The whole time we were walking on salt! And surrounding us were volcanoes. Really beautiful. San Pedro looks like it should be fake. It was such a long excursion and I don't really remember the names of the places we hit up. Sorry, that was anti-climactic. It was mostly lakes formed by volcanoes, more of the salt flat, and different volcanoes of the cordillera. We had lunch at this tiny little town on the way. I can't imagine living in this part of Chile year round. It's obviously arid temps, seeing as we were in the desert, and it gets very hot and then freezing. It was also hard to breathe with the altitude. When we got back to town there was a power and water outage, welcome to Chile. When the lights finally came back on we went grocery shopping and made dinner again. Then we went to bed because our next excursion started at 4am!

We woke up at around 315 and put on every article of clothing we brought with us. I personally wore 2 pairs of socks, leggings, jeans, a tank top, a beater, a long sleeve, short sleeve over that, hoodie, scarf and jacket. And my new fingerless gloves! I was still a little chilly. We went to see the guysers about 2 hours north of San Pedro. The company picked us up around 445 and we drove for a while on a horrible road that made me sick. We ultimately went about 15 km from Bolivia...very north. The guysers were incredible, there were so many!!!!!!!!! Some spurted water every few minutes. Others we perpetually steaming. We were so high up it hurt to breathe. A poor little boy on my tour fainted :(. It was still incredible though. We made breakfast in one of the guysers! We put in boxes (ew) of milk and some eggs, and they cooked hahah! We ate breakfast then headed to the hot springs. I did not go in because it was still freezing out. Sonja Stas and Asa said it was only luke warm. Michelle and I made the right call :). We were also next to some of the biggest guysers so i went to take more pictures. After that stop we went to a tiny little town. Tiny! A row of houses. My camera died so I'll steal Stas's pics and post them too. At this little location I experienced a new food kids: llama! It tasted like steak. Llama and alpaca are very important in the north. They use them for everything!!!! They also build their houses out of adobe or volcanic rock, cool eh? All in all, a great three days of nonstop touring of the most beautiful places.

After the tour we checked out of the hostel and found a restaurant to eat and watch the brazil game. Then it was time to head to the airport and ultimately back to Vina. I got home around 130am and showered immediately...my hair was like straw from the wind and cold! This week has been nonstop. This morning (friday) I was awoken in a truly Chilean fashion, small earthquake. So, mama came in, tucked me in and then a half hour later brought me breakfast on my little silver tray hahahahah!!!! Now I am celebrating Michael Jackson before Chile plays Espana at 230! I am going to watch at the mall with one of my chilenas. See you all in a few short weeks!

Chau,
Carolina