One of the best parts of study abroad is the options for traveling to other places. When you're already in another country it seems relatively easy to travel to whichever country is next door. Contrary to studying abroad in other countries, in Chile the best place to travel is...throughout Chile. Not only does it have Patagonia in the south with amazing hiking and some of the most gorgeous landscapes to grace the world, but you also have the driest desert in the North that boasts of the oldest mummies, salt planes and hiking. This past weekend, we all went on our GW-sponsored trip to San Pedro de Atacama and I've never been so in love in my life.
When people think of Chile, a lot of the time it's in reference to the insane landscapes that are out of this world, like Vale de la Luna. We've been in San Pedro for around four days now and every morning and afternoon was filled with the among the craziest things I've ever experienced. Just in the first day, we toured copper mines, an abandoned mining town, and visited a human rights memorial. The following morning was our chance to choose whatever excursion we wanted to pursue and everyone in the group decided to go sandboarding in the Valle de la Muerte (it sounds a little intense, but it was actually named 'Valle de la Martian' because it looks like Mars, but through miscommunications it became known otherwise). I don't think I've ever been happier than sitting on the top of a sand dune looking out across the Valle while music plays from the van below.
For a long time whenever we'd be driving through San Pedro everyone would comment 'I've never seen anything like this! I've never been anywhere like this,' and it took me a little bit to realize that no one comes to San Pedro having visited a place like San Pedro. Regardless of your experience with traveling, expert or novice, San Pedro is otherworldly. A gorgeous gift to the people that are lucky enough to visit. That afternoon we hiked Valle de la Luna, and watched the sunset with snacks before dinner. The next morning we woke up early (around 5 in the morning) to go to geysers, where we had breakfast and went swimming, in the afternoon we visited 3 different lakes. One salt lake that we couldn't swim in, one fresh water pit that we could jump into and lastly a salt lake we could float in. I've always seen photos of people at the Dead Sea and honestly just thought they were treading water- but it's so real! you could stand and sit and lay in the water without ever submerging your head.
It was so cool to experience so many different types of water and swimming, all of which were relatively closely located. That's one of the coolest parts of San Pedro is that all the things your doing are pretty much right next to each other. We were actually supposed to go star gazing that night, but it was too cloudy for us to go. But honestly, we had woken up so early and done so much that I was ready to crash. This morning we went on a biking tour and visited old Atacama ruins with our guide Manuel (coolest guide ever). I am so insanely happy to have had the opportunity to go to San Pedro and do all of these things. I've walked away from this experience feeling like I understand more of Chile and truly have been taking advantage of time abroad.