By rmattiola
When I came back to Arica 2 weeks ago, I felt like I was seeing it for the first time, free of judgment, with eyes wide open. When I left over a month ago, I was tired of the depressed desert, eager to escape the sand and wind. But now, I’m beginning to feel like I don’t want to leave. Of course, at the end of the journey I am finally comfortable. Today I attended the last group meeting before we travel off to our independent investigation locations. Some of my friends are leaving today to hike the W in Patagonia before starting their project. I’m incredibly surprised they pulled it off. I’ll be even more surprised to hear their stories when we return together. I’m heading out tomorrow on a night bus to the town of San Pedro de Atacama, a desert oasis and geological haven. Also home to some of the largest telescopes/ satellites in the world called ALMA. I expect the sights in both the day and the night to be spectacular.
Today, and only today, did I realize that I made some incredible friends on this journey—without trying. I did not seek out friends; rather I allowed relationships to form organically, almost accidentally. Of course I am going to miss everyone over the next month, but I will be eagerly awaiting my reunion with Catherine, Madeline, Rosie and Minerva. Yes, the Rosie/ Rosie issue developed quite early on, so I decided to go exclusively by Rosalie during my time in Chile. Madeline and Rosie are funny Midwestern runners. Catherine is an upstate New York sweetheart with witty, dry sarcasm. Minerva is a sassy, tranquil, Mexican partier. All are great company one on one or together.
The trip to San Pedro was the most relaxing and exciting trip thus far. Well worth the time and money. I took in spectacular sights with 4 other girls, learned a surprisingly large amount of geographical and cultural information, and met tourists from all over the world. On our second day trip, we formed lovely and all too brief friendships with our tour guide, a 22 year old girl named Andrea from Santiago, and the other 5 tourists.
Some stories from San Pedro:
An 8 hour drive took our bus 16 hours. Yet somehow, we remained calm and rolled with the punches, arriving at ~1:30pm instead of 9:30am. This was a wild ride. We left Arica at 10pm, intending to wake up in San Pedro. Instead, we woke up at least 15 times when the bus would stop (for unknown reasons) and once to go through “customs” at 5am. I understand that we were approaching the borders of Argentina and Bolivia, but these constant checks seemed very unnecessary. And even if necessary, they were executed very poorly. Bags were scanned, but no one was ensuring everyone passed their bag through the scanner. The passengers themselves were not scanned. Later that morning, the bus slowed yet again and word was passed that the bus was broken and we were waiting for another to arrive. But miraculously, 15 minutes later, we were able to keep going and make it to Calama, the desert city. Once in Calama, we watched the majority of the passengers disembark and were surprised to hear that the bus would be waiting there for an hour before leaving for San Pedro. Whatever, we said. We’re hungry, let’s find a restaurant and relax.
A brief comment about Chilean restaurants: The service is typically poor. It’s almost like the servers try to ignore you. I don’t believe splitting bills exists. Changing the dish is frowned upon or confusingly dismissed. So long story short, a lot of the Americans struggle in restaurants.
So an hour and a half later (remember this is Chilean time), we disembark for San Pedro. I was pleased to pass a few wind turbines on the desert route.
After arriving, we ditched our luggage in the beautiful hostal and immediately got picked up for our first tour to the hidden lagoons. Hidden they were indeed. We bounced around the van for an hour and a half across the desert roughage that resembled Mars before arriving at the salt flats speckled with turquoise ponds. We stripped down to our bathing suits and laid back into the lagoons. Not expecting anything special, we let out shrieks of “WOAHHH” when our bodies immediately floated. The salt concentration in these lagoons resembled that of the Dead Sea--3 times saltier than the ocean. The feeling of pure weightlessness is bliss.
After the trip, two guys on the tour invited us to join them at a restaurant called Adobe to listen to live music. We went just in time to get a table, the place was packed, and for good reason; the food was the best I’ve had in Chile. Later we learned that this is the most expensive restaurant in San Pedro. The guys didn’t show up, but the band did. They played surprisingly good traditional Andean music, wearing scarves patterned like the whipala (the Andean indigenous flag).
The next morning we were up at 6:30 for a full day tour of the wonders of the highlands. This is where we met Andrea, the tour guide and the other friendly tourists. This was the beginning of the sunrise week. We saw sunrise every day for 3 days. A feat I cannot say I have accomplished before. The sunrise over the andes and the other mountain ranges extracted colors from the earth rarely seen. It was impressive to say the least. We watched flamingos and their reflections as we ate breakfast. Our guide did a great job of describing details about the flamingos diet and lifestyle. I read that the salt around the flamingo lagoon is collected, processed and extracted to boric acid for industrial use.
We drove for a large part of the day, ascending into different landscapes and climates. I was in awe with the yellow sections--bright yellow everywhere except the blue sky from the growth of a grass called pajo bravo(?). We viewed, photographed, and learned about the geography—the volcanos, the mountains, the plants, the rock formations, the water and mineral deposits, the thermal rivers. Towards the end of the tour we even talked about indigenous legends of sacred grounds. I was surprised that we have not learned about the Likan-Antay of this region and their dying (dead) language Kuza from the SIT program.
During the ride our tour guide played great music, English on the way there and Spanish on the way back. As we descended the mountains and processed the natural beauty, Andrea sang (rapped) along to a song called Latinoamérica by Calle 13. The chorus reverberated in our hearts:
Tu no puedes comprar el viento,
Tu no puedes comprar el sol
Tu no puedes comprar la lluvia,
Tu no puedes comprar el calor
Tu no puedes comprar las nubes,
Tu no puedes comprar los colores
Tu no puedes comprar mi alegría,
Tu no puedes comprar mis dolores
You can’t buy the wind
You can’t buy the sun
You can’t buy the rain
You can’t buy the heat
You can’t buy the clouds
You can’t buy the colors
You can’t buy my happiness
You can’t buy my pains
On this trip, just now, I’ve realized I can survive in a Spanish-speaking environment. I’m comfortable talking, negotiating, inquiring, even translating for other tourists. Good thing because I’ll be conducting interviews in Spanish on my own in just a few days. I’ve improved my vocabulary and my confidence. Grammar is still questionable though.
As our tour van passed ALMA, the English acronym for Atacama Large Millimeter Array, a set of 12 radio satellites, Andrea told us about the rumors of the scientists who live and work there who aren’t actually scientists. Apparently people have reported that when these scientists go out for lunch they are completely covered—from their fingertips to their nose. Aliens she explained. We chuckled, having fun exploring the idea.
Our conversations in the tour van were deep but also light hearted, sometimes in Spanish so the driver, Victor, and an old Chilean adventurer could understand, sometimes in English because it was easier for our Belgian friend and since Andrea wanted to practice.
Somehow the conversation changed to dancing and Andrea informed us that dancing is prohibited in San Pedro. We thought it was a joke. She continued to prove herself, saying that someone died at a desert night party several years ago and it escalated to the prohibition of dancing and bars (now you have to have food if you have alcohol) in San Pedro. She admitted that there are two places where late at night, 15 minutes before they close, they shut all the doors and window shades and put on music and the people can dance for 15 minutes clandestinely. This is Footloose in real life. Bizarre.
That night we had a great dinner at a cheap local spot with huge portions and a crowded environment with Andrea and a few of the other tourists. We exchanged life stories and wishes amongst these perfect strangers. Unfortunately, the fun was cut short since we had to meet another group in the center for an astronomical tour. Long story short, the laser pointers made this event super educational and interesting.
The next morning we awoke at 4:45 for the geysers. It was toe numbingly freezing. Almost unbearable if you didn’t account for the fact that you were standing at the 3rd largest geyser field in the world. The sunrise through the vapor was spectacular. Again, the topic of industrial production came up when we asked about an old rusted machine in the distance. Apparently engineers built it to establish an energy production system using the heat and steam from the geysers. The Chilean government decided this exploitation is not beneficial since it had such a high chance of destroying the natural beauty. The geysers erupted at about 14,000 feet. The new tour guides took us around to several stops on the way down, the best spot being a tiny town that sold llama kabobs and goat cheese empanadas. I was gifted a llama kabob. My eyebrows shot up at the first bite. The gamey flavor and the dressing was delicious. Similar to lamb, I’d say. But I could feel the altitude getting to me, even though we were 1,000 feet lower.
Later in the day, we were picked up by the same tour group to go to the Valley of the Moon. Our bodies, heads, and spirits ached from pure exhaustion, but we rallied and pushed ourselves to climb the narrow trail overlooking the Moon Valley desert. On the way back to San Pedro we stopped to watch the sunset over the Andes. I think the photos resemble the Patagonia logo.
The next morning was another 4:45 alarm, this time departing the desert back to Calama for Santiago and then Temuco.
High of the week: making friends with Andrea and other tourists during the day tour
Low of the week: accidentally paying with 20,000 instead of 10,000 as we were running out the restaurant to meet the night tour group. And realizing how much of a tourist destination San Pedro is. The natural beauty was often spoiled by too many tourists.
Chilenismo of the week: guaguita: literally a small baby, but our other tour guide used this to refer to the 6 american girls, presumably as slang to signify “honey” or “baby” or “young attractive woman”. Needless to say we hated this word by the end of the first trip and decided to respond back with “weón” on the second trip.