Where is the driest hot desert on earth located? CHILE!!!! That just happens to be where I'm living for 4 months (not in the desert, but in the country). Naturally and adventure needed to occur here.
Thursday- Austin, Logan, Brandan, Murphy, Paul and I loaded up on a stinky, smelling bus. You know the kinds of buses that have the doors that fold in half and puff black smoke out the back? It's called the bus' breath I think. And you cover your ears when the bus breaks because it makes a loud screechy noise? (Junie B Jones reference, just helping you to recall your childhood!) The buses are actually really nice and we sat up top in the first row enjoying the landscape. After transferring from the bus, to another bus we made it to the airport in Santiago. It costed about $7USD/person to get from Vina to the airport by bus, cheap and easy. Coming from the States where you literally have to take off everything to walk through security and you have about 30 pairs of eyes staring at you as you walk through the machines we all laughed at the process in Santiago. We didn't even present a boarding pass or ID as we walked through the machine with our shoes and jackets on. No one even monitored the X-Ray machine as our backpacks went through. We definitely could've brought drugs or other things and no one would've questioned us (we'd never do that though!). The airport is really nice and has Starbucks and Cinnabun! Brandan and I opted to share a NY pizza with BBQ sauce and meat. Not too shabby Chile. After boarding our plane which was about 40% full (something I haven't seen in the states in years) we had one of the most beautiful 2 hour plane rides I've ever had; flying directly north following the Andes mountains the whole time. LAN airlines gives you more than peanuts when you fly, imagine having cookies AND a brownie AND crackers on a flight instead of a pack of peanuts! After arriving at one of the world's smallest airports in Calama and walking on the tarmac with outrageous wind gusts it was clear we were no longer in our little beach town. As Dorothy, and Austin put it "we're not in Kansas anymore". We still needed to get to San Pedro which is about an hour and a half from Calama. As I've stated before no matter how hard I try and plan and investigate bus options there is just no telling what you're actually going to get. This meant we took a private white van (we've traveled in a few of those now) directly from the airport to our hostel. It cost $40USD/person roundtrip. STEEP!!!! But it literally was our only choice unless we took a taxi and who knows what they would've charged 6 gringos. None of us were thrilled to pay that so we thought about other options...smart right? So we asked about renting a car, logical. Until of course NONE of the rental car companies have any cars available. Turbus does leave out of Calama, but only at certain times of the day and we arrived after 5pm which happens to be when no buses are running. The ride was breathtaking however. I said "If you had to describe the middle of nowhere I think this would be a perfect description." A perfectly, beautiful middle of somewhere.
We stayed at Sol Atacama hostel for $15USD/night. The owner was a 26 year old party animal named Andrés. If you're looking for a wild time stay here, or just stay with us, more about that later. We found a little market which was perfect for buying pasta, salami, cheese and bread, the workers just laughed at our large purchases every time we came in (you really want a whole sleeve of salami and 20 eggs??). This time the hostel let us use the kitchen. The kitchen consisted of an old oven/stove, fridge and sink all outside. Nonetheless I whipped up some dinner and we were all content after 8 hours of travel by plane, bus and automobile. We made some friends at the hostel and hung out talking sharing cultures (American, Swedish, New Zealand, Chilean). Andrés liked to practice his english especially swear words. Really dude you don't need to use those in everyday language. Have you ever explained to someone what LOL means? probably not expect maybe to your grandmother. Now try explaining that in Spanish. That's exactly what Murphy and I tried to do. We told him exactly what it meant, but if you're learning english then you don't really need to know texting lingo. Anyway, Andrés also enjoyed calling me "mamacita" after he found out that the boys affectionately refer to me as "mom" sometimes. (secrets out I guess, sorry Mom that yet again my friends call me this). After many ping pong games and a few bottles of pisco we headed to the desert. After walking a couple hundred yards we lied down on the sand and looked up at the stars. It was a half moon and since there's a hole in the ozone layer here the moon is still incredibly bright. None the less it was beautiful. Logan enjoyed pointing out some constellations that we had learned about in La Serena.
Friday morning called for a breakfast of scrambled eggs with cheese! Always one of my favorite meals. These eggs were definitely fresh with a few feathers still attached to the shells. ha We decided to rent bikes and cruise. For $6USD we each had a bike for 6 hours. We met up with Jen, Andy, Rob, Mark and David and the 12 of us cruised through the desert. We followed bumpy roads for about 16km. Logan served the consequence of off roading through sagebrush when he got a flat tire and had to go back and get it fixed. Once we got to our destination, Lagoon Cejar we were welcomed by a little Chilean man in a hut asking for our money. Of course you want money just to see the lakes, $3USD/person. After coughing up the dough we went to the salt lakes. These little lagoons were like mini Great Salt Lakes. It ranks #10 directly after the Great Salt Lake as the saltiest lakes on earth. Just like the Great Salt Lake only tourists would think of getting in, and that's exactly who we were. I was the first to hop in the frigid water and float around. You literally just float similar to sitting in a lounge chair. The color was an intense blue matched with the bright white salt around it. Parts of the lake were really deep and you couldn't see the bottom, the boys are still convinced there might be monsters down there. We all relaxed, rather baked, in the sun attempting to play hacky sack barefoot. I was probably in the water for 20 minutes and was covered in salt. The lake had a flamingo enjoying it too! We made the hour bike ride back where by back took a beating from the sun. Ice cream was necessity at that point. You could see both the fear and the enjoyment in the little Chilean lady's eyes as 12 gringos gave her business. I had chocolate and banana with berries. Delicious! We headed back to our hostels and chilled. Murphy and I taught Brandan how to play cribbage and typical beginners luck he beat both of us. We only played half a game so I guess he didn't technically win a full game. Murphy and I whipped up some incredible guac and we combined that with chips, salami and cheese for dinner. We're getting pretty good at this hostel life. We hung out at the hostel all night with new people we met. Turns out these people would later become our enemies and make it so we were almost kicked out of our hostel. These girls didn't stand on good terms with any of us for very long. They were just very....different and not any of our speed. One girl asked if she could wear Logan's jacket even though she had a jacket on. She decided to take off her jacket and wear his. Chick- if you're trying to get a guy by taking his jacket when it's 30 degrees outside and you already have one it's not going to work! Anyway one girl preceded to have a "healthy debate" as she later called it, with Mark about careers and her future. She was wasted mind you and talked about how society is so sad that you get a job based on a resume and a transcript. She thinks it should be all about personality. Well that helps contribute to your resume and your transcript. The fact that she's failed 7 classes contributes to who she is a person. She wants to change the world and believes that every parent that works full time and makes a decent amount of money is a bad parent and doesn't spend enough time with their kids. She also said that she hates her mom. Well I have news for you chick.... my parents work full time and they love me and spend time with me. They're working to provide an incredible life for me. I'm thankful mom and pops for the work you do so that I can have the experiences that I have. I know that one day I too want to help change the world, but I want a job so I can provide a lifestyle for my kids similar to what I've experienced. Oh gosh this debate turned into her crying and just being an emotional drunk. I was in bed trying to sleep while listening to all this. I could go on for days about her but I'll stop.
Saturday- another breakfast of 20 scrambled eggs with cheese for 6 of us. We headed into town to walk around. There are about 2000 residents in this town built with 7 foot mud walls. It's comparable to Native American villages in the Southwestern part of the states. That's the best way to describe it. It was so different, but yet so beautiful. We set up a tour and then searched for "adventure hats" for a few of the boys. They were successful in finding bucket haps with sun flaps. Rob and Mat purchased "desert scarves" too. What a group we were. 9 of us went on a tour with K2 Touring. We were in yet another van and drove through Death Valley. You know the scenes in Star Wars where the pods race through the desert like canyons? That's how we felt. Literally looked the exact same. We arrived at giant sand dunes ready to sand board and ski. After getting fitted for our boards we climbed up the sand mountain. You wear shoes and just strap into a normal snow board once you're at the top. After the boys had a little bit of liquid encouragement we were ready to fly down. It was so fun to straight line down the mountain. I think Murphy gets the award for best falls of the day after he tomahawked a couple of times. Mark mastered the face plant and Brandan looked like a coal miner when were were finished. I think I had about 6 runs including one on skies. Rob and I were the only ones that tried skiing and talk about a work out hiking up straight sand carrying skies and poles while wearing ski boots! You couldn't go very fast in the skies but still fun. Rob had an excellent crash all captured on Mat's camera. Maybe this is what aliens are doing on other planets while we usually ski on snow? After death valley we headed to valle de la luna (moon valley) and watched the sunset. Some places of this valley haven't seen rain in hundreds of years. sunset was pretty and we were all on such a high after the dunes that even the simplest things were incredible. As I went to the edge of the cliff one tour guide said "be careful. with this wind you could go over if you don't have wings or don't know how to fly" thanks for the warning! I lived to tell the tale obviously. Another night of guac and chips with chirizo and grilled onions! yummy. We made friends with 3 different american girls at our hostel who were actually cool. Oh Andres told us we weren't allowed to drink at our hostel or hang out there during the night after the previous night's incident. That didn't stop us! ha After finishing 2 bottles of pisco and 12 beers between 5 people we were ready to go out on the town with our new friends. We wandered around town, and couldn't be more American; dancing and singing in the streets, parkour, and the general loud english being spoken. We decided every bar was too expensive to even hang out in, so we went to the boleteria. After a purchase of 4 bottles of pisco and Coke the adventure picked up. One Chilean started talking to me saying that he knows where to get weed. He casually pulled some out of his pocket as we're in the street. It's midnight and you're in the middle of the street hanging out, interesting guy. A few people were happy about that weed after packing it into a cigarette using the end of a pair of headphones. After posing for pictures with another hammered Chilean we wandered to the desert making an important stop on the way....a playground!! We must have spent an hour at that playground. Picture 12 Americans doing 360s, backflips, balance beams and yoga all while taking pulls of pisco. Mat at one point forgot my name and tried really hard to remember it and settled on "Erika". Rob made lots of new friends with stray dogs and enjoyed having them bite his hands thinking that was a fun game. Mark went to the desert by himself and came back 20 minutes later and kept saying how "crrrrrrazy" the desert was. We eventually all wandered to the desert and were all together at that point. Mark, Logan, Austin and Brandan made their way to a gypsy tent and danced with 70 year old women and had a guy chase them out the door, Rob wandered around by himself, Mat and Paul went back to the hostel and Murphy and I raced through the desert. Not sure what happened to everyone else at that point. Mark and Logan told Murphy and I about their adventure and then we decided we should probably run through the desert again. This is when, at the exact same time, Murphy and Logan ate the desert as they fell running over a hill. That image will be engrained in my mind for ever. After looking at the stars while Murphy kept saying "well hey there nothing" and me questioning him saying "well hey there something" in reference to the night sky we made our way back. We ran back and as I look to my right there's Mark passed out on the ground. I slap him a few times and eventually get him to stand up and continue running. Mark made it back to his hostel and Logan, Murphy and I made it to ours only to find Andres' mother extremely upset with my friends. Apparently music had been blaring, profanity was yelled (which she was uncomfortable with because she doesn't understand english), and a mess was being made. I calmed down mama and told her not to worry that I would get everything under control. The chicks that we didn't like from 2 nights before happened to be there which made for a bad encounter between the boys and them. I walked Rob back to his hostel because mama was especially upset with him. When I came back I found Austin trying to wash his face telling me how uncomfortable he was, Mat in bed speaking spanish to me, Paul and Murphy passed out, Logan arguing with the chicks, and Brandan no where to be found. After pulling Logan away from almost getting in a fight we went and looked for Brandan. Where do you start looking for someone at 4 in the morning in the middle of the desert on the Bolivian border? Yeah we didn't know either so after calling him 15 times and texting him, shouting his name and wandering around we went to bed. At 6:30am I got a call from him telling me he was with people, but didn't know any of them (obviously because everyone he knew was asleep). He said he thought he needed to go North West to get to town and somehow made it to the hostel and I let him in. He was freezing and had lost his hat, but what a relief that he was safe and not with some gypsies or on a truck crossing the Andes to Bolivia. This was one of my favorite nights of the trip and one of my favorite nights of my life. I was constantly laughing and having great conversations, loving life being sober. Murphy and I kept talking about how life is like a wall and you're constantly moving forward, you don't know what's going to happen at the end of the street, what will happen tomorrow, or what will happen in 10 years. All you know is life is going to keep going (never sure for how long you'll be around) so hang on and love the ride.
Sunday- more eggs for breakfast and lots of stories for me to share with everyone about the night before. We then attempted to ride bikes, but with 40mph wind gusts and no shelter it was brutal. We were again covered in sand and mud after having to cross rivers. We didn't ride very far and turned around headed to an ice cream shop instead (good substitute!) The Grand Duke was the favorite kind amongst all of us. We were all pretty tired and the weather was brutal so we decided to hang out and watch American football. We watched at the Broncos yet again dominated. By 11 we were asleep.
Monday- travel day. Left the hostel at 8:30 (actually 9 because of Chilean time) and got to the airport at 10:05. My flight was at 10:30 and everyone else at 11:30. LAN airlines has great customer service and they got me through the line and I was set. Security again was actually a joke and I walked right on the plane to seat 1A sitting all by myself enjoying the view again. We made it back to Vina at 6 after taking 2 buses after the plane.
This trip was phenomenal. Being able to share experiences and make memories like this is my favorite part of life. Being able to meet new people and hear new things contributes to my desire to continue traveling and trying new things every day. On the trip I finished the book Into the Wild, the story of a 24 year old seeking adventure in the Alaskan Wilderness for 112 days living on the land alone, and as Chris reflects on the last days of his life he says "happiness only real when shared". Although I don't completely agree with this statement because there have been plenty of times when I'm happy alone, I think happiness is enhanced when shared. It's every girl's dream to travel with 9 guys and be the only girl right? This trip was awesome and I thank all the boys for contributing to its success. Thank you for constantly teezing me, being thankful when I cook you food and keeping me safe from pursuing Chilean men. Thank you for opening my eyes to new ideas and experiences and reaffirming that there are great people in this world. Most importantly thank you for making memories with me that will last a lifetime that we'll be able to share with our grandkids, and some memories that will remain in my journal.
Sorry this was so long, but I'm sure you were just surfing facebook anyway so reading this was at least a little productive!
"The desert is the environment of revelation, genetically and physiologically alien, sensorily austere, esthetically abstract, historically inimical...its forms are bold and suggestive. The mind is beset by light and space, the kinesthetic novelty of aridity, high temperature, and wind. The desert sky is encircling, majestic terrible. in other habitats, the rim of sky above the horizontal is broken or obscured: here, together with the overhead portion, it is infinitely vaster than that of rolling countryside and forest lands.... In an unobstructed sky the clouds seem more massive, sometimes grandly reflecting the earth's curvature on their concave undersides. The angularity of desert landforms imparts a monumental architecture to the clouds as well as to the land.... To the desert go prophets and hermits; through deserts go pilgrims and exiles. Here the leaders of the great religions have sought the therapeutic and spiritual values of retreat, not to escape but to find reality."- Paul Shepard: Man in the Landscape (exported from Into the Wild)
Thursday- Austin, Logan, Brandan, Murphy, Paul and I loaded up on a stinky, smelling bus. You know the kinds of buses that have the doors that fold in half and puff black smoke out the back? It's called the bus' breath I think. And you cover your ears when the bus breaks because it makes a loud screechy noise? (Junie B Jones reference, just helping you to recall your childhood!) The buses are actually really nice and we sat up top in the first row enjoying the landscape. After transferring from the bus, to another bus we made it to the airport in Santiago. It costed about $7USD/person to get from Vina to the airport by bus, cheap and easy. Coming from the States where you literally have to take off everything to walk through security and you have about 30 pairs of eyes staring at you as you walk through the machines we all laughed at the process in Santiago. We didn't even present a boarding pass or ID as we walked through the machine with our shoes and jackets on. No one even monitored the X-Ray machine as our backpacks went through. We definitely could've brought drugs or other things and no one would've questioned us (we'd never do that though!). The airport is really nice and has Starbucks and Cinnabun! Brandan and I opted to share a NY pizza with BBQ sauce and meat. Not too shabby Chile. After boarding our plane which was about 40% full (something I haven't seen in the states in years) we had one of the most beautiful 2 hour plane rides I've ever had; flying directly north following the Andes mountains the whole time. LAN airlines gives you more than peanuts when you fly, imagine having cookies AND a brownie AND crackers on a flight instead of a pack of peanuts! After arriving at one of the world's smallest airports in Calama and walking on the tarmac with outrageous wind gusts it was clear we were no longer in our little beach town. As Dorothy, and Austin put it "we're not in Kansas anymore". We still needed to get to San Pedro which is about an hour and a half from Calama. As I've stated before no matter how hard I try and plan and investigate bus options there is just no telling what you're actually going to get. This meant we took a private white van (we've traveled in a few of those now) directly from the airport to our hostel. It cost $40USD/person roundtrip. STEEP!!!! But it literally was our only choice unless we took a taxi and who knows what they would've charged 6 gringos. None of us were thrilled to pay that so we thought about other options...smart right? So we asked about renting a car, logical. Until of course NONE of the rental car companies have any cars available. Turbus does leave out of Calama, but only at certain times of the day and we arrived after 5pm which happens to be when no buses are running. The ride was breathtaking however. I said "If you had to describe the middle of nowhere I think this would be a perfect description." A perfectly, beautiful middle of somewhere.
We stayed at Sol Atacama hostel for $15USD/night. The owner was a 26 year old party animal named Andrés. If you're looking for a wild time stay here, or just stay with us, more about that later. We found a little market which was perfect for buying pasta, salami, cheese and bread, the workers just laughed at our large purchases every time we came in (you really want a whole sleeve of salami and 20 eggs??). This time the hostel let us use the kitchen. The kitchen consisted of an old oven/stove, fridge and sink all outside. Nonetheless I whipped up some dinner and we were all content after 8 hours of travel by plane, bus and automobile. We made some friends at the hostel and hung out talking sharing cultures (American, Swedish, New Zealand, Chilean). Andrés liked to practice his english especially swear words. Really dude you don't need to use those in everyday language. Have you ever explained to someone what LOL means? probably not expect maybe to your grandmother. Now try explaining that in Spanish. That's exactly what Murphy and I tried to do. We told him exactly what it meant, but if you're learning english then you don't really need to know texting lingo. Anyway, Andrés also enjoyed calling me "mamacita" after he found out that the boys affectionately refer to me as "mom" sometimes. (secrets out I guess, sorry Mom that yet again my friends call me this). After many ping pong games and a few bottles of pisco we headed to the desert. After walking a couple hundred yards we lied down on the sand and looked up at the stars. It was a half moon and since there's a hole in the ozone layer here the moon is still incredibly bright. None the less it was beautiful. Logan enjoyed pointing out some constellations that we had learned about in La Serena.
Friday morning called for a breakfast of scrambled eggs with cheese! Always one of my favorite meals. These eggs were definitely fresh with a few feathers still attached to the shells. ha We decided to rent bikes and cruise. For $6USD we each had a bike for 6 hours. We met up with Jen, Andy, Rob, Mark and David and the 12 of us cruised through the desert. We followed bumpy roads for about 16km. Logan served the consequence of off roading through sagebrush when he got a flat tire and had to go back and get it fixed. Once we got to our destination, Lagoon Cejar we were welcomed by a little Chilean man in a hut asking for our money. Of course you want money just to see the lakes, $3USD/person. After coughing up the dough we went to the salt lakes. These little lagoons were like mini Great Salt Lakes. It ranks #10 directly after the Great Salt Lake as the saltiest lakes on earth. Just like the Great Salt Lake only tourists would think of getting in, and that's exactly who we were. I was the first to hop in the frigid water and float around. You literally just float similar to sitting in a lounge chair. The color was an intense blue matched with the bright white salt around it. Parts of the lake were really deep and you couldn't see the bottom, the boys are still convinced there might be monsters down there. We all relaxed, rather baked, in the sun attempting to play hacky sack barefoot. I was probably in the water for 20 minutes and was covered in salt. The lake had a flamingo enjoying it too! We made the hour bike ride back where by back took a beating from the sun. Ice cream was necessity at that point. You could see both the fear and the enjoyment in the little Chilean lady's eyes as 12 gringos gave her business. I had chocolate and banana with berries. Delicious! We headed back to our hostels and chilled. Murphy and I taught Brandan how to play cribbage and typical beginners luck he beat both of us. We only played half a game so I guess he didn't technically win a full game. Murphy and I whipped up some incredible guac and we combined that with chips, salami and cheese for dinner. We're getting pretty good at this hostel life. We hung out at the hostel all night with new people we met. Turns out these people would later become our enemies and make it so we were almost kicked out of our hostel. These girls didn't stand on good terms with any of us for very long. They were just very....different and not any of our speed. One girl asked if she could wear Logan's jacket even though she had a jacket on. She decided to take off her jacket and wear his. Chick- if you're trying to get a guy by taking his jacket when it's 30 degrees outside and you already have one it's not going to work! Anyway one girl preceded to have a "healthy debate" as she later called it, with Mark about careers and her future. She was wasted mind you and talked about how society is so sad that you get a job based on a resume and a transcript. She thinks it should be all about personality. Well that helps contribute to your resume and your transcript. The fact that she's failed 7 classes contributes to who she is a person. She wants to change the world and believes that every parent that works full time and makes a decent amount of money is a bad parent and doesn't spend enough time with their kids. She also said that she hates her mom. Well I have news for you chick.... my parents work full time and they love me and spend time with me. They're working to provide an incredible life for me. I'm thankful mom and pops for the work you do so that I can have the experiences that I have. I know that one day I too want to help change the world, but I want a job so I can provide a lifestyle for my kids similar to what I've experienced. Oh gosh this debate turned into her crying and just being an emotional drunk. I was in bed trying to sleep while listening to all this. I could go on for days about her but I'll stop.
Saturday- another breakfast of 20 scrambled eggs with cheese for 6 of us. We headed into town to walk around. There are about 2000 residents in this town built with 7 foot mud walls. It's comparable to Native American villages in the Southwestern part of the states. That's the best way to describe it. It was so different, but yet so beautiful. We set up a tour and then searched for "adventure hats" for a few of the boys. They were successful in finding bucket haps with sun flaps. Rob and Mat purchased "desert scarves" too. What a group we were. 9 of us went on a tour with K2 Touring. We were in yet another van and drove through Death Valley. You know the scenes in Star Wars where the pods race through the desert like canyons? That's how we felt. Literally looked the exact same. We arrived at giant sand dunes ready to sand board and ski. After getting fitted for our boards we climbed up the sand mountain. You wear shoes and just strap into a normal snow board once you're at the top. After the boys had a little bit of liquid encouragement we were ready to fly down. It was so fun to straight line down the mountain. I think Murphy gets the award for best falls of the day after he tomahawked a couple of times. Mark mastered the face plant and Brandan looked like a coal miner when were were finished. I think I had about 6 runs including one on skies. Rob and I were the only ones that tried skiing and talk about a work out hiking up straight sand carrying skies and poles while wearing ski boots! You couldn't go very fast in the skies but still fun. Rob had an excellent crash all captured on Mat's camera. Maybe this is what aliens are doing on other planets while we usually ski on snow? After death valley we headed to valle de la luna (moon valley) and watched the sunset. Some places of this valley haven't seen rain in hundreds of years. sunset was pretty and we were all on such a high after the dunes that even the simplest things were incredible. As I went to the edge of the cliff one tour guide said "be careful. with this wind you could go over if you don't have wings or don't know how to fly" thanks for the warning! I lived to tell the tale obviously. Another night of guac and chips with chirizo and grilled onions! yummy. We made friends with 3 different american girls at our hostel who were actually cool. Oh Andres told us we weren't allowed to drink at our hostel or hang out there during the night after the previous night's incident. That didn't stop us! ha After finishing 2 bottles of pisco and 12 beers between 5 people we were ready to go out on the town with our new friends. We wandered around town, and couldn't be more American; dancing and singing in the streets, parkour, and the general loud english being spoken. We decided every bar was too expensive to even hang out in, so we went to the boleteria. After a purchase of 4 bottles of pisco and Coke the adventure picked up. One Chilean started talking to me saying that he knows where to get weed. He casually pulled some out of his pocket as we're in the street. It's midnight and you're in the middle of the street hanging out, interesting guy. A few people were happy about that weed after packing it into a cigarette using the end of a pair of headphones. After posing for pictures with another hammered Chilean we wandered to the desert making an important stop on the way....a playground!! We must have spent an hour at that playground. Picture 12 Americans doing 360s, backflips, balance beams and yoga all while taking pulls of pisco. Mat at one point forgot my name and tried really hard to remember it and settled on "Erika". Rob made lots of new friends with stray dogs and enjoyed having them bite his hands thinking that was a fun game. Mark went to the desert by himself and came back 20 minutes later and kept saying how "crrrrrrazy" the desert was. We eventually all wandered to the desert and were all together at that point. Mark, Logan, Austin and Brandan made their way to a gypsy tent and danced with 70 year old women and had a guy chase them out the door, Rob wandered around by himself, Mat and Paul went back to the hostel and Murphy and I raced through the desert. Not sure what happened to everyone else at that point. Mark and Logan told Murphy and I about their adventure and then we decided we should probably run through the desert again. This is when, at the exact same time, Murphy and Logan ate the desert as they fell running over a hill. That image will be engrained in my mind for ever. After looking at the stars while Murphy kept saying "well hey there nothing" and me questioning him saying "well hey there something" in reference to the night sky we made our way back. We ran back and as I look to my right there's Mark passed out on the ground. I slap him a few times and eventually get him to stand up and continue running. Mark made it back to his hostel and Logan, Murphy and I made it to ours only to find Andres' mother extremely upset with my friends. Apparently music had been blaring, profanity was yelled (which she was uncomfortable with because she doesn't understand english), and a mess was being made. I calmed down mama and told her not to worry that I would get everything under control. The chicks that we didn't like from 2 nights before happened to be there which made for a bad encounter between the boys and them. I walked Rob back to his hostel because mama was especially upset with him. When I came back I found Austin trying to wash his face telling me how uncomfortable he was, Mat in bed speaking spanish to me, Paul and Murphy passed out, Logan arguing with the chicks, and Brandan no where to be found. After pulling Logan away from almost getting in a fight we went and looked for Brandan. Where do you start looking for someone at 4 in the morning in the middle of the desert on the Bolivian border? Yeah we didn't know either so after calling him 15 times and texting him, shouting his name and wandering around we went to bed. At 6:30am I got a call from him telling me he was with people, but didn't know any of them (obviously because everyone he knew was asleep). He said he thought he needed to go North West to get to town and somehow made it to the hostel and I let him in. He was freezing and had lost his hat, but what a relief that he was safe and not with some gypsies or on a truck crossing the Andes to Bolivia. This was one of my favorite nights of the trip and one of my favorite nights of my life. I was constantly laughing and having great conversations, loving life being sober. Murphy and I kept talking about how life is like a wall and you're constantly moving forward, you don't know what's going to happen at the end of the street, what will happen tomorrow, or what will happen in 10 years. All you know is life is going to keep going (never sure for how long you'll be around) so hang on and love the ride.
Sunday- more eggs for breakfast and lots of stories for me to share with everyone about the night before. We then attempted to ride bikes, but with 40mph wind gusts and no shelter it was brutal. We were again covered in sand and mud after having to cross rivers. We didn't ride very far and turned around headed to an ice cream shop instead (good substitute!) The Grand Duke was the favorite kind amongst all of us. We were all pretty tired and the weather was brutal so we decided to hang out and watch American football. We watched at the Broncos yet again dominated. By 11 we were asleep.
Monday- travel day. Left the hostel at 8:30 (actually 9 because of Chilean time) and got to the airport at 10:05. My flight was at 10:30 and everyone else at 11:30. LAN airlines has great customer service and they got me through the line and I was set. Security again was actually a joke and I walked right on the plane to seat 1A sitting all by myself enjoying the view again. We made it back to Vina at 6 after taking 2 buses after the plane.
This trip was phenomenal. Being able to share experiences and make memories like this is my favorite part of life. Being able to meet new people and hear new things contributes to my desire to continue traveling and trying new things every day. On the trip I finished the book Into the Wild, the story of a 24 year old seeking adventure in the Alaskan Wilderness for 112 days living on the land alone, and as Chris reflects on the last days of his life he says "happiness only real when shared". Although I don't completely agree with this statement because there have been plenty of times when I'm happy alone, I think happiness is enhanced when shared. It's every girl's dream to travel with 9 guys and be the only girl right? This trip was awesome and I thank all the boys for contributing to its success. Thank you for constantly teezing me, being thankful when I cook you food and keeping me safe from pursuing Chilean men. Thank you for opening my eyes to new ideas and experiences and reaffirming that there are great people in this world. Most importantly thank you for making memories with me that will last a lifetime that we'll be able to share with our grandkids, and some memories that will remain in my journal.
Sorry this was so long, but I'm sure you were just surfing facebook anyway so reading this was at least a little productive!
"The desert is the environment of revelation, genetically and physiologically alien, sensorily austere, esthetically abstract, historically inimical...its forms are bold and suggestive. The mind is beset by light and space, the kinesthetic novelty of aridity, high temperature, and wind. The desert sky is encircling, majestic terrible. in other habitats, the rim of sky above the horizontal is broken or obscured: here, together with the overhead portion, it is infinitely vaster than that of rolling countryside and forest lands.... In an unobstructed sky the clouds seem more massive, sometimes grandly reflecting the earth's curvature on their concave undersides. The angularity of desert landforms imparts a monumental architecture to the clouds as well as to the land.... To the desert go prophets and hermits; through deserts go pilgrims and exiles. Here the leaders of the great religions have sought the therapeutic and spiritual values of retreat, not to escape but to find reality."- Paul Shepard: Man in the Landscape (exported from Into the Wild)
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| Rob on the bike ride |
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| flying over the Andes |
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| Main Street San pedro at dusk |
