From Mars to Germany: Spring Break 2010

Spring Break 2010 Part I:

Last Friday I left Santiago and two hours later landed on Mars. The Northern desert is so desolate, Mars-like and inhabited it seems implausible that it lies only a few hundred miles away from the bustling metropolis of Chile's capital city. For five days, twenty-five excited alumnos and dos somewhat-wary profesores explored the magnificent Atacama Desert.

We set up camp (read: stayed in a really nice hotel) in San Pedro de Atacama, a small and dusty pueblo where the tourists certainly outnumber the residents. Day one was spent exploring the town and its many traditional crafts shops, napping (we met at 3 AM for our flight out of Santiago) and lounging in the hotel's icy cold pool. Day two picked up speed- we hiked to the top of an ancient Andean fortress that survived both Incan and European attacks called Pukara de Quitor. I use the term survived pretty loosely- the fort was actually in shambles- but cool nonetheless.

Right after we drove to "Valle de la Luna" appropriately named for it's uncanny resemblance to the moon, to watch the sunset. I personally would have called it "Valle de Mars" but what do I know. A planning faux-pos got us there about three and a half hours early so we hiked along a ridge overlooking a massive sand dune and found a prime sunset watching spot. Unfortunately, the sunset itself was somewhat anticlimactic.. I’ve seen much better in San Luis Obispo. But when we turned around the incredibly long wait and mediocare setting was worth it; the setting sol shaded the sand hills of the desert to a beautiful shade of purple and pink. It was muy increible.

Day three put every other day to shame. (Which means it was exceptionally bad-ass because every other day still made it onto my list of Best Days Eva!) I knew the day would be great when chocolate cereal was served for breakfast. There was also a steaming thermal of freshly brewed coffee, which believe me is an extremely rare commodity here in Chile. With chocolaty goodness in our stomachs and real caffeine pulsing through our veins, we found a nice shop to rent bicycles and off we went. I might be exaggerating a little here when I say WE ALMOST MADE IT TO THE BOLIVIAN BORDER! To be honest, I don’t even know if we were going in the direction of the Bolivian border, let alone how close we were to reaching it, but it seemed plausible. San Pedro regularly has day tours to the Bolivian salt flats so I figure we could have been close. Si?

The route we chose was on a flat road towards a huge volcano. We weren’t surrounded by dunes or mountains and the scenery didn’t change for almost our entire ride but it was still one of the best parts of the trip. Maybe it was the thin desert air that got us giddy- we were at about 7500 feet- or maybe the thrill of biking to Bolivia. Either way, when we returned our rented bicicletas I was so content with the world that even if the day had ended right then and there I still would have called it one of my bests. However, this epic day was far, far from over. A bit later a few of us boarded a bus for a tumultuous drive over a combination of salt planes and bumpy sand to Laguna Cejar, a small, perfectly picturesque turquoise lake seven times saltier than the ocean. We all jumped in, and to our amazement, barely submerged into the water. For the next half hour we entertained ourselves by floating with all our extremities out of the water, synchronized swimming, finding the most ridiculous poses we could manage. It was magical. The only unpleasant part of the laguna adventure was the crusty salt hair and speckled white faces that appeared after drying off. Thankfully, our guide brought along a tank of water in one of those manual fermaldehyde sprayers, and hosed us all off. It was tre comico. THEN, we headed to a random hole in the earth where you could jump a few meters into the water. I was cold at this point and refrained. AND FINALLY we headed to another salt lagoon, quite possibly even more picturesque than the last, to watch the sunset and drink pisco sours. Our guide loved the only male in our group- Tim- and insisted he drink pisco sour after pisco sour after pisco sour. The bus ride home, despite the bumps, maniacal driving, and broken down bus in front, had me nearly in tears.

This day isn’t even over yet. We got back to the hotel at nine, which is exactly when we were supposed to meet to go to an observatory and stargaze for a few hours. Some nice friends of ours switched groups, allowing us to eat dinner and breath for a few minutes, before we left around 10:30. Because the Atacama desert is the driest in the world, it has the clearest skies. On top of this, the North is very sparsely populated AND we went on a night where there was no visible moon so the lack of light pollution gave way to a beautiful, bright night sky. Our leader, a nice German man, had two telescopes set up, tea, coffee, and knowledge off the wazoo. We say lots of Zodiac constellations, the Southern Cross, Orion’s belt, and even other galaxies. It was really cool being in the Southern Hemisphere too because the sky was completely different than what I’m used to. For the finale our guide pointed our Jupiter and four of its moons. As a Chilean might say, “Super Bacan!”

Day four entailed lots of hot desert driving. It was November 1^st, the Day of the Dead, and a national holiday. We drove to an ancient city with only 55 inhabitants and placed paper flowers in their cemetery, stopped at the Tropic of Capricorn that was surrounded by all these stone sculptures, hung out with a few llamas on the street, explored an Incan hotel, saw a bunch of flamingos, and returned in time to eat a delicious almuerzo at a funky little famiy owned restaurant. It was another great day.

Finally, the morning we were due to leave back to Santiago, we went to some thermal hot springs and hung out in the water for a few hours. It was so relaxing and such a wonderful way to end Part I of Spring Break 2010.

Spring Break 2010 Part II:

There wasn’t really much downtime between the north and the south. We landed back in Santiago at around 11 PM. Our (me and friend Andrea) flight didn’t leave until 10:20 the next morning so for a number of reasons we decided Hey?! Why not sleep at the airport? So, under the dizzyingly bright fluorescent lights with our big backpacks as pillows and the soothing sound of serious construction about 25 feet away, we shut our eyes and prayed the morning would come quick.

Andrea and I flew to Puerto Montt in the Lake Region of Chile. The descent was breathtaking: lakes, greenery, and volcanos all found from the view of a single airplane window. We bussed from the airport to the Bus Terminal, then from there found another bus to Puerto Varas, where we were staying. The terminal was madness. First off there are maybe double the buses as there are parking spaces so horns are honking, people are swarming, and there is this extreme sense of chaos. Then there were about different buses with the drivers poking their heads out the window screaming ‘Puerto Varas? Puerto Varas? Puerto Varas?!’ and you would more or less jump onto one when it was still moving. Fortunately, despite missing our stop, we made it to our “preciosa” hostal, a cozy French owned aparment in downtown Puerto Varas.

The town is unreal. It sits on the shore of tranquil Lago Llanquihue and faces two snow-capped volcanos. There are rolling green hills, ancient German style architecture, and a gorgeous church. Unfortunately, we were only able to truly appreciate all of Puerto Varas’s beauty for one of the five days, when the sun decided to push away the rain clouds. Andrea and I sat on a restaurant patio directly across from Volcan Osorno, sipped a delicious Chilean beer, and breathed in the fresh southern air. It was a great afternoon.

Despite the rain, we still made the best of our voyage. One day we explored the quaint town of Frutillar. We also went to Chiloe, which is a famous island off the mainland. Though we weren’t there for long, the bus ride itself was awesome- Chiloe was beautiful. We passed fields of flowers, sheep, cows, rivers, ahhhhh. When we got to Ancul, our Chiloe city of choice, we walked to the beach to look for penguins but sadly saw none.

The rest of our time in the South was spent reading, exploring Puerto Varas, and cooking some delicious food in the hostal kitchen. (Our brownie/manjar creation was quite the hit.) On Sunday we flew back to Santiago, where haha the rain had followed us, and started school today.

I realize I spent about 7/8 of this post writing about the North. The South was SO cool and absolutely deserves half of the words but I am tired and will just show you pictures instead.

This was the best Spring break ever. I’m hoping my next one (that’s only a few months away..) can live up to its predecessor.

Ciao,

Sassafrass