Santiago and Mendoza

Santiago, Chile

Centro

  At the bus station in Santiago there was the English guy I had met on my tour and I met another English couple at the bus station and we all ended up staying at the same hostel. I then spent the day walking around the main centro with the couple from England. The centro has a European feel and has many people playing chess and spending the day there. Santiago really made me feel the South American summer because it was so hot and I did not have any clothes for the warm weather!

Hula Hooper

   In Chile, there are many street performers that will perform while cars are stopped at a stop light and then will go around and see if anyone will give them a few dollars. It's pretty entertaining and I've never seen anything like it. I've seen stunts, hula hooping, jugglers, and tricks with fire!

     The next day I saw the changing of the guards ceremony for the first time which I thought was really interesting since we don't have anything like it in the United States. I realized at this time that I think when someone is traveling it is very important to not view everything in ethnocentric manner. In my opinion, this means to be present in the country you are visiting and try to not compare things to home because I do not think it should be a competition. Cultures are different, no one is better than an other and that's what makes the world so interesting to travel. I heard someone compare the changing of the guards to his country's changing of the guards and he said how disappointed he was and so on (this is just one example I have heard these types of comments many times), and I think that is the kind of situation to take a step back and appreciate the culture's differences. Just the anthropology major in me speaking. But, I also gained an appreciation for traveling alone because I think it would be very hard to find the perfect travel partner and someone who wants to get all the same things out of the culture as you and do all the same things as you. I love the freedom of traveling alone because I could spend a day with someone doing something but the next day if I want to do something that person doesn't I am free to without feeling guilty.

View from San Cristobal Hill

At the top of San Cristobal Hill

Top of San Cristobal Hill

Mote de Huesillo

    So after I spent the morning getting lost with this English man from my tour who would not accept that the museum was not where is tour guide book said it was, I decided I was ready to meet up with my friend from Santiago who I had met in Mancora, Peru. My friend showed me around Santiago and took me to San Cristobal Hill and told me to try a popular drink in Chile called Mote de Huesillo. Mote de Huesillo is made with a grain and cooked peaches. There are little stands all over Santiago selling Mote de Huesillo, it's pretty sweet but it was definitely refreshing in the Santiago summer heat. After, we went to help my friends friend buy stuff for his apartment and then we had a typical Chilean late dinner at almost 11 of eggs and bread.  Being shown around Santiago by a local was so cool and fun and I definitely think this day will be a day I will never forget.
   The next day I walked back to Providencia, through Barrio Lastarria and the many parks in Santiago, which is really pretty. The parks are full of people laying in them and enjoying ice cream and eachother's company.I think there is a lot you can appreciate when getting lost in a city. This was the day that I fell in love with Santiago. Santiago reminds me of a pretty clean and upscale part of northeastern city.
    At night, I went to the Venezuelan couple from San Pedro de Atacama's apartment and spent the evening with them, the Brazilians I met in San Pedro, and their other Venezuelan friends. We spent the evening talking and they told me all about Venezuela and Dubai (which is where they are moving to). Venezuela has more of a Carribbean vibe apparently and Salsa is very popular there. There, I tried Choripan for the first time which is a small thick sausage with bread. It was really good!

Mendoza, Argentina

Wine Country

    The next day was my last day in Santiago which I also spent just walking around and enjoying the town and then I was headed to Mendoza for a day. At my hostel before I left for Mendoza I met a few Israeli soldiers who were also headed to Mendoza so I shared a cab with them and met up with them in Mendoza. I spent the day walking around the town of Mendoza with them and their girl friends from Israel and we made fried rice with chicken for lunch. It was a really quick trip and I definitely want to go back because I had to leave that night for Buenos Aires!

San Pedro de Atacama

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

     I left Cusco on a bus on Wednesday at 8pm then got to Arequipa and then went to Tacna, crossed the border in a car, then took a bus to Calama and then San Pedro de Atacama and finally got there at about 10 am two days later on Friday.

   I was pretty tired on Friday but I spent the day wandering around San Pedro de Atacama and checking out the little town. San Pedro de Atacama is really a tourist town that does not have very much to do other than go on tours to the surrounding areas, which is abundant with different facinating things to see. San Pedro de Atacama is an adobe town in the middle of the desert surrounded by volcanos. I think San Pedro is definitely a nice place to visit for a couple days, but a couple days is enough time. It was extremely hot there and in the summer (which is the season in Chile right now) the sun sets very late. It was a very unique town to check out and walk around!

     I chose to take tours to the Geysers and to Laguna Cejar. For the Geyser tour we had to wake up at 330 in the morning and we got there before the sun rose. The Geysers were interesting and we had a really good tour guide. We saw a bunch of animals which was really cool and we went to the hot springs.

squirrel tail

I don't remember the name of it but we saw an animal that had the ears of a rabbit and the tail of a squirrel. It is my new favorite animal, it was so funny! The views on drive back of the volcanoes were amazing and we stopped in a tiny town for some really good empanadas!

Laguna Cejar

Friends from Venezuela, Brazil, and Chile

    The same day, after a quick nap I went to the tour of Laguna Cejar. Laguna Cejar has so much salt that you float on the surface which I think is a lot cooler than it sounds. It was so fun just floating there and relaxing in the water. The water has so much salt that when you get out you're completely white because you have so much salt on you. Everyone was also giving themselves a natural mudbath and covering themselves with mud which I learned is skin rejuvenating. Between the Laguna and the mudbath it was a really fun and relaxing trip! On my tour, I met a couple from Venezuela that is living in Santiago and two boys that are my age from Brazil and we all went to dinner after our tour was over. The couple from Venezuela are engineers and extremely warm people. Dinner was really fun and interesting because we were talking about different aspects of our cultures and countries like our education and university systems. I really enjoyed my time with them and we were all going to be in Santiago on Monday so we made plans to meet up there for a BBQ.

  I felt I had spent enough time in San Pedro de Atacama by the next day and I just hungout and then I was off on my next bus to Santiago at 2pm!