it's like going home...

Late Tuesday July 15th, accompanied by two of my host brothers and my host mom, my friend Steph and I boarded the first of many buses overnight to Santiago. I was excited to embark on my first true "backpacking" trip. Turns out, my backpack (lent to me by a very nice tourism student of mine) was huge and I felt the need to fill it. Big mistake. One of many lessons I learned throughout the trip was: pack light. No matter how many times people tell me to do so, I still feel the need to throw in random things, "just in case." I think the advice finally sunk in. We arrived in Santiago early the next morning and met up with the other volunteers at the airport. All eight of us flew to Calama and bused about 2 hours to San Pedro de Atacama.

I should pause here to explain a few terms I've learned here in Chile that fit certain situations better than English words:

~"fome" (foam-ay) love this one. it applies to many situations and loosely means boring, lame, a shame, a bummer, not cool. One can emphasize how fome something is by using "super" as in "super fome."

~"gringo"--you've probably heard this before. Gringo encompasses foreigners, mostly from Western countries. Can be used negatively, but I typically think of it as a good word to describe my position in Chilean/South American society.

~"flaite" (fly-tay) Chilean word for sketchy people. "He/she/it is flaite." Very useful.

~"caro"- EXPENSIVE!

~"cocktail" Chilean style= Coca-cola + pisco and potato chips.

My first thought when we arrived in San Pedro was: "wow, this reminds me of Santa Fe, New Mexico." The town is tiny, only 2,000 inhabitants, and all the buildings are white adobe style. And, due to it's location smack in the middle of the Atacama Desert, it's a dry, dusty place. We woke up the next morning and I was blown away by the amount of gringos walking around. I felt like I was back in the US. Aside from the three other volunteers living in Conce, I can't tell

you the last time I've seen/heard a gringo here in Chile. Needless to say, this took some getting used to.

My time in San Pedro was a preview to the three week gringo parade I followed. It's a completely different world on the backpacking trail. Lesson two: I'm glad I'm living here in Chile. I feel as if what I experienced on the trip was the trim, polished side of Peru and Chile. It was "easy" in the sense that English was spoken, restaurants/hotels/sights cater completely to the tourists. No one takes city buses or dares to leave the center plaza of the cities. Oh, and everything is mucho más caro.

There is a reason San Pedro is touristy: it's absolutely beautiful! There are salt flats, altiplano (high in elevation) lakes, flamingos, sand dunes, an vast views of the driest desert in the world. My camera worked hard in San Pedro- especially at sunset. Here are a few of the pictures from our stay:

All of these were one day. salt flats, lagoons, sunset. the tour included a "cocktail."