Breaking Borders

Hello all,
This is Caitlin, flying solo right now, and I thought I'd give you an update!!!!
As of Friday April 15th, Cora has one month of traveling left, and I've got two! It feels like we're both trying to cram in everything we want to do while still trying to wrap our heads around how fast this time has gone!!!!

So, during Christopher's (my brother) visit, Cora and I went our separate ways. She went to Valparaiso and continued on traveling north to La Serena and Iquique and then hopped on a 17 hour bus to cross into Bolivia!!! From there she has gone to quite a few cities, met up with an old friend, and found new ones!!! She will continue traveling through Bolivia and then cross into Argentina traveling down and loop back into Santiago de Chile to catch her flight back home in a month!!

As for me? I've been non stop traveling for the past month going to Valparaiso, Curico, Talca, Chillan,  Pucon, back up to Santiago, La Serena, and am currently in San Pedro de Atacama! That calculates to approximately 3,000 km or 1,880 miles. That's quite a lot of distance if I do say so myself.

In Valparaiso I visited Jorge's parents, Marta and Leo, and got to enjoy an evening with them over a home cooked meal!! Another highlight of that visit was the goodie bag Jorge and Lydia left for Cora and me earlier in the year! While there I also went to the beach in Vina del Mar and got to walk along the ocean watching groups of pelicans fly by!
Curico was the first non touristy place I visited. It's clearly not a main tourist spot and has no reason to be since the most exciting thing to do was to make the 4 minute climb up the hill to a vista point with a small statue of the Virgin of Immaculate Conception. I don't think I'll be going back there again...
Next was Talca where I ended up staying at a student house near the university there and met a couple of great people. The owner of the house had a three year old daughter and invited me to lunch one day and showed me around town!! I first tried Mote con Huesillo, a Chilean drink with chopped up corn on the bottom and a shriveled up peach that was dried and then rehydrated to make the juice for this drink. You eat/ drink it with a spoon, and it's a nice blend of sweet and savory that is a new favorite of mine!
After Talca was Chillan, a teeny town which had also been hit by the earthquake and had very little to do. It's known for it's Mercado Artesanal, so it was fun to wander around there!
And down to Pucon I went where I experienced my first taste of Chilean winter as it rained two and a half of the three days I was there!!! I stopped at a few little towns on the way to Pucon which was an eye opening experience. First, it's now officially the low season in Chile as it's turning into winter. As a result there are very few others traveling now, which makes for a very quiet and sometimes lonely stay. So far I've been in two hostels by myself, with no one else staying there, in one of them even the owners left! And I've been in quite a few dorm rooms all to myself, I can't really complain about that though! While it's been nice to have that down time to myself, after a few days of speaking only a few Spanish sentences and no English, I feel like I'm going crazy and should start talking out loud to myself so I won't forget my English!!!
From there I bussed back to Santiago where I went to an unforgettable concert with Inti-Illimani, Illapu, and other Chilean groups and artists. They were all there singing for an organization that helps families of the disappeared, so it was a little bit emotional at times. As it was my first time seeing Illapu in concert, I spent the entire hour they played with my mouth practically hanging open. I'm just waiting until the next concert of theirs I can go to!!
Up to La Serena I went where, true to its name (meaning the serene) I relaxed and hung out in a very cool hostel. Now, you have to understand, this is first hostel outside of Santiago that I've been to where there have actually been people, so my excitement may be a little exaggerated. However, this is one little town I would love to come back to. It's on the coast, so is known for it's good surf and great beaches (the water is still freezing) and has some cool attractions in town and in the neighboring town, Coquimbo. While there, I also went on a tour of the Elqui Valley, where we saw some quaint little towns, got to go to a papaya plantation, and check out a Pisqueria. The people on the tour were very fun and it turned out to be a really great day!
San Pedro de Atacama is a huge tourist spot in Chile, but completely the opposite of what I expected. I got here and thought the bus made a wrong turn somewhere. All I could see was dust, cactiOjos del Salar (Eyes of the Salt flats) which were actually two man made swimming holes that had originally been dug to find oil, but because of the lack of technology to extract it, they've become a huge tourist spot! Our last stop was the actual Salar de Atacama, which was awesome, it was like walking on snow! The view all around was amazing, we were surrounded by at least 5, maybe 6 volcanoes, two of which were active, one which bordered Bolivia, and all were snow-capped looking very majestic. After that, we went back to the car and ate some snacks as we watched the sun set over the mountains, then hopped into the car for the very bumpy ride back to the hostel! Today, I woke up at the ungodly hour of 4 am to be picked up and driven to the Geyser de Tatio situated at 4,300 meters (approx. 14,000 ft.) above sea level, one of the main attractions surrounding San Pedro de Atacama. With a stop at a Terma (hot spring) which I unfortunately didn't get in, and a small rural town which was rebuilt for the sole purpose of showing the tourists, it was an alright but slightly overrated tour. I'm still glad I went though!!
Tomorrow I'm off to Iquique to try and get back my Brazilian tan, and then maybe up to Arica, and then back down to mid or southern Chile!!!

Besides the tranquility of the southern Chilean towns, what I noticed the most was how much they had been affected by the earthquake, specifically Talca. It was about 60 miles away from the epicenter of the earthquake, and there are still vacant lots where houses used to be that are just full of rubble. When I first saw these, I thought it just had to do with the state of the city, but then I talked to a Talquino (someone from Talca) and he told me all of it was remnants of the earthquake. It's been over a year now, and there are still plenty of cities that have nothing to do in them because their main attractions (museums, churches, etc.) were destroyed and still have not been rebuilt. The people however are so inspiring. I've spoken to a few who were there when it happened and each of them talked about how there is nothing to compare it to. However, everyone has gotten on with their lives, and are doing what they can to move forward.

One of the major difficulties I have encountered are the weekends. Chile does not exist on Sunday. It is a cultural thing where you have a barbecue or a simple dinner with the family or occasionally go out for a walk in the park, but other than that, if your a tourist looking for anything, you have to wait until Monday! There's also Siesta time between 1-3 where you won't find even supermarkets open in some towns. This has been hard to get used to, especially since that's exactly when I'm ready to go exploring, look at museums, do some shopping!

While my Chilean Spanish has improved a lot since arriving, there's still the occasional "Que?" repeated 2 or 3 times, followed by an explanation of yet another Chilenismo. At this point, I'm thinking of writing a dictionary and carrying it around with me!!!! But, I am very proud to say that people have started to ask me if I'm a foreigner even after we've had a two minute conversation!!!

As time keeps flying by, I think about going back home with mixed feelings. It will be great to have clothing options, the yummy food back home, and of course, my own room! But, there's nothing like the experience of traveling, and I wish that this trip would never end! Maybe that's why I've already starting planning my next five years of travel throughout the world!

In the Elqui Valley it's always sunny, where as La Serena and surrounding towns have fog that burns off sometime in the afternoon

We ate a delicious lunch at restaurant that only uses solar powered stoves! They even gave us bread made there, apparently it takes 4 hours to bake!

Interesting and very modern Cathedral in Chillan

Termas Los Pozones in Pucon

Illapu!!!

Another salt lake that had such a high concentration of salt it was not allowed to swim in it

The backdrop of every picture in San Pedro, pretty awesome!

Me and one of the geysers!

Did I mention when we arrived at 6:30 am it was -15 C (5 F) and finally started warming up to -4 (a whopping 25 degrees F). I was stepping over puddles that were frozen solid. This being my first experience in such cold weather and not handling it so well, I've officially decided I'm never leaving California :)

Hasta luego!!!

Caitlin