One desert and Four Coloradan Girls

Hola a todos! I'm finally writing after just getting back from one of the best adventures of my life. I just sadly finished my "spring break" down here, but really classes were just canceled because it was Las Fiestas Patrias or their independence day down here. There are parties literally all week! Anyway since school was canceled we took advantage of it and traveled to the north of Chile where there is a huge desert called the Atacama Desert maybe you've heard about it! Who is we? One of my best friends Bailey flew in Friday 9/11 to spend 10 days with me and my other best friend Celine, and my housemate Jeannie or Mama Jean came along to experience it all with us! I will just say now that were were great traveling partners and oh man we had a blast!!

We left Saturday the 12th at 11 pm on a double decker bus with our destination of Chañaral and the National Park Pan de Azucar. The bus ride was 11 hours, but the majority during the night so we just slept! Once we got to Chañaral, a tiny town on the coast with a population of about 3,000. It's probably more, but it was pretty deserted when we were there because it's not tourist season at the moment. We had an amazing lunch that really filled us up and energized us after sitting on a bus for 11 hours! Afterwards we got our room at the hostel across the street. For 8 dollars a night we probably should have gotten better accommodations, but it was a bed to sleep in for the night. The guy we rented from was literally 80 years old and probably shouldn't be maintaining a hostel, but was really nice to let us chill there while we waited for our bus the next night. The first day in Chañaral we went to the beach and explored all around the rocks and hills of Chañaral. For such a small town it was really beautiful! After exploring the town we ventured to el supermercado to buy food for dinner. Bread, avo, cheese, fruit, and yogurt consisted of dinner, but it was delicious! To top everything off we drank some wine out of our yogurt cups because we didn't have any glasses.... cheers to being low maintenance girls!


The next day we paid a guy to bring us out to the National Park Pan de Azucar! We saw a lot there including the various flora and fauna of the park: giant cacti and a lama type animal called a Guanaco. The guy took us to a spot called El Mirador or the look out where we could see all of Pan de Azucar! It was a sight to see and literally took my breath away! Afterwards he drove us down and we paid another guy to bring us out on a boat to Isla Pan de Azucar which is one place in Chile that harbors Humboldt PENGUINS!!!! I was so excited to see the penguins. I have now made my trip complete because I've seen the penguins in their natural habitat not some zoo! It was a great boat ride and afterwards we had the most amazing fried fish lunch on the beach from basically a hole in the wall! Super Rico!



Chañaral and Pan de Azucar were amazing, but was only the beginning to our grand adventure and we were literally only half way to San Pedro de Atacama, our next destination! Like I said before el dueño or owner of our hostel was super nice and let us four girl hang out until our bus left for San Pedro. As girls we had a blast with making our own cards to play with since we didn't have any, but we did have pens and paper! When is was finally time to leave we had some panic attacks because Bailey lost her bus ticket and later on Celine did too.... after a lot of hysteria and talking with the bus people we were on our way to San Pedro!

San Pedro de Atacama is almost literally on the border of Bolivia and Argentina so it is a hot spot for many backpackers from all over the world! During our four day visit of San Pedro we had met people from Australia, New Zealand, Israel, France, the US, and Chile! I now love the environment of hostels because you are able to meet so many people and converse in any language that you can! Hostel Cabur, where we stayed for the first two nights, was the coolest hostel in probably the whole world! For one our room was awesome and really comfortable with four beds and space to move around. There was a kitchen to cook in that had an endless supply of tea and coffee to drink! There was a common area with a fire place for the night, hammocks to snooze in, and tables to sit and chat with whom ever decides to cross paths with you! I will never forget the Australian sisters we met who I will now call my San Pedro moms! They were almost done with their six week tour of basically all of South America! They had endless stories to tell us and many laughs to share with us! We also met our six Chilean sisters who conversed in Spanish with us, drank wine with us, and took us dancing on the last night in San Pedro! The hostel was an amazing experience and I'll never forget the memories that were created there!

During the day we paid for two excursions. One of which was getting up at 3:30 in the morning to go see the Geysers de Tatio. It was beautiful being surrounded by volcanoes and geysers at 6 in the morning! We learned all about the geysers, which included learning the errors of the Chilean government trying to take advantage of the energy the geysers create. Their error was that they couldn't use the energy and they actually ended up exploding the ground and creating a false geyser that never stops going off.... stupid government always screws with the environment in some way or another! (You can see the false geyser in the background of the photo). After seeing the geysers we went swimming in the thermal pools created by the geysers! It wasn't super hot like we wanted, but there were really warm spots and really cold spots! The cool thing was when we were in the pool it started to snow on us! It was beautiful looking up at the sky seeing the snow fall all around us! Our trip to the geysers was totally worth it and made me really want to hike to the top of the volcanoes! (Hiking a volcano is on the list for Jeannie and I)


The other excursion we went on was to Valle de la Luna which was just absolutely mind blowing! We hiked all around including an amazing canyon with towering walls of rocks! The other hike was to the top of the dunes to watch the sun set which was amazing and proof that God's creations are truly amazing! The colors and the view we saw really did take my breath away and I could have sat up there all day and night because the view was awesome! Words can't describe, but pictures will just have to give you a little hint as to what it really was like!



All in all our trip was just amazing! The girls I went with couldn't have been better! The bus trip back was 23 hours... ya I know! It felt great to be back in Viña at home where there was clean clothes, good meals, and a comfortable bed, however the memories we created together will forever stick with me as long as I shall live! In the meantime my life is kind of disorganized right now as I'm trying to shift back into school mode again and catch up with everything I missed out on this last week! Life is great here and I hope this post finds you all in good health! Besitos y abrazos! Miss you all!