Machu Picchu, Peru.

Machu Picchu.

Due to the horribly timed mining strikes, this was The Trip That Almost Wasn't. By the middle of our time in Peru, Grace and I were getting ready to start finding flights into Cusco, which wouldn't be sticking to the boundaries of our budgets at all, but we weren't about to leave the country without seeing one of the seven modern world wonders. As soon as we got to Cusco, we wasted no time in getting train tickets that same day from Ollantaytambo into Agua Calientes (also known as Pueblo Machu Picchu), where the actual ruins are located.

Peru Rail - we made it! We're really heading to Machu Picchu

By the time we finally picked a hostel after being harassed at the train station, figured out transportation to the ruins (bus), got up at 4am to wait for the bus, and stood in the rain to get tickets to enter, I was almost ready to give up. But Machu Picchu turned out to be so worth it. The views are spectacular, the idea of how these ruins were constructed were mind bending, and quite frankly, these photos don't do it justice at all.

The rainy beginning of our epic Machu Picchu adventure

A huge overview of the 7th modern wonder of the world

In the park, 400 people are allowed to hike up Wayna Picchu, a huge mountain that sits behind the ruins. So together with Grace, I began the craziest hike of my life. The fact that we were climbing at almost a complete vertical combined with the altitude made me feel like I was killing myself for the sake of nature. I have never been so relieved at the top of a moutain. I guess I haven't been on enough mountain tops to really say that though :)

Mountain top bliss

Wayna Picchu was so intense that I came off that mountain feeling like I could do anything. As cheesy as it sounds, it was so...EMPOWERING. I am so thankful the strikes finally ended and I had the opportunity to come out. Even though we had several days left in our Peru trip, it was pretty much complete after Machu Picchu. I saw what I came to see, so after all that I could finally just relax and not worry anymore about whether or not I had flown all the way to Peru for nothing.

Arequipa y Camaná, Peru.

Wow, who knew that blogging would become such hard work when you're so behind? Haha. Moving right along, Grace and I shipped out the very next day after we arrived in Peru to go to Arequipa, a town south of Lima. After having had explored Lima in the day, we went back to our hostel to get ready for our tedious 16 hour bus ride (which wouldn't even be the longest haul one yet). When we went to sleep, we were leaving Lima, but when we woke up the next morning, we'd made it to Arequipa!

The view towards the more modernized area of Arequipa

The monastery right by our hostel

We didn't have a lot of expectations for the town, mostly because we just wanted something to do while we waited out the miners' strike, so the next morning we got up bright and early to go rafting. Our guides were so friendly and excited to talk to me and Grace because one of them was Chilean and from Pucón, where'd we both been before, and another was from Córdoba, Argentina, which is where one of Grace's roommates were from, so we had a lot to chat about. We were with four other people, two Italians who spoke no English, and two Germans who spoke no Spanish, so we were quite the linguistic bunch. After cleaning up back in our hostel, we decided to head to the beach, so we hopped on a bus to Camaná, an even smaller beach town 3 hours north of Arequipa.

A group shot after popping Grace's rafting cherry

Worn out, but so worth it!
The sun was setting right as we were driving to Camaná

Camaná ended up being one of my favorite places in Peru - after Machu Picchu of course :) It's just this small beach town with much less tourism than anywhere else I'd been during my trip to Peru, so it was much more relaxed and less crowded. In the midst of all the stress of traveling, it was such a relief to just take a day and chill on a beach. There was nobody there, it was less expensive, and just a productive 24 hours! While pondering whether to stay another night, though, we found out that the strikes had ended, so we ran to grab the first bus back to Arequipa so we could swing up to Cusco right away.

What's not to love about this?

Locked, loaded, and ready to bus back to Arequipa
Peace.

Lima, Peru.

I decided to give myself another 10 day break at the end of November to go see our northern Peruvian neighbors. I made this trip with my friend Grace, a friend of a friend who's studying abroad here in Santiago as well. Surprisingly enough, Grace and I actually went to high school together, swam for Northwood, and actually had a lot of mutual friends! Small world. We took a flight out to Lima, which acted as the starting and final points of our trip. We were both so mentally unprepared at the beginning that while we were taking a bus to the airport in Santiago, I realized I didn't even have the name of our hostel written down. Luckily we had arranged for an airport pickup from the hostel, so when we landed there was a driver waiting to take us back.

With my partner in crime in front of the presidential palace by the Plaza de Armas

What trip to a Latin American city would be complete without a visit - or at least photo - of a cathedral?

A night view of another cathedral in the Miraflores neighborhood of Lima

There was some kind of cow parade slash festival going on, so this is me con mi propia vaca

One guy was giving out free hugs!

As soon as we arrived in Lima, we asked our hostel owners about taking a bus to Cusco, so we could go visit the crown jewel of Peru, Machu Picchu. Unfortunately for us, Peruvian miners had started striking that very day, closing off bus routes from Lima to Cusco as well as Puno, a lake district in the country. Not wanting to spend our whole trip waiting in Lima for the strikes to end, we decided to loop south instead to Arequipa and hope the strikes would end pronto!

Perched and ready to go for our 16-hour bus ride

When we got back to Lima at the end of our trip, we were so exhausted from the traveling we'd been doing (10 day trip, 3 of which were spent on public transportation) that we really just roamed around the city with no real agenda and no desire to do anything. We snacked on some Peruvian food and checked out some artesanal fairs, but otherwise just killed time before heading to the airport back to Santiago.

Grabbing champus from a street vendor - not shampoo, but an apple and cinnamon-y stewlike concoction

Yes, we did stop by a Burger King in Peru; this is a chicken finger sandwich. LITERALLY.

La Serena, Chile.

After getting back to Santiago for just a few short hours - just enough to repack and get in a quick nap - I was back on public transportation to go to the bus terminal to go to La Serena, a beach town six hours north of the capital. After five days of organized tourism, my girlfriends and I were looking to just relax and not worry about having an agenda, which is exactly what we did. A lot of sitting around was done in our hostel, which we had all to ourselves, so we indulged in the fact that we could take over the kitchen. Since most of us lived with host families, we have realized that cooking for ourselves back home is something we take for granted, so any chance to use the kitchen is now well appreciated.

Yes, this is actually all the groceries on our first night - or at least all that I could fit in the frame of this photo

Celebrating our friend Andrea's 22nd birthday

With a Rapa Nui statue at the Archaeological Museum in La Serena

The beach of La Serena itself was actually a little disappointing and not too spectacular, but it could've been because the weather wasn't too hot then - literally. It was gray and overcast by the time we managed to get ourselves out to the beach. We had a huge change of scenery when we took a day trip out to Elqui Valley, though, home of the famous pisco liquor. We visited the Mistral Pisco distillery, taking a short tour of the grounds and later sitting down in the distillery restaurant to enjoy some pisco drinks. Unfortunately, this is when I succumbed to a case of heat stroke, coming close to passing out, and ultimately having to be driven around the corner by the generous restaurant staff to a walk in clinic. I didn't think it was that serious, but apparently my "oxygen levels were below normal" so I had to even be hooked up to an oxygen tank! Not exactly anyone's ideal visit to a pisco distillery. Never would've thought that I would be able to avoid heatstroke in the desert and get it the day after on the coast, haha! By the time we were on our way home, I was ready to be back in my own bed with clean clothes, but there were no regrets about the past ten days. It'd just been incredibly exhausting, that's all.

Not the beach I was imagining before I arrived in La Serena, but the calmness and tranquility fit in with the atmosphere and mindset we arrived in the town with

Before heading into the distillery

Grapes! Uvas! Pu tao! Po do!

Pretty much the last good shot of me before I became an unofficial invalid

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile.

A much needed 10-day break came around the end of October, right in the middle of the semester. As Thanksgiving is not a recognized holiday, this was pretty much the longest vacation we would be getting in the fall. So to kick off the ten days of freedom we had, several students and myself went on a program-organized trip to the north of Chile, San Pedro de Atacama. It was pretty brutal getting there - we had to meet at 3:15am to catch a 5:15am flight into the airport in Calama and then take an hour bus ride to San Pedro. When we arrived, there was no other way to describe it other than DRY. San Pedro de Atacama is famous for being the driest place on the planet. On our way to the hotel, though, we did make a brief pit stop to get a taste of what we were in for. The girls that I went with are all crazy active and high energy, so almost as soon as we touched down, we found ourselves roaming the streets looking for a bike rental store. We ended up biking through the desert for close to four hours, stopping only to marvel some ancient ruins, cross a stream, and hike through some salt beds.

Welcome to el desierto

Sand dunes and massive rock formations dating to who knows when

One of the lone trees spotted on our bike ride

Road warriors

We started the next day off by heading to an archaeological museum in the city. Browsing through the small museum, we were able to see the transformation of the Atacama people, the indigenous group that lives in San Pedro (hence the name, "San Pedro de Atacama"). Later that afternoon, we were bussed out to Pucará de Quitor, a pre-Hispanic fort. Hiking through the ruins, it was amazing to think that people were able to construct anything in the miserably dry heat. I always thought Vegas was dry and hot - oh, no. San Pedro de Atacama takes those terms to a whole different level. After resting at the top of the hill, we took a quick ride over to la Valle de la Luna, where we climbed to the top of a small mountain to watch the sun set over the massive sand dunes. It was interesting to see such a contrast because on one side we had nothing but sand as far as the eye could see, while the other side were the snow-capped Andes mountains.

The view of the oasis from the top of Quitor

It seems like I'm being redundant when I say there was a lot of sand there, but this stuff is NO JOKE

The gorgeous sunset from Valle de la Luna - haha, no luna here though

The next morning a small group of friends and I woke up bright and early to catch a tour of the famous geysers in the way. "Bright" is actually an inaccuracy because we had to meet the bus at 4am, when it was pitch black outside. Incredibly cold and groggy, we managed to pull ourselves out of our toasty beds to go see what the hype about all these geysers was about. And the hype was right. The fissures coming from the ground were one of those things that photos simply cannot do justice to, and we were able to see not only huge geysers that towered way above us, but also the small bubbling ones of mud that led to the name of "chocolate milk." Our tour of the geysers also included a drive by of local livestock like alpaca and llama, of which I actually tasted in a pitstop for empanadas and llama meat. After what felt like an exhaustive day, we returned to the hotel a little after noon. A much-needed nap later found us lounging by our pool before we went to dinner and later to an observatory in the outskirts of town. This planetarium was run by a Frenchman and his Chilean wife, both experts on all things astronomical. We were able to look through some tremendous telescopes to learn about star formations. Did you know that because of Chile's location south of the Equator there are certain constellations that cannot be seen back home in California, and vice versa? Although there was a lot to be learned, I was so tired from the day's activities that I practically fell asleep into my mug of hot cocoa as we wrapped up the planetarium lecture.

Getting up at 3:30am to see THIS!

My first try at llama meat - it tastes better than it sounds!

La luna - an awesome closeup pic I had to get professional assistance to shoot

Only several hours later, we were woken up to begin our second to last day, where we went out to the National Flamingo Reserve in the Salar de Atacama, or salt beds. Walking around in plant-less heat, we trekked across vast masses of just SALT. Salt, salt, salt. We saw several flamingoes, but my immense fear of winged creatures impeded my desire to see more or even approach our supposed feathered friends. This fear made it relatively easy for me to get the hell out of there as we moved to our next destination, a small mountain village of Toconao, where we got to meet the students of a small elementary school and see how the curriculum is implemented there. Our final day consisted of a visit to the termas, or hot springs, where we ran in the frigidity to hot spring to hot spring, trying to relax while adjusting to two major temperatures. Too bad we only had 2 hours at the hot springs, because our final destination before heading back to the hotel was the Valle de los Cactus, where we got to see a ton of cactus, a lot of which were over 200 years old! Wrapping up the trip, we lounged around the hotel before shuttling back to the airport in Calama to get ready to go home to Santiago. A good break indeed.

Salt mines at the National Flamingo Reserve

Looking out from the peak of the Toconao village

My friend Beth (on the right) with some of her new friends that she made from the elementary school in Toconao
One family of artisans just had llamas traipsing around their backyards

So much flora at the hot springs you really can't even see the hot springs at all, haha

My new 200-year-old cactus friend

This is what happens to you after five days in the driest place in the world

Pucón, Chile.

This past month has been insanely busy as my classes have started to really pick up, work-wise. And when I say "pick up," I mean, before there was no work, and now, it's work all the time, haha! I've also recently started an internship at a local Chilean hotel that is family-run. It will last until about the end of November when I will then have rotated through several departments including Public Relations & Events, Front Desk, Culinary, Rooms, Accounting, and Laundry.

We had a long weekend just now so with a group of girls, we rode a 9 to 10 hour bus ride south to Pucón, where we were able to enjoy a breath of fresh air for several days. Although the weather was lousy and prevented us from hiking up the famed volcano in the town, we still managed to fit in several outdoor activities that make Pucón such a drawing tourist attraction.

Welcome to the tiny town of Pucón

The one afternoon without rain, we headed out to the river to go white water rafting

One day later, it started to rain, so we decided to make a visit to the hot springs
A 45-minute bus ride away took us to a smaller community to learn about the Mapuche, a local indigenous group in Chile
Blending into Mapuche culture
That weekend, Chile secured a place in the World Cup next summer in 2010 - you might not be able to see too clearly, but there was a major fiesta in the street!
If it hadn't been for the rain, this would've been the volcano I could've said I hiked
The view of the lake near our hostel

Since my last post, I've also managed to somehow turn 21. Not sure how this came up so quick, but let's just say that turning 21 abroad is pretty useless. It's really not that remarkable at all, but I still had a good time, as I chose to go snowboarding in the Andes to ring in the big 2-1. Since we're on inverted seasons here in Chile, I was able to catch the end of ski season before it turns into spring.

The lack of treeline makes for a very white and clean mountain

Yeah yuh - how many people can say they turned 21 snowboarding in the Andes?

One weekend when most of us stayed in Santiago instead of leaving town, we decided to go to a winery nearby to see what all this Chilean vino hype is all about. We went to Concha y Toro, the most commercialized winery in Chile - it's a relatively big brand and it's available in the United States as well.

In front of the entrance - we're supposed to be spelling "V-I-N-O"

Don Melchor vino at the winery

Trying my best not to discriminate wines of all different sizes

So that's pretty much what I've been up to these past several weeks. I'm in the midst of a two-week midterm whirlwind, so it'll be good when we get a ten day break starting next Friday - I'll be going to the north of Chile, so look out for a post after that!