I’m sitting in the La Católica political science library right now. (In case you didn’t know, my host University is Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile). Its kind of intimidating here, since all of the students worked really hard to get here. (PUC is one of the top universities in South America, University of Chile being the other.) I have class at 3:00, so I still have a lot of time to waste.
Maybe you’re interested in the classes I’m taking. Maybe not. If not, skip this paragraph. I’m taking, Organizaciones Internacionales, Historia del Pensamiento Económico, Chilean Culture and Politics, Gymnastics and hopefully Modern Dance. (The first two translate to International Organizations and History of Economic Thought). The first class doesn’t start until next week, and the core class, Chilean culture and politics, starts in 2 weeks (that’s a University of California class). So I’ve only been going to gymnastics and History of Economic Thought so far. Funny thing about Chile… The students are always late! Only the foreign students came to my Econ class early. I’m at the San Joaquin Campus. Which is huge. The architecture is very modern and there are crazy sculptures everywhere. It’s still very cold here. Spring doesn’t come until September in Chile.
We started class on Monday, but I had a week long vacation before that. I took a 24 hour bus ride to the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world! The Atacama Desert borders Peru and Bolivia and is surrounded by volcanoes. We stayed in a hostel in San Pedro de Atacama. It was the most I’ve ever seen so many “gringos” here in Chile. (Gringos are anyone that speaks English, its not a politically incorrect term here or anything.) There isn’t that much to do in the town of San Pedro, but tons of adventurous things to do just outside of it. The first day we took a tour of the Valle de la Luna. It’s a valley with a landscape very similar to the moon. In fact, NASA tests some of its equipment and moon buggies there. I’m working on getting pictures up. Kodak gallery is not such a good one, so if anyone wants to recommend a good online album site, go right ahead.
Being flamingos at the Flamingo Salt Flats:
The second day we went to see salt flats and the Altiplano. Basically I saw flamingos and Llamas in their own perspective environments. All the landscapes were incredibly eerie, like something out of a Salvador Dali painting, but nonetheless beautiful.
This is at the Altiplano Lakes:
The third day we woke up around 3:30 am, and got picked up by a van and drove 2 hours up a volcano on the bumpiest dirt road I have ever been on. We got to the top of a volcano just in time to see the sun rise over the geysers. It was -15 degrees Celsius right before sunrise, which translates to -4 degrees Fahrenheit. I decided I really don’t like the cold. The subzero temperatures still were not enough to keep me out of the thermal baths though. So right after we had breakfast, which was heated in the steam of the geyser, I jumped into a thermal. (I smelled like sulfur the rest of the day). It seems like only Americans and Germans were willing to go into the thermal. I don’t know if that says something about our culture. Haha. After our trip to the geysers, we drove to two different pueblos. I know Auntie Jo would definitely be interested in this part. Each pueblo had a population of about 500 people, living in little adobe huts on the side of a creek (an oasis in the middle of nowhere). The pueblos had a communal oven and basically live on the sides of cliffs. It was incredibly serene and eye opening.
On the last day, I was supposed to rent a bike and go sand boarding, but I came down with the stomach flu, and was vomiting the whole morning. I didn’t miss too much though. The people that went were incredibly tired, some scratched up pretty well, and all REALLY dirty for the 24 hour bus ride back home. My friend said I can try sand boarding somewhere near Pismo Beach, so I’m not that sad to have missed out.
Well now I’m back in good ole’ polluted Santiago. I move into my new apartment tomorrow morning. (I’m living with all international students, and I don’t think any speak English, at least fluently). So you guys can look forward to the next email, which will probably be about that.
I really really really really do miss you all. I hope everyone is doing well and taking advantage of the summer. Send me your prayer requests! I’m getting better about keeping up with those!
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