Megan Quick's blog

the driest place on earth

Hey all,
So My mommy still reads my blog and she really wants me to post again. So here it is. That and I finally have something exciting to post on. And I think that these enteries will be really good to help me remember whati did in chile and how cool it was. I also have a ton of pics for the Atacama that you all can see and enjoy. (All being like my mom) Well any ways yay for my mommy.
First off I the gringa indoor soccer team is in the finals. We won in the semifinals and next Friday after my hardest week of soccer I’m we are going to beat the best Chilean team to claim the championship. This team is the PE major team so they are all supposed to be really good and the gringas seem to always lose this game (historically that is) However we are going to win and it will be very exciting. I haven’t hurt myself playing for a while so all is good and I’m really enjoying soccer here. They are more into it than I thought today they took over a floor of the engineering building where I was studying and set up a large screen and a projector and most of the EE major sat around and yelled and watched a under 20 game against spain. Chile lost badly like normal but they were still enthusiastic. Vamos Chilenos! Any ways
Now to the meat….. so I went to san Pedro de Atacama this weekend it was very exciting. It is about a 24 hour drive to the north of Vina so it’s hot. It’s right on the tropic of Capricorn (which I got to sand on)(that and the Inca trail both were only marked by a little marker and made for a very boring stop). So this is going to be a day by day play it was a very exciting weekend. I went with four girls that I really hadn’t hung out with at all since I’ve been here. Kelsey is one of the ones that I was in Miami with and she is from Cleveland so some of you all might actually meet her. Wednesday we flew into the Calama about an hour from SP (san Pedro) It was about 11:30 when we got there because I had to go to my classes that day not to mention my soccer game. However we were hungary so we put our stuff down and found a hotel to the stay at some one in my group planed ahead and called. We then were followed by creepy people to the only restuant open at 12 on a Wednesday night. We have some not very good half way burnt and horribly cooked food. (we think it might be pay back for us coming in and ordering about five minutes before they closed.) We then headed home to rest up for a early bus.
The drive to SP was pretty uneventful and we pretty much just looked out the window like this is so cool the entire time, awesome scenery was the theme of the weekend. So this is Thursday and we walk around until we find a hostel that had nice rooms and a open courtyard in the middle of the rooms with tons of little critters running around. The real reason to stay at this hostal was the baby goats. These kiddos were 6 days old when we got there talk about adorable. (We bargained the price down too and we all got to stay in the same room.) So the look around the town met some Irish people and found a sand boarding tour. None of us knew what it was or what is would be like but the tour took us to the “ valle of the moon” after wards. (this is where we were planning on going any ways ) So it was exciting. So sand boarding is kinda like snowboarding on a huge dune of sand. However you have to walk yourself up the dune at the end. b/c of this you get a little tired. But it was super fun and a good new experience. (I mean how many people have been sand boarding.) However here my snowboarding experience might not have helped my because I kept tying to turn like when you are boarding but you can’t at all do that with. However after a fee mistakes I think I’ll better now. Then we saw the sun set in the valley of the moon that main tourist attraction but it was kind of boring and didn’t seem to live up to all of the hyper. They sunset was amazing, (all of them – we saw like 6 rises/sets) We then signed up for a 5:40 am tour for the altiplano. And made it an early night.
Day 2 – Friday we went to the got up really really early and caught the sunrise on the salt plains. It is a flimingo reservae and so we were the only ones there with the flamingos and the sunset on the mountians yeah really pretty. So it was super exciting and serene. That birds were cool and the salt plians are unique in that the ground is is salt. It is also where chile produces como 70% of the lithuim in the world. Our guide then took up up tp the altiplano lakes ans stuff up super high in the mountians. It was all realyl pretty but we were really high up like 4500 meters it´s kinda like 14,000 feet. It was interesting. The Andes go up to 20000 ft. The lakes were pretty and we stopped in lots of places on the why up. Like a village and to see all of the indains ruins and the irragation systems the keep the desert alive. The desert was really cool, but even during the day we were cold. We then went to stand on the crossing of the tropic of capicorn and the inca trail which ende up being super not interesting, it´s just a marker in the ground hey you are here. We made horrible pasta in the hotel, chile doesn´t believe in spices. It actually started raining while we were cooking dinner and we ran out side to feel the rain drops in one of the driest places on earth. The water storage contain above the kitchen had broken and the was spraying water all over. So much for being there on the one day that it rains. I actaully studied for my test. Are you proud of me?
Next day saterday – We slept in and then went bike riding all over the desert, we braved rivers and followed a mapa and found this canyon place where we the looked at lots of really cool rocks and climbed and went exploring. Made for a really good lunch spot and it wa noce to not have a guide hauling us around every where. We took lots of fun pics. And then rode to the inca ruins close by. It was interesting but i´m still hyped for Machu Pichu. On our ride back we were stamperded by a herd of goats and sheep and the got to watch the shepards round up two pissed off and unresponsive sheep. I will have pics of this motorcycle surround but goats its interesting. Chile has a helmet law so that all wear them that is super good. Umm the only really bad thing that we all had soaking wet shoes and i didn´t have any other shoes. So we went to this resturant with no roof and a bonfire in the middle and i stood in front of the fire and dried my shoes. It was good.
Sunday – final day I went to the Gysers at 4 Am it was fun. Emily and I were the only ones that wanted to go and we went and it was interesting. You get the right for sunset when the gysers are the most active. It´s just like tons of steam jets every where I will have lots of pics if i ever get them posted. Some of them would randomly start and spot becuase it´s all one huge gyser that has pores all over the surface that just continually shoot out steam and it´s interesting. We then went to a hotsprings there fed by the gysers. The larger gysers are interesting too. We saw lots of animals in their natural environments like vicunas and llamas and little chinchilla things. I think my english has gotten worse. Wonderful. I was within 8 km from bolivia and politcal unrest but the guide wouldn´t take me to bolivia very sad. then we saw an awesome sunset from the plane and it was a good end to a great weekend. yeah. then I returned to the real world and studied for my test and if i didnt bomb it yesterday then maybe i can pass the class but we will see.