personal
smoggy Santiago skyline
The things I'll probably miss. Food vendors on the street: sopaipillas, empanadas de queso, eggrolls (but only near the bar scene at 2am)...all of it fried. Sugar roasted peanuts, hamburgers made with carne de soya, the little push carts near the metro station...
Read MoreIsla Negra, translated as Black Island, is not an island. Paradoxical Chile. This small town by the ocean is known for being home to one of Pablo Neruda's eclectic house-turned-museum, and is where my Chilean culture class went for a field trip. We had lunch on the beach, went sort-of-trekking, and visited a smaller town known for its artisanal pottery. There were many wild dogs and 1/2 kilo empanadas.
Read MoreMy program friends and I made samosas and curry over the course of a very delicious Sunday afternoon. The samosas and curry we made disappeared fast, but the pictures remain to make me hungry. Lazy Sunday afternoon cooking sessions are the best.
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South of Santiago three hours on Ruta 5 highway is Talca, a medium-sized city of about 250,000 people. From there it's an hour and a half bus ride east (towards the mountains) to get to Armerillo, small town and home of Parque Tricahue, where two friends and I spent a long weekend hiking, eating peanut butter, and somewhat-successfully building fires in our cabin's stove.
Read More19 april 2015 // flying back to Santiago from Calama, post-Atacama trip
It's the small things, like writing the date on class notes 22.4.2015 or saying I live half a kilometer up Irarrázaval. The ways in which you've changed but don't really know when exactly it happened; they just kind of sneak up on you. Elbowing my way into a metro car (forget Midwestern nice, if you're making it into that car you gotta squish), strategically placing myself in the metro car depending on how many stops I have to go to avoid having to wade through 20 people to get out of the door before it closes at my stop. Keeping spare 100 peso coins in my back pocket (damn no front pocket in womens' jeans) to give to street performers or musicians on the metro. Knowing to hold up the number of fingers you want for thousand pesos you want charged to your Bip - holding up 3 fingers for 3000 pesos - because the card rechargers can't hear very well through the glass. After three months abroad, two of them in Chile, a lot of things have snuck up on me. And it's nice to know you've learned something, especially if they're the small things.
Our third day in the Atacama Desert, the book got thrown at us (in a good way). Starting with a 5:30am wakeup call we went to the Tatio Geysers at sunrise, hot springs, and more. It was a full day.
Read MoreChaxa Lagoon with its three types of flamingos and the Salar de Atacama, the salt flats of Atacama
Road to Chaxa Lagoon and Salar de Atacama // 17 abril 2015
Chaxa Lagoon // 17 april 2015
Salar de Atacama // 17 abril 2015
Chaxa Lagoon with flamingos // 17 abril 2015
Little lizard friend, shot without a zoom lens (oh well) // 17 april 2015
It's hard to describe the energy here...but the salt gave off its own vibes // 17 april 2015
Ride back to San Pedro de Atacama...it was beautiful to see the colors changing as the sun went down // 17 april 2015
A dog sleeping outside a business in San Pedro // 17 april 2015
Wasn't having my luck infinity focusing to capture the stars, but it was incredible to see the stars so vividly even within the city limits...the Atacama desert really is the best place to see the stars // 17 april 2015
Study abroad CIEE excursion to the Atacama Desert and San Pedro de Atacama
Read MoreDesert, desolation, pure hot sand as far as you can see...and then you pop over a sand dune and see ocean! That's what it's like to be travel from Bolivia through the Atacama Desert, to Iquique, a medium-sized port city in northern Chile. This time I arrived via airplane from Santiago and spent Easter weekend in Iquique.
Read MoreValpo and Viña, sister towns on the coast near Santiago de Chile, were two great towns to explore. For less than a $5 bus ticket I got to the beach and out of the big city. I know where I'll be most weekends from now on...
Viña
Valpo // cats and coffee
Viña // the town's dogs loved sleeping on the beach
Valpo
Viña // pure happiness, eating a fresh-out-of-the-fryer empanada and watching the sunset
Viña
one of a billion sunset photos, but this one's mine
An ode to the ocean and my film camera that makes me so happy.
