During the two weeks of winter vacation in Chile, several of the English Opens Doors volunteers planned to travel to Peru to see Machu Picchu. Always having wanted to see the ruins myself, I made plans with three other girls to go exploring on what little money we had all saved. The following adventure involved many an overnight bus ride, several days without showers, constant solicitations for discounts, and cheap meals bought in local markets or from street vendors. We also befriended the locals whenever possible to continue practicing our Spanish and to learn more about the culture in each place we visited.
Part I of our trip consists of our travels throughout northern Chile. As Santiago is located roughly in the center of the country, we decided to take cheap buses up to the border and cross over into Peru (prices for one-way tickets ranged from roughly $10.00 to 35.00 in USD). I met with another volunteer in Santiago, Tricia, to take a bus to La Serena, where we would rendezvous with the two others in our party. We ate a brief dinner upon arrival and departed for Antofagasta via an overnight bus - the first of many to come.
Antofagasta turned out to be a deceptively large city in which huge desert dunes descend into the Pacific Ocean. As one of the other volunteers pointed out, we can now boast of having eaten seafood in the middle of the driest desert in the world. Being the strong, determined, independent women that we were, we decided to walk to the Plaza de Armas, against the advice of all the locals from whom we asked directions. (A side note: all cities have a centro and a Plaza de Armas, both of which are located at the heart of the city. The Plaza consists of a large square with a Catholic church and various other municipal buildings.) We asked directions from the locals after every few blocks but kept losing ourselves, much to our frustration. I have since learned that our failure to follow simple directions was due to a language barrier: in Spanish, a la derecha means "to the right" and a la izquierda means "to the left." Derecho, however, means "straight." Every time we heard derecho, we went a la derecha, thus taking many wrong turns before we finally reached the market first and loaded up on very cheap fruit for the following bus ride.
When we did finally find the centro, we had about 30 minutes of leisure time to complete our touristy tasks: we took too many pictures, bought cheap souvenirs for the folks back home, and asked for directions back to the bus terminal. We then took a colectivo (cheaper version of a taxi and with fixed stops) back to the terminal for our next trip to San Pedro de Atacama.
San Pedro turned out to be the most interesting, albeit touristy, area we visited in Chile. A small town of only 2,000 or so permanent residents, San Pedro exists mainly as a central hub for tourist operations in the surrounding desert and is characterized by its endearing dusty roads and compact, adobe buildings. We arrived after night had settled in and awed at the brilliant stars - there were no streetlamps or light posts in the entire city. As it was too early to go to bed that night, we went out to dinner at a nearby restaurant with a bonfire (a common trend in that small town) and enjoyed the musical prowess of a local Andean group. After the final number concluded, the members explained to us that they perform each night in different restaurants across San Pedro and that they view their work is a method of preserving their cultural backgrounds. All five members had indigenous ancestry, though some were from southern parts of Chile such as Concepción (central site of the earthquake in February 2010). They invited us out to a party afterwards (one of the perks of traveling in all-female company) and we spent the remainder of the evening mingling with the locals. Although we turned in rather early due to bus lag, they later informed us that the party did not wind down until 5:30 the next morning.
The next day we embarked on a cheap tour with a few others to Laguna Cejas, a salt lake located a few miles away in the desert. Though the temperature outside was less than ideal for swimming (remember, it’s winter here), the relative warmth of the water made this feat possible for tourists eager to float weightlessly in the high-salt-content lake. Afterwards, we reloaded our bus to travel to Laguna Tebenquiche for the sunset. Below are pictures of this second lake. It was extremely shallow, so much so that one could walk across and appear to be walking on water…
The next day we embarked on a journey to Valle de la Luna and Valle de la Muerte, two valleys in the desert that are appropriately named for their landscape. The former, located in the Cordillera de la Sal, boasts various stone and sand formations that make a strong lunar impression on visitors. It is also known as one of the driest valleys on Earth, as the landscape is coated in salt and some areas have not received even a drop of rain in hundreds of years. The Valle de la Muerte, on the other hand, is so-named for its giant dunes and craggy apertures, and is apparently a tourist attraction for those with sandboarding capabilities.
Our final tour the following day took us to the Tatio Geysers located high in the Andes mountain range. As the geysers are most active at dawn and are located a few hours from San Pedro, we were forced to awaken at 4:30 in the morning to make the journey in time. Though the temperature hovered around freezing, we enjoyed the view nonetheless and ate a healthy breakfast provided by our guide (eggs boiled in the geysers). As the geysers had an altitude of 4,200 meters, one of our companions fell ill with altitude sickness and resorted to drinking té de coca to alleviate her symptoms. Apparently coca leaves are commonly used for this purpose in the Atacama Desert and in Peru as well.
After breakfast, we had the opportunity to swim in another heated lake but chose to avoid the other tourists as well as the intense cold of the air. Instead we descended the mountain and passed by a deserted bus that had rolled halfway down into the valley below 18 years earlier. Our guide, José, informed us that the bus had contained several tourists, all of whom perished when the driver lost control of the vehicle. The bus had never been removed from the side of the mountain and thus served as an eerie reminder to drivers to navigate the twists and turns with precaution.
José then drove us a few more hours to the distant (and teensy) town of Chiu Chiu, where we promptly took photos of the oldest church in Chile before departing once again to visit Pukará de Lasana, a pre-Columbian fortress built in the 12th century. Along the way we viewed petroglyghs, or ancient pictures carved into stones by an indigenous people that predated even the Incans. The rocks onto which they were carved were perched ominously along the cliffs above the highway and seemed perfectly capable of tumbling onto passersby at any moment. Finally we arrived at Calama, a mining town full of men, where we caught an overnight bus to Arica.
We arrived at Arica at 6:30 the morning of the 14th to find one of the volunteer’s bags missing. Catherine, a spunky, first-generation New Yorker from China, had left her bag on the overhead bus rack. We were the only foreigners on that particular ride and were thus obvious targets. A seasoned traveler, Catherine knew to keep her passport, money, and personal documents on her person; the thief’s stolen booty thus consisted only of the bag itself, a few inexpensive souvenirs, and several pairs of dirty socks and underwear.
Arica turned out to be a hip, modern port town on the border of Peru. As we arrived at 6:30 am, it was too early to book a train to Tacna, Peru, so we decided to hit up the first American hot spot we spied: McDonald’s. As it had been more than 36 hours since any of us had showered, we spent about 30 minutes freshening up in the bathrooms. We returned to the train station only to learn that travelers must book tickets at least one day in advance of the intended departure, so we reluctantly trudged back to the bus terminal to find an international company that would serve our needs. We found a bus to cross the border for just a couple of bucks and traveled to our next destination: Tacna.
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