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We finally had a nice long weekend, kicked off by celebrating my friend's birthday. We hit a club with live salsa music, followed by a night out that was way, way too late. The band did play a Star Wars song to cumbia style, which was cool, but the entire place smelled like vinegar, I guess it could be worse, probably to cover a worse smell... Friday after classes that came WAY too early, we headed back to the apt., packed our bags, and headed to the airport via the bus to head out to San Pedro de Atacama. 
For anyone who doesn't know, the Atacama desert, located in northern Chile, is considered the driest desert on the planet, with little to no rainfall. It is also where a lot of Chile's copper is mined, being the #1 producer in the world, and counts for over 30% of its GDP. This year it did rain more than usual, which means a few extra days, which is why you see the snow on the mountain tops in some pictures. We spent 3 days there, based out of San Pedro, which is the hub of all activities in the area. It's a small town, filled mostly with migrating tourists. 
We did some sandboarding in Valle de la Muerte(their death valley), followed by watching the sunset over Valle de la Luna(valley of the moon), sipping some pisco sour. I will say, though, some serious temperature swings on our trip. It was 70's by mid afternoon, and then below 30 at night. I felt like I was back in Peru again. The whole area is in a former lake bed that over the thousands upon millions of years, as the tectonic plates pushed up, dried out into what it is now.
That night, we headed out into the darkness to see the stars with an astronomy scientist, who was very strict and demanding - I felt like I was in grade school again. I do miss the stars with all of the light pollution in the big cities, and forgot there are more than 5. You could actually see a visible arm of the milky way, and we got to see a moon set, which was the crescent moon positioned facing upwards on its back, and as it set, looked like horns passing behind the mountains in the distance. We also got to see Saturn and its rings, some other cool star formations, and heard more details of constellations than I'll ever remember.
Super, super cool, and super cold!!!
The next day, we headed up, and I mean up! - to about 15000 feet to visit the altiplano, or high mountain plains. It has some nice lakes to see the threatened horned Coot bird that nest there.
We also saw some vicuna, which are a small member of the camel family. It is the vicuna and guanaco that were bred to create the llama and alpaca species that we know today. Vicuna are a protected animal that only live in the high mountain plains of Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. They were hunted to near extinction for what is considered the finest animal hair in the world. 
They have made a nice rebound with the conservation efforts, and they are now allowed, through monitoring, to harvest their wool for sale. It is unbelievably expensive, a sweater would cost thousands of dollars. I'll stick with "baby alpaca", as all the vendors used to say in Peru. Still too itchy. I likes me the cotton.
After that, we headed back down to the solares - or salt flats left by evaporating lakes and volcanic activity. The largest in the world is in Bolivia, but other than the salt flats in Nevada, these are the largest in the world. It is in these solares that the flamingos live off the brine shrimp(a.k.a. sea monkeys) that live in the water there, which is what turns them their nice pink color as they mature. 
The Chilean flamingo is a bit different that some other varieties that you typically see, with more black and white coloration. We did get to see some fly, quite spectacular, but it was super hot, so it was time to get out of the sun, at least for a bit.
We had lunch, and surprisingly all food in San Pedro is ridiculously good. I had wrongly anticipated that the food would be average at best and expensive, but was pretty reasonable and fantanstic. We had some of our best meals there, at least with meat, not seafood. Valparaiso wins that one, and for good reason.
Anyway, so we then headed out to Laguna Cejar - a place to swim that is 7 times saltier than the ocean, it's comparable to the Dead Sea. It was freezing, but you really float, and without trying. You feel like a fishing bobber on the water. I also plunged into Ojos del Solar, which are two natural water formations that look like a pair of eyes, I was the only one in our group that did, and it was freezing, the Atacama polar plunge. We then headed over to another shallow lagoon, which you could walk across - it's only a few feet deep, to watch the sunset.
The next day, we flew back to Santiago, then bused to Valparaiso, minus a few hiccups along the way. Our transfer bus had some transmission issues, but luckily we made it to the airport on time. We then learned that in Valparaiso, there was a flood on one of the hills overlooking the port, which was caused by the major pipe supplying water to the city bursting. So no water for 3 days there... Luckily, we only had to go about 12 hours without it. All I gotta say is I have a new appreciation for water, more than anything, for bathroom purposes.
Monday, we hit a couple wineries nearby in the Casablanca valley - known for it's white wines and Pinot Noir. Emiliana is an organic winery, which was neat to see how they grow grapes using some very clever natural strategies, bees, chickens, and alpaca included. They have their crap together, and make a great sauvignon Blanc. We also went to Indomita, a bigger winery, and lunched there as well - overpriced but good. Interesting to see a large scale operation.
So this week, we're sticking around the area. We might go to see Pablo Neruda's famous house in Isla Negra, but we've got projects due for class, as we're heading into the last week. I've had a blast, but I'm also looking forward to getting home. I want to wear shorts, eat some barbecued chicken, and not freeze my buttocks off at night.
I'll post at least one or two more times before home, one from Buenos Aires, as I have a few days there before I leave for the great warm North. See you all soon!
