San Pedro Photos

http://picasaweb.google.com/paulspicturesfromabroad/SanPedro#-- I've post the photos from San Pedro de Atacama. I think that they are pretty good though none can quite capture the view of the open landscape

Post cards

I bought some postcards at San Pedro de Atacama. Email me your address if you want one.

San Pedro de Atacama

My trip to San Pedro de Atacama was pretty amazing. Eight other volunteers and I were able to tour the chilean countryside seeing mountains, the desert, lakes, and the altiplano. While our large group was a tad unwieldy we managed to get a good group package deal on our tours. Everyday the sky was perfectly blue without a single cloud and the temperatures comfortably in the seventies. At night it would become much cooler but nothing too extreme. Being there made me I wish I had down more outdoor explorations when I was in DC. Perhaps when I return I can put some cheap trips together.

San Pedro itself is a very cute little town with a church, a little shaded town square and many restaurants and tourist shops. However, it has many little oddities that made it unique. For example, the town has a bad electrical generator which means that the power in town was frequently out at both our hostel and in shops around town. When this happened some shops turned on their own generators, others closed or continued to operate without power. Unfortunately, one of the shops that would close was the ice cream shop. Also, there was no bank in the town and only two ATMS, both would stop running when the power was out and both ran out of money on Sunday creating problems for some people. Also, due to some past instance none of the restaurants or bars in the city have the proper permits to allow people to dance. At a bar when two volunteers danced a little salsa, they were warned that if they police showed up they could receive a ticket. Because of this we were invited to a party at some person's house where dancing would occur. We went and ended up talking to both tourists and Chileans standing around bonfire. It reminded me a little bit of college. 

Because the many pictures I took (to be posted soon) can do a better job showing the scenery than my writing possibly can I'm only going to mention the highlights here.

Got to try llama meat - tastes like beef

Saw the beautiful landscape at the Valley of the Moon,

Saw the Tatio Geysers ... one of the highest and largest active geyser fields in the world -- (to see them you have to wake up at 4am to arrive at sunrise when the geysers for reasons I'm not sure of are the most active -- Because they are so high up it was very very cold and my toes were frozen by the end.

Both when I was visiting the Tatio geysers and other altiplano lakes, I broke my personal record for the most distance from sea level while standing on the ground. El Tatio is approximately 13780 feet above sea level. My previous highest had been when I climbed Mt. Baldy in New Mexico which is 12440 feet. Interestingly, the view from El Tatio and the high parts of the altiplano weren't that spectacular because all of the nearby ground in high up while the view from Mt. Baldy was very spectacular because it dominated the surrounding landscape.

Got to see flamingoes on a lake in the middle of the salt flat.

Got to soak in some hot outdoor springs 

Got to climb around ancient atacaman ruins in on the side of the mountain. -- while climbing around I tried going down a part of the hill that was too steep to climb and ending up having to slide on the rocks down for about 100 feet.

The night sky was brilliant and truly amazing --- because of the lack of lights from the town and the clear cloudless sky.

I really can't wait for my next trip in Chile.

-- my next trip might actually be to Peru

Trip

So today I am going to be leaving Antofagasta, and heading to San Pedro de Atacama (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_pedro_de_atacama) for the next four days. Despite being a small town in the desert, it is one of Chile´s top tourist attractions because it is near geysers, lakes with flamingos, and something called the valley of the moon.

This does mean that I will be out of contact with everybody for the next couple of days. More when I get back.

Estadunidense

So i found the other week that the proper way to describe myself is not as Americano but as Estadounidense. Since I found this out I´ve talked to some people and all of them insists that Americano refers to the continent and that they are just as Americano as I am. I thought I could win by pointing out that they would never in any situation refer to themselves as Americano and understand me perfectly when I use the term but I couldn´t win any coverts to my argument

Bureaucracy

So the other day, I got to miss school and go downtown to get my papers processed for mywork visa. This involved visiting two buildings next to each ... the Antofagastan Police office and some other building. It was a lot like going to the MVA in that there was a lot of waiting. Marcela, the regional cordinator for English Opens Doors, was with us to help smooth the process. At the second stop, I ran into some minor problems because the line ticket I had, had already been called while I had been waiting in line at the other place. Marcela went up and talked to the supervisor and managed to get me a line pass. However, the person behind the counter wouldn´t let me copy my papers with their copier even though she had let all the other volunteers copy theirs saying it wasn´t her responsibility. (I think she was upset about the line pass ..... the system is a little silly because one of the papers that needed to be copied was from the building next door but there were no copiers on the way). So both her and Marcela went up to the supervisor and argued their cases. It was interesting watching them argue for two minutes back forth ... not loud but intensely. Marcela won and the lady made me my copies and processed my application.

Afterwards, we went to a decent restaurant where I ordered a vegetarian burrito. It was the worst burrito I´ve had in sometime, basically a black bean salad wrapped in a tortilla. Oddly enough there were some small pieces of chicken in it. Several times while I´ve been here, I´ve realized how mexicanized my view of Latin and South America is. I assume that if they have it in Mexicao then they will have it here. However, tacos, burritos, tequilla, are all very rare here. Avocado however is very popular here. (I had some of my 12th graders create jokes and several created jokes about a phantom avocado.) Luckily, the restaurant had delicious kiwi juice.

protests

So normally, I´d be teaching my 11th graders right now. However, the principal is currently talking to them. Apparently, their math teacher hurt herself and is going to be out for several months and the students have been protesting the lack of a suitable replacement.

Though it wouldn´t be evident from my classes some students here do take there education seriously. Several years ago there were widespread protests by high school students here (called the penguin protests after their school uniforms) to protest the quality of high school education they received which prevented them from competing for positions at good universities.

from reading wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraponera - who wants to be a Satere-Mawe warrior?

Random Thoughts about Chile

I read somewhere that after seatbelts became mandatory in the US, car crashes went up because people drove a tad more recklessly (ie. moral hazard ... from a public health standpoint it was successful because fatalities were reduced). If this is the case then in Chile the drivers should drive more cautiously because no one here wears a seatbelt. But thats definitely not the case. Note: despite being crazier drivers here than in the US it nowhere approaches the craziness of driving in India where in most cars the backseats don't even have  seatbelts.

Because of the dust, people's windshield are always dirty.

Nancy means nobody here.

They say ciao here instead of adios but spell it chao.

My family spends more time cooking food here then we do in the United States. Almost everyday includes a trip to grocery store and home stove cooked meal (my family doesn't have a microwave). They usually go to the store to pick up fresh bread and vegetables, but since they go almost everyday they will also pick up whatever else they need when at the store. Last Friday, I cooked lunch for my family (baked fish with mustard and black pepper). We left the house at 1 pm and didn't started eating until 5:30. During that time we probably walked 4 miles between buying groceries and trying to go to the bank (it turned out it was closed because it was Labor day). Now we had to walk a little farther then normal to get fish because the local supermarket doesn't have them so instead we had to go to the outdoor market. But still that was a lot of time mostly devoted to making a meal. The meal was good and the family made salsa and salad to go along with it. But it was a lot of prep time for just one meal.

My family doesn't have a credit card.

May 1st is Labor day here. I think this is the case for much of South America

While at the outdoor market, I saw a man a man slap another man hard for saying something to his wife/girlfriend.

Kids playing on a playground in Chile sound exactly like kids playing in the United States. A sea of screams, laughs and shrieks.

Along with the typical school chaos there is only one printer for the school, which is kept in the director/principal's office. The office is usually locked and only a couple of people have the key. So often when I print something I am unable to pick it up until the following day ... and sometimes the following day the printout has disappeared. I never knew how much of a luxury easy printer access was at the BLS.

Right now some kids are pretending to sneak into my class room and everytime i look up they run away.

the power of American ads

So as I have mentioned Chileans eat a lot of Mayonnaise. At lunch today as my host mom was putting mayonnaise on  her noodles and fries I started making fun of her love of mayonnaise. She replied that it was the gringo's fault ... that before everybody ate house mayonnaise and didn't use it that much but then hellmans came and started showing ads of kids eating their rice and brocoli after their mom poured mayonnaise on it. And after that, Chileans started putting mayonnaise on everything. After she said this I broke out laughing ... especially since I tend to discount the efficacy of ads. 

Asado

So the Chilean Asado went well ... in many ways it was a typical Chilean event in that ...

The start time was at 9. We left the house at 10:30, arrived at 11 and were one of the first people there. Food was served at 1am. I fell asleep at around 5. The party ended at 6 and I arrived back at my house at 6:45.

The event was pretty good even if I could only really converse with two people there. There was dancing which was fun and Karaoke which was less fun. The meat was good especially the chorizo.

I'm definitely not used to the late times of everything. What's funny is that I had hurried back to house in order to not make us late. Live and Learn.

Pay Day

I got paid today. 85000 Chilean pesos. Unfortunately, 1 peso does not equal 1 dollar. Naturally afterwards all the volunteers went out to a nice lunch.