Chile!

Ok, ok...this entry is a bit overdue but I’m working on it!

So this past weekend I went to Peru’s southern neighbor...CHILE! I went with 5 other volunteers (see mom? I have made friends...). I knew I was going to like these other volunteers when they said we were going to check out the airline prices rather than book a 10 hour journey each way for a weekend trip (not that that has stopped me in the past...)

Anyway, the airline gods were on our side and we booked a cheap and perfectly timed flight to Arica, Chile last Friday. And this trip that would have taken 10 hours via land was a whopping 21 MINUTES in the air! I barely had time to pretend to read and fall into a coma with my mouth wide open before we landed.

But land we did and it wasn’t exactly the landings out of textbooks. It was definitely a THUD...you knew you were in Arica. Apparently they didn’t want any passengers sleeping through the landing.

So upon waking, I look out my window expecting to see green trees, white sands and blue beaches. Instead, I was greeted with dessert. Flat, dry, brown dessert complete with sand dunes (another reason I didn’t have to stare at this scenery for the last 10 hours)

We walked into the airport expecting to be greeted by a $150 tax that only Americans have to pay (turns out, we are not exactly a favorite of Chile) but somehow manage to evade it...score. Find ourselves a taxi (which I’m sure we were completely ripped off for) and went to our hostel.

The hostel was great but clearly could use a bit of business consulting only because it was $15 to stay in this hotel. Period. It didn’t matter if you had a single room or in a dorm room, it was $15 a night. Hmmm...let me think...I’ll take the single. Another score.

So the 6 of us started walking into town to explore a bit and grab a bite to eat somewhere. Well, as soon as I saw the golden arches of McDonalds beaming down yellow light, I knew Arica was going to be a place I could really enjoy.

The city is really European feeling. People are pretty stylish and stores and restaurants were modern. I mean don’t get me wrong, the place definitely had it’s idiosyncracies...

For one, there are Chilean flags everywhere. EVERYWHERE.

Two, Jesus is big here. Literally and figuratively. Big statues, lots of memorabilia. He’s pretty much bigger than Michael Jordan in the 90s.

Three, people will tell you there are all sorts of restaurants in a certain direction or another and you look, and al you see are sand dunes.

So number three leads us to our first adventure. Where to eat? Like I said, we were pointed down the road by more than one group of people. A road that looked less than promising but we did it. What di we know, right? We started walking and walking...and walking. Nothing. Sand dunes.

One of the other volunteers, Francesca (lovingly called Frank) was brave enough to ask a woman in her car (ok..she basically stood in the middle of the road for the woman to stop and talk to her) for dinner advice.

After charming her with her Spanish and just overall “charming-ness”, the woman not only gave us a recommendation but offered us a ride!

Now she drove basically a car a bit smaller than a VW bug. And there were 6 of us and one of her...but we piled in. She drove us to this restaurant, we climbed a mountain (ok...just a big hill) to get there, had to confront two drooling street dogs just to find out that the restaurant was closed.

As it turns out, about 90% of the restaurants do not open until 9:30 in Chile...they eat LATE around here. But as most of you know, when I’m hungry, I’m HUNGRY. And the hunger panic was setting in...never good.

So we found another good place to eat with about 10,000 choices (imagine Cheesecake Factory in Chile) and were all promised by Chris (the only man of the group) that there was a Churros stand that we MUST go to for dessert.

So off we went, forgoing the delicious desserts at our own restaurant to find pretty much, NOT churros. They had a remote similarity in shape but were pretty much Styrofoam tubes filled with an unidentifiable caramel colored goo. Yum. Needless to say, Chris has still not heard the end of that one.
The next morning, it was off to find the beach and have a day of fun and sun. We woke up very disappointed to see a comletely grey sky. Damn.

But, the owner of the hostel assured us that at 12:00, things would be better. So we strapped on our beach gear and started walking. Again, walking and walking throuhg sand dunes, over railroad tracks, more sand and as of 11:57, the sky was still grey.

No joke...by about 12:11, the place was blue skies, nice sand beaches, slight breeze and sparkling waters. Probably the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.

There wasn’t too much to do around Arica so we made our own beach fun, played in the water, took silly pictures and found a great gelato place.

Overall...great beach day. Somehow (again, thanks to Frank´s charm), we found a bus to take us exactly where we needed to go and we went up to the top of a “mountain”...in the distance of this picture to get some more good pics, check out the big J-man and watch the sunset. Pretty awesome.

That night, after much convincing, I was persuaded to go to the Chilean club...Zonna. Basically, it’s 4 clubs in one. A latin room, a “retro” room, a weird room with tables for two and candles and basically, a “techno” club.

We sampled a few rooms and the demographics were as different as the music. And seriously, I think about 80% of Arica was within the walls of Zonna that night.

We danced and headed back to the hotel... We had to go to church int he morning.Yep...I went to not only just visit the famous church (built by Mr. Eiffel) but went to the entire mass. Like I said, Jesus is big around here.

After church, it was back to the airport and back to Peru.We all went out to dinner at a place that specializes in MEAT. So basically, I loved it. (back on meat by the way after the mishap in the Amazon...)

I had a plate of steak, ostrich and alpaca...yum.

So to sum it up...another great weekend, another beautiful beach, another chance to take fun pictures and another stamp in the passport.

xoxo,

Debra