Ah San Pedro...

So I know I´ve been bad about writing in my blog, but what am I going to do. I´ve got other things to do with my time, especially since my little brother Javier Ignacio Araya wants to play with me all the time. (He´s sitting next to me right now, and apparently he wants to kill me in the night with a knife [I don´t know about his crazy sense of humor.])I guess now he really want´s to kill me, because he read this and my door doesn´t lock.

So anyways, last weekend I went to San Pedro de Atacama one of the driest places in the world. Some places in the desert haven´t recorded rain since the Spanish inquisition. Its also at about 8000 ft. above sea level so the air is very thin. During the day it probably anywhere from 80 to 100 degrees and at night can go down to below freezing.

The unique climate of the area made my trip really surreal. (OK enough of a travel log and lets get to the nitty gritty)

Anyways, me and my friend Olivia arrived after a crazy debacle trying to organize a trip for a bunch of gringos. Ultimately, after several people backed out and several others ditched us in San Pedro only three fearless adventurous gringos remained: me, Olivia and Lisa. (Side note: My house brother just jumped through the window and attacked me, kind of like Kato used to). And yes, my ego was feeling pretty good after spending the weekend with such fine companions.

So anyways, we arrived at around 10 o´clock and immediately noticed the difficulty breathing from the thin mountain air. Many times, we were warned that we would be unable to find a place to stay, but the first place we went to had openings and gave us a great room for the duration of our stay.

Once we settled in, we decided to wander the mean streets of San Pedro, which consists of about three blocks of gringo filled streets catering to gringos with restaurants and the most tourists agencies per capita in the world. Since San Pedro is basically a ghost town, most of its money comes from tourism. Since Lisa wouldn´t arrive until the next morning, me and Olivia found a great restaurant with an open roof and a fire in the middle. We enjoyed some of the best food and wine we´ve had in Chile and unbeknownest to us, had a picture taken by the propriator of the restaurant as we would later find out.

After dinner, we decided we would check out the local night life. We went into this night clubish place called adobe (Which by the way has a great lunch, just don´t wear any bracelets with Chile´s best club futbol team, Colo Colo on or the service will be less than stellar.) Basically, this looked like your typical gringo turista horror movie with unjulating gringos dancing around a fire acting like they´ve taken some illicit substances. To complete the ax wielding maniac scenario, we turned around and stood face to face with a man dressed in some sort of white tribal robe and what looked like a white paper mache mask and black matted hair down to his derriere. Needless to say, we jetted to the next establishment post haste.

The next bar invited us in for happy hour at approximately 1:30 and the bars close at 2. (For those interested, happy hour in Chile is usually 2x1) Evidently, the bartender failed to tell us that and we never saw our second drink that night. Anyways, as soon as we sat down, the white guy as we lovingly called him burst into the bar and started dancing with a bunch of people at the table next to us. (Later, we would discover this was some sort of promotion for a tourist agency and is some ancient tribal figure of some sort).

Anyways, after the bar, we decided to call it a night. We were warned about the altitude in San Pedro, but its real teeth didn´t show until we tried to sleep. That first night I barely slept a minute as every time I would fall asleep I would be jossled awake by what seemed like a panic attack but was merely a lack of oxygen in my lungs. So as daylight came around, I finally fell asleep for a couple of hours of awkward sleep. Around noon, Olivia and I decided to find something to do before Lisa arrived.

Walking down the street, we found a sign for sandboarding and decided to give it a try. The best deal we found included a trip to the valley of the moon after the sandboarding so we took it. A couple of hours later, we were greeted by our friendly guide Rodrigo, who could have passed for any gringo but turned out to be from Santiago. We took off in his truck but abruptly stopped next to another truck of gringos who all hopped into ours. We started the usual touristy banter and I asked the girl next to me where she was from and she said you´ve probably never heard of it, but I´m from Alto, Michigan. I just died laughing and it turns out she went to Forest Hills Central a few years behind me. Small world.

It also reminds me that the day before we ran into a couple of gringos from Fort Worth, Texas where Olivia is from and discovered there are 35 Americans working at the International School in Antofagasta, whom we had never seen. In contrast to San Pedro, Antofagasta has very few gringos, because it is more of an industrial town with fewer tourist options.

So we arrived at the hills where we were going to sandboard and realized lugging ourselves up and down these hills in the altitude might be more of a chore than we thought. To make a short story long, the boards were interesting. They basically looked like a fraternity paddle out of Animal House with a couple of straps to hold you in place. There really isn´t much support like a snowboard, so it is much more difficult to carve. The other problem I had was that, you really can´t try to use your edges because once that edge hits the sand you sink. Ultimately the only way I could get down the hill was by going straight and getting as much speed as I could for about half the way down the hill, then I could do some wide turns.

After sandboarding, we departed for the valley of the moon, which is one of the most breathtaking sunsets in the world (Apart from those seen from 1669 River Oaks Dr.) Although the cerra or hill gave a great perch to watch the sunset, 100´s of tourists lined the crests to see the purples and mauves which can only be recreated in the desert.