Atacama: Day 1

Okay, I know it's been awhile since I actually went to Atacama, but school basically took over every minute of my life for a good 2 weeks. But here it is! Well, here's Day 1 at least. Better late than never!

Sunset from the plane!

Anywho, we got in around midnight on a Friday, and the first thing we noticed was the sky. SO MANY STARS. I've never seen so many in my life. Beeeautiful. After a refreshing 3 hours of sleep (that was sarcastic, people...it was such a tease), we got up to go on our first tour, a trip to the geysers. Our friends had arrived the day before, so they came with us, along with another big group of American students that were staying at our hostel. It was about a 2-hour drive out to the geysers, and it was still dark when we got there. Apparently the geysers are more active around sunrise, so we sat there in the dark and waited. When the sun came up, we got out of the van to look at all the steam and boiling water coming out of the ground, and after about 10 minutes, we ran right back inside. We were completely miserable. I've never been colder IN MY LIFE. Like the kind of cold where you can't tell if your toes are still attached to your body. I'm normally all about getting the most out of each experience while traveling, and I would usually get really annoyed at anyone complaining while on a trip like this, but this was a completely different story. To put it in perspective, the other people in our tour were all from the east coast where they have real winters, and they were right there next to us in the van, watching the geysers out of our frosty windows. In the end, I guess it was cool to see them, but I can't say I enjoyed it at all. Here they are:

Debora was feeling a little gassy.

After the field trip from hell...or from when hell froze over...our guide drove us over to the hot springs, where we got to reheat our bodies in the water. The hot springs were really fun and relaxing and didn't smell too strongly of rotten eggs, and my butt only experienced a few surprise scaldings. However, right after I got out, the altitude suddenly hit me (up until this point, I was unaware that we were at any altitude...nobody told me!) and my head felt like it was swelling, which is a terrifying thought when your head is already huge. Imagine.

On the way back, we stopped in some tiny town to grab a light lunch of llama skewers. I did not participate, partly because I was too busy trying to soothe my raging headache, and partly because I just didn't like the idea of eating llama meat. I've become a little obsessed with llamas and all related animals (alpacas, guanacos, vicuñas, etc.) during my time in South America. Not about to eat one.

I don't have a picture of the llama skewers, but here's a donkey.

After a much-needed nap back at the hostel, our guide picked up Nallely, Rachel and I to go SANDBOARDING in Valle de la Muerte! So fun!!! Except for carrying our boards back up the sand dunes every time. That part wasn't very fun. Neither was getting sand in my camera when I tried to go all Evel Knievel and ended up flipping down the hill. Leave it to me to hurt myself even on sand. But it was still so fun!

Next, we headed over to Valle de la Luna to watch the sunset, which was absolutely gorgeous, and was made even more enjoyable by the pisco sours served by our guide.

And finally, as if we needed to fit anything else into the day, we went to go see the caves. The park was closed and blocked off by a gate, so our guide did the only sensible thing and moved the gate. Ta-da! Free entry. He showed us the salt crystals on the rock walls, and we layed on the ground looking at the Milky Way and watching for shooting stars (saw like 3!). Then he took us through a cave, but the only light we had was on his headlamp, and about half-way through we started freaking out thinking about how we were with a strange man in a cave in the middle of the night with barely any light and no one around. He finally convinced us that it would be shorter to go through to the other end than to turn around, and we skeptically followed him since we had no choice, but turns out he was right and he led us up and out and back to the truck. So maybe he was perfectly trustworthy, but some crazy scenarios can go through your head in a dark cave! Anyway, the point is that we survived and it ended up being a pretty incredible day.