¿Cachai? con Kristin: Reliving July 2015, my favorite month ever

First off, my apologies that I have been out of touch with this blog for a while! It turns out that traveling for almost a month and then getting back into the swing of school and normal life can be a little overwhelming. Anyway, at the times when I am overwhelmed, it is nice to look back at my photos and think back on my memories of July to remember how worth it that month off from reality was. Expect that this blog will consist of a few of my random stories from traveling in July! You already know that I visited Easter Island in the beginning of July and that turned out to be my favorite place. I’ll try not to gush too much more about it though seeing as I already dedicated an entire post to it. The rest of July was filled with about a week in Santiago, when I was in constant contact with the international friends I would soon have to say goodbye to (sad face). Seeing off friends was certainly bittersweet, but we managed to have some fun with it.

Remember how I said that all my other trips felt like traveling, but Easter Island felt like vacationing? Well, my next trip was up to the Atacama Desert in the north of Chile combined with a stint in Bolivia, touring the country’s beautiful landscapes and national parks. Now that really felt like traveling, and in the best way possible. I went with my friend Ceci, a member of my cohort on the Chilean side, and we ended up having an amazing time. We met people from all over the world, saw some of the most awe-inspiring sights, and had really cool adventures. Now, I know that normally I use “adventure” as a euphemism for when things go wrong, but that’s not at all what I mean here. To me, things like trekking through the desert, sandboarding, and horseback riding are adventures simply because they are so far from my norm (have I ever mentioned I’m not very coordinated?) and a Jeep tour through the altitudes of Bolivia in the freeze of winter is bound to be an adventure, no matter how prepared you think you are. It turns out that the adventures of a trip tend to become the highlights.

When speaking of this trip, I just have to give a shout out to Ceci for being an amazing travel buddy, for giving me my best week of Spanish practice of the whole year, for loaning me a warm sleeping bag, and for handling the airport transfer from hell for us without the police ever needing to be called! Maybe I should give a little more detail here—basically, we booked a transfer a day in advance to take us from our hostel in San Pedro to the airport in Calama, and the transfer managed to not only pick us up late but also to drive halfway to Calama on the highway before turning around back to San Pedro to pick up more passengers, almost ensuring that we should miss our flight. We called the transfer company, Transvip, while we were still in the transfer to ask them to start arranging a new flight for us, which they would not do. They told our airline to please keep baggage check open though. Apparently this actually worked, but when compared with procedures in the US, I thought there was no way it could. When we finally made it to the airport, just minutes before we were supposed to board, we delayed paying the transfer until we were certain we would get on a flight, which resulted in being very comically chased around the airport. Now that is what I would normally call an adventure in traveling. I would not recommend Transvip due to some of the worst customer service I have ever experienced, bad even by Chilean standards (shout out to Delfos and any other competitor for being more reliable). I also would not recommend land border crossings into and out of Bolivia for US citizens, based more on others’ experiences than my own, but, that’s a pretty useless suggestion considering that the tour to Uyuni is overland. So on a more realistic note, I would just recommend coming prepared with lots of money in USD, a passport photo, some Spanish language bargaining skills or maybe an experienced guide, and the expectation of being ripped off in some way.

Back to my shout outs, as I mentioned, I had some amazing Spanish practice on this trip. While in the Jeep in Bolivia, I actually started thinking in Spanish and remembering conversations and memories in Spanish, even when I knew that they actually took place in English. Occasionally I wondered if I was hallucinating in the desert (or thanks to the combination of high altitude and its cure-all coca tea), but now I am pretty sure that it was actually a mark of improved fluency and good practice. So, thanks to all of the amazing new friends in my Jeep for speaking mostly Spanish even though we all could have spoken English. Also, shout out to my friends who had previously done the Uyuni tour and recommended Cruz Andina, whose tours are by far some of the best, safest, and most comfortable!

I could go on and on, but I’m going to let some photos speak for some of what we experienced in San Pedro de Atacama and on our tour to Uyuni, Bolivia.

Salty

Everything I love: ice cream, funny translations, and weird Atacaman flavors

Proof of sandboarding

Proof of horseback riding

We're really good at photos and living life on the edge

This is all ice

Uyuni, Bolivia: home of the world's biggest salt flat and some cacti

Uyuni tour, midnight edition

Some of my favorite abandoned train graffiti - "love is crazy"

After experiencing the north of Chile and part of Bolivia, it was back to Santiago for a little while. The idea was to go to my first days of class, but as it turned out, both of my classes on the first day were canceled anyway. This was actually ideal because it meant that all I missed while in Brazil was going over the syllabi. When classes were cancelled, I went to the amusement park in Santiago as the only logical alternative and spent my last day with Veronica in Santiago in style. Fantasilandia, as the amusement park is called, is an experience that I would categorize under “must do once, will never do again.” The park and its rides were actually a lot of fun, but the inefficiencies and long lines were downright painful. Experiencing it with a friend who is willing to chat about anything is a must. An emotional goodbye on the metro home with that friend is optional.

Finally, it was time for me to get back to the airport in Santiago, which by now felt like home, and experience Brazil for the first time! Going to Rio was something that I really wanted to do while in South America, and I was worried that I might not get to do it because I don’t feel comfortable going there alone, as I assume that not knowing the language just amplifies the potential danger of traveling solo. I was extremely grateful to have the opportunity to meet up with friends in Rio at the end of July and felt especially lucky to be able to stay with them in the home of a Brazilian they knew from Germany. Not only did this save us money on accommodation, but we got to have a truly Brazilian experience and I appreciated every moment of it. I determined that I would love to live in Brazil, a realization mainly inspired by the amazing food. There was so much delicious fresh fruit, most that I had never heard of before, a selection of cheeses rivaling that in the States, an incredible multitude of vegetarian options in restaurants as well as vegetarian alternatives in the grocery stores, bittersweet matte tea, and acai bowls on the beach. I’m basically obsessed. I’ve also been drinking more coconut water lately because it brings back such good memories, although it can’t compare to sticking a straw into the actual (surprisingly inexpensive) coconut and walking around with it like I was able to in Rio. Also, I have been eating brigadeiro like I learned to make in Brazil and I just can’t get enough. Here’s a video that can explain the recipe better than I can. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5G1u_05BsM

I think it’s worth mentioning that the story of the name of the chocolatey dessert told in the video is different from the one I learned, and that the one I learned is much more humorous and inappropriate, even though I haven’t found any support for it on the web. Basically, I learned that once upon a time, Brazil had a dictator who was a brigadier in the military (brigadeiro in Portuguese) and since the people couldn’t publicly speak poorly of the regime, they came up with creative ways to express their opinions. Namely, someone created a dessert without any eggs in the recipe and called it brigadeiro. Get it? Somehow, the story of the name on the web is much more PC and is about a different political figure, so who knows.

Basically, Rio is a perfect travel destination for me because it combines everything that I look for. There are beautiful and relaxing beaches, there’s city life, there are festivals with music and dancing, there are outdoor activities. Best of all, there is an amazing culture of friendliness and hospitality and the majority of people I encountered were so welcoming to us as foreigners. I am hoping to get the chance to experience Brazil again soon. I’ve been accumulating lots of visas and reciprocities lately, but my 10 year tourist visa for Brazil is the one that I hope to get the most use out of. Since I did not have much time there, I kind of look at that trip as an interactive, albeit very expensive, guidebook. For as many things as I experienced in Rio, I learned of at least one other that I am looking forward to coming back to do.

I think it’s time for photos to start speaking for themselves again.