Feliz cumpleanos a mi! :)

Even though my birthday was on a Monday AND I had to teach a two hour English to third graders all by myself AND I had a midterm, I still found time to make my day fun! :)
I invited two friends over to have "once" with my host family. My host parents, two host brothers, and my host brother's best friend also came to celebrate with me.
Best gift: A banano aka A FANNY PACK! I now feel like an authentic Chilean. :)
Photo 1: My host family knows that I don't drink alcohol so they bought me a special beer "sin alcohol"-- without alcohol. Liz thought it was hilarious and proceeded to take about 230498 pictures of me with it.
Photo 2: My birthday gifts with our beverages.
Photo 3: Me with my host mom, Vickie.
Photo 4: Modeling my banano....
Photo 5: The jovenes. From left to right: Pablo (my host brother's best friend), Diego (my host brother), Me, Paige (a Tufts student who is also studying abroad in Chile).
Photo 5: My tres leches birthday cake. Complete with 20 trick candles. Oh Diego... :)

Valle de Elqui

On Saturday, October 9, I left for a weekend trip to Northern Chile. Because I had a three day weekend, I was able to see a great deal of the Valle de Elqui seven hour north of Santiago.
After our long bus ride, we visited Observatorio Mamalluco to stargaze. It was amazing! It was so exciting to see constellations that we can't see in the Northern Hemisphere.
The next morning, we headed to Monte Grande to visit the Gabriela Mistral Museum. We took a short hike up to her grave as well. After that, we cooled off in a nearby river. We were so excited to escape the overpopulation, smog, and schoolwork in Santiago!
From there, we headed to Pisco Elqui where we saw a Dia de La Raza parade. We did some exploring and had a picnic lunch by the river.
The next day we took a hike to the top of a mountain overlooking the city of Vicuna. We had breath- taking views of the entire Valle de Elqui.
We had a beautiful and relaxing weekend! :)
Photo 1: Me and Gabriela Mistral! :)
Photo 2: The view from Gabriela's grave. She's got it made.
Photo 3: Our private river/ swimming hole.
Photo 4: The church in Pisco Elqui's plaza.
Photo 5: Sunset in Valle de Elqui. This was taken on our bus ride between Pisco Elqui and Vicuna.
Photo 6: Mission accomplished! After our hike of Cerro La Virgen in Vicuna, Chile.

Valparaiso Take 2

On Saturday, September 25, I took a day trip to Valparaiso with about 15 other students from my exchange program.
We visited Chile's Naval museum, toured Pablo Neruda's home La Sebastiana, and had a picnic on the beach. It was a beautiful day! :)
Picture 1: The Chilean coast
Picture 2: The whole gang at La Sebastiana
Picture 3: Chile's Naval Museum

Iquique

After two full days in San Pedro de Atacama, we took an overnight bus up north to Iquique. Iquique is a beautiful city known for it's beaches, casinos, and PARAGLIDING.
On our first day, we explored the city, did a bit of shopping, and had a picnic on the beach. On the second morning, we went paragliding over the Chilean coast. It was incredible! My pictures and descriptions really don't do it justice. It was one of the most unreal and SCARY experiences of my life.
Photos 1-2: A beautiful morning in Iquique. :)
Photo 3: The girls in downtown Iquique.
Photo 4-6: PARAGLIDING
Photo 7: ME PARAGLIDING (the other three pictures are actually of Liz and Megan)

San Pedro de Atacama: Day 1 Part 1

On Thursday, September 9, I left for San Pedro de Atacama for three friends. After a semi- miserable 24 hour bus ride, we arrived in San Pedro just in time for dinner on Friday evening.
The next morning we got up at 4am for a tour of the El Tatio Geysers. Although we were extremely exhausted and cold, the geysers were beautiful and well worth the early wake up call. Next we headed to nearby hot springs to defrost. The hot springs were greatly appreciated after our freeeezing cold morning.
Photo 1: Me and El Tatio.
Photos 2-3: Various geysers...
Photo 4: Our beautiful view from the hot springs.
Photo 5: The whole group warming up a bit.

San Pedro de Atacama: Day 1 Part 2

After visiting the geysers and hot springs, we took a hike to see "special cactus" and an unknown surprise, which our tour guide was VERY EXCITED to show us. The surprise ended up being a beautiful river leading to a waterfall. In the middle of the world's driest desert. Pretty cool in my book.
The waterfall hike concluded our first tour of the day. After a 30 minute lunch break, we headed out on our second tour of the day. This tour took us to the salt flats where we took a swim (or should I say floated?) in a lake with a very very high salt density. It was difficult to enjoy the fact that we could float in the water since it was SO COLD. We had to keep moving around just to make the temperature of the water semi- bearable.
After that, we headed to a large salt lake to watch the sunset. It was beautiful :)
Photo 1: Vicunas. Photo cred goes to Megan Libby on this one.
Photos 2-4: Photos from the cactus/ surprise waterfall hike.
Photo 5: The whole group-- pre- COLD swim.
Photo 6: Photo fun in the middle of Atacama.
Photo 7: Volcan Lincancabur and one of the world's largest salt lakes. Quite the view. :)

Sandboarding and Valle de La Luna

On our second day in San Pedro de Atacama, we went sandboarding. Yes, that's a real thing. After a two hours of failure, we watched the sunset over Valle de La Luna. It was breathtaking to say the least! The pictures really don't do it justice.
Photo 1: A blooper shot from sandboarding attempt #1. The first thing we learned was how to get up after we fall.
Photo 2: The whole group!
Photo 3: I slowly but surely improved.
Photos 4-6: Sunset over Valle de La Luna.
Photo 7: Another Liz Hallack original. :)