San pedro de Atacama

San pedro de Atacama- located in Northern Chile it is the DRIEST place on earth averaging less than 1 mm of rain a year. Some places in this huge desert have no signs of EVER having rain. And while that makes is sound barren and awful, it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

You fly into Calama to get there. Calama is nothing but a mining tow; A mining town where literally billions of dollars a DAY are made from the rich copper and other precious metals in the area. Once in Calama, you take a bus to San Pedro. San Pedro started as a most villages in the area have, a small group of people settling in an oasis. Then in the 1500’s, catholic missionaries built a church there. Being so close to many incredible natural features it recently has developed into a tourist get-away. Honestly, the 4 x 4 block “city” has no permanent residents. It is only made of travelers and people catering to them. The village is almost completely adobe buildings built long ago, and dirt roads connecting them. There is a main plaza/ square build around this 500 year old church and it is all so calm and beautiful. But all you will see and hear are foreigners, from all over the world. Different languages spoken everywhere, its kinda neat.

We did a handful of pretty incredible tours. From going to see sun-set over Moon Valley, to seeing geysers at sunrise and swimming in natural hot springs, to going on a “star tour” where we got to hear all about the night sky here in the southern hemisphere while starting up at the BEST place on earth to view the sky. Then on a bunch of the days we just rented mountain bikes (a full day for a whopping $6) and road out through the desert to have our own adventures. We went and saw ruins from a village constructed over 2,000 years ago, we went up the river through the canyon looking for alleged paragliphs. Didn’t find them, but did find some cool caves and lots of rocks to climb on. And it was a beautiful day ride. Another day Andrew and I rented bikes and went out to the salt flats, to the salt lakes were you more float than swim because of all the salt. It was REALLY hard to get there, going against the wind, through the sand, and a lot longer than expected, but the sensation of floating in the water made it so worth it. AND I just happened to run into a couple friends I know from my church in Santiago who happened to be there at the same time. I can tell a country is becoming more like home when I start seeing people I know in very random places. Then on the last day I rented a bike and a sand board and biked through the desert up to the volcanoes where there are some amazing sand duns and taught myself how to sand board. It was an incredible view, and sand boarding was a blast, and I only saw 2 other people in the 5 hour trip. Talk about an incredible feeling, surrounded by volcanoes and sand duns and being completely alone. A good life perspective check.

Not to mention we had the privilege of touring the LARGEST open pit copper mine in the world. The scale of the production was incredible- moving literally thousands of tons of dirt every day, employing thousands of people every day, and making thousands of dollars per minute of operation. The pit alone was over 1 km wide and 1 km deep. Then the factory where they do the refining that is capable of producing tons of precious medals and natural sulfuric acid was its own town practically. It was really cool to be able to talk to someone to ask our millions of questions and actually understand how the process works. But my super environmentally conscious side couldn’t help but giving me a guilt trip the whole time just for being there…

Sadly I had to leave, but my flight to Santiago was right at sunset and I met 3 guys from Portugal and we had a grand time awing at the mountains and the ocean in one view under an incredible sunset. And… now I am Peru about to meet Caroline to hike the inca trail. So as hard as life is, I think I will make it.

Antafagasta: Rugby Nationals Circuit #1

Well here is yet another awesome adventure

to add to my ever growing gosh I am so blessed list:

I just got to help my rugby team here in Chile

WIN a national rugby title…

ya, that’s pretty neat.

It took me about 2 days in Chile before I found a rugby team. I was wearing a rugby shirt at our hostel and some guy ask me about it, turns out he’s a rugby coach for a local sports club Stade Frances. It wasn’t until my 4^th day in Chile that I went to my first Chilean rugby practice. So one problem, a that point, I didn’t speak or understand any Spanish, as opposed to now where I understand VERY little and can barely speak like a 3 year old. But the team is made of rugby gals and if you know anything about girls who play rugby, its that they are incredible. Welcoming, fun, loud, and always down for a good time- so I made my home fast. I have been training with them since July and all of it was in prep for this first National Tournament way up north in Antafagasta, Chile.

We flew out bright and early on a Friday morning and arrived to Antafagasta about 9am. Antafagasta is a small city on the coast in Northern Chile. It started as a mining town, and that is still its major income. The city is in the desert and on the coast, which makes for a beautiful combo. The flight in was gorgeous, you can see the mountains and the pacific ocean in once view with giant sand duns separating the 2. We were bused to our hotel which was right on the beach an immediately went to test out the waters... still cold. I got lots of cool team gear and really felt like one of the team members as they decided to force me to speak Spanish all weekend instead of translating into English for me.

Saturday we got to play about 4 games. They play 7’s here, so each game was short, but intense. And there were many other games and many other teams to watch. The first half of the first game our coach had me watch because I had never played a real game with the team before. Then starting at that half time and for the rest of the tournament Sabastian, our coach, put me in to play. I played a wing/prop, ya, weird I know. I lifted, and sometimes scrummed, but also played wing in the back line. It was a blast. You really become close to someone after you play rugby with them. So I REALLY got to know my team. We won all our games on Saturday which put us in 1^st place going into Sunday’s finals. We got to go swimming at the hotel pool Saturday after the games, and stretched a lot and were up early on Sunday to do it again.

We had 3 games on Sunday, all of which were very tuff and very close games. We faught hard and in the championship game late Sunday evening we went into sudden death overtime before winning the national title. We got a HUGE trophy, and we all got medals. So I now have an awesome Chilean Women’s rugby National medallion to show off. So cool. What a weekend!

Valdivia and the park of magic

I can not apologize enough for the lack of keeping up this blog. As Santiago became more of a home, it became awkward to blog about “normal” life here (mind you normal has been building toilets in slums, hiking volcanoes, sailing, rock climbing up the Andes and other such “normal” things). I have much to share and REALLY do need to be better at keeping this up. So I am going to jump around a bit. Just bare with me.

So Chris and I got the chance to head south with a couple people from CODEF to go view a small natural park on the coast. CODEF is the oldest environmental NGO in Chile. For a decades now they have been protecting various plants & animals through out Chile. We knocked on their main office door a couple months back and they were vary interested in the possibility of solar toilets in their parks. Specifically one park, 12 hours south of Santiago on the coast. This park was created about 20 years ago to preserve an Olivian Forrest, an endangered tree species native to Chile. Nothing was really done to make the park easy for people to visit because money ran out. Now they want to re-build the information center, and get the park ready to be an educational experience for visitors from around the world. And they want to make everything as self sustaining as possible, and as such are interested in us trying a solar toilet there, and they need a toilet quick as they start building down there.

So Patty, a Chilean girl about my age and heading up the project, invited us down to have a look. So Chris and I caught a night bus to Valdivia and met Patty and her friend Cristobel to go “check out the park”. AND WOW!!! What an area. The drive there alone was worth the trip down. We drove right along the coast line going north from Validivia. This area of the country is known for all of its rivers and channels that intersect and enter the ocean there. Between the bridges and islands, wild life and the coast itself, Chris and I were drop jaw the whole way. The park is situated right on the coast with beaches and cliffs combine together and then quickly become a deep forest so dense you can hardy see sunlight in many places. First Chris and I went to go play on the beach. The rocks were so much fun to climb over and the sand was so fine and felt so good on bear feet. The ocean was a vibrant blue color and fit amazing with the perfect blue sky and bright shining sun above. We had a great nap up on one of the cliffs next to where the old attempt at a visitors center stood, now an old abandoned building falling to pieces. Then we hiked up the cliff line to some amazing overviews of islands and cliffs reaching into the Pacific Ocean.

The other had to leave at this point and Chris and I opted to stay and camp out in the old abandoned building for the night. So we said goodbye and then Chris and I took off by ourselves into the thick forest/jungle to see what we could find. We were following random trails through amazing plant and animal life and suddenly we stumbled on it… the natural Olivian Forest and WOW-WIE! These trees are like red woods in their size wide as the size of a car and so high you can’t see the tops, except that these are so much more vibrant with colors. Greens of all colors where every where and blinded you as they reflected the rays of sunlight passing through tree tops. Then not to mention this whole forest was growing right on the ocean so you had the blue blue of the ocean and the constant sound of the waves to add to the effect. We felt as if we were walking through a dream. It was incredible.

That night a huge storm came in off the coast. Wind and rain pummeled the old building we had pitched our tent in. It was awesome to read by flash light while listening to rain hit the tin roof. While the roof leaked, and the building didn’t have any windows I was still really happy that it wasn’t just us and the tent out in that storm.

The next day we caught a bus back into Valdivia to explore the city a bit. A day of watching sea lions, eating fresh sea food caught only moments before and going on a boat tour up the channels was pretty nice- specifically when the boat tour became a kind of pub-craw as they took us to local houses that make their own local drinks. Everything from home made beers to Chicha, it was delicious.