Home again home again jiggity jog.

Well I am back in Afton, MN! It feels like a whirlwind as I revise photos not believing it was only days ago I was on another continent and frankly in another world. I can't write one blog entry to sum up the last month of my trip but I will try to highlight the main points as to not leave you hanging. Of course it could be a reason for us to get together in person as I'm happy to tell anyone about any part of the trip.

First finals hit HARD. And then one of them I studied my last wknd in Valpo and found out my grade was high enough I didn't have to take it and if I took it it would be 40% of my grade so I didn't want to risk it. Then we took off for Santiago (we being me my infamous travel companion Caitlin and myself).

The Biblioteca Nacional (National Library) is not an exclusion of the bureaucracy that Chile has. We went there to get books for our senior projects regarding the Mapuche, an indigenous tribe in Chile. Despite the fact that the books had numbers that one could easily scan for a book, we had to fill out a slip of paper for EACH book with the author, title, and "collection" and "section." The room looked like where one would go to study a bar exam with the huge desk lamps and long rectangle tables. You would receive a number, of course with no such order, and after giving them a deposit, luckily I had my passport on me since I was headed to Peru after, you would wait as they disappeared into the abyss (I'm not kidding!) and magically appear minutes later with your books. We had filled out 20+ slips and disappointedly found out that we could only check out two books at a time. AND not all the books were in this room. And we couldn't multitask as I so successfully do normally because they had our passports. After a LONG 6 hours of finding information and paying 10 cents a page for photocopying, we made our way to the University of Chile which has a lot of information on the Mapuche music, my topic. THe librarian was very stubborn and told me I had to have a slip from the Catolica saying I could check out books from her library but then a wonderful saving grace Chilean let me use her card and the librarian had no doubts to help me then. I will NEVER understand their system!

Northern Chile is a whole 'nother atmosphere. THe people are so hospitable and helpful. Everyone says hello and I loved it! Unfortunately my so heavily anticipated mangos did not appear, but yesterday Sam's Club had mangoes from Mexico so that seven month craving has FINALLY been satiated.

Peru-We had arrived in Tacna, Peru, a town with not much more than a pretty plaza, a zona franca (where everything is tax free and much cheaper) and many many pollerias (chicken restaurants) around 5 pm thinking we would arrive in Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru and very colonial, that night..Well, due to transportation strikes, many companies were hesitant to travel to avoid fruit getting thrown at them, and the ones that were traveling were only traveling during the night. Finding out we would arrive at 430 am the next morning we advised our couchsurfer and he had no problem with us coming to his house at 430 am! However, the ride to get there involved Peruvians selling things at 3-4 am, yet another bad movie till 1 am, a lady singing at all hours of the night, a sweater to cover myself up but not just me, she was literally handing out her whole winter wardrobe to the bus! All the women were carrying their babies in brightly colored knapsacks and had these huge mesh bags filled with who knows what. You could eat an abundant meal for the equivalent of $1.15!

Macchu Picchu-The Sacred Valley is beautiful and it was really fun to meet up with another Lutherite (Laura) and explore the Pisaq ruins together, huge Incan ruins. After a day of these though, one can easily tire of ruins. But Macchu Picchu..after a 7 hr bus ride of winding turns going up and down the mountainside through cloud forests and podunk towns, of course not without rain nor vendors selling food for 33 cents, we finally arrived at Santa Maria. A town with really nothing. After waiting an hour for the Argentines to finish their lunch we set off in an hr and a half van ride, filled past capacity-18 people, one on the roof!- with six different nationalities to the hydroelectric plant of Santa Teresa where we walked 8 km along the railroad tracks to arrive at Aguas Calientes, the town where Macchu Picchu is located. Only there is it cheaper to go out to eat than buy food in the store. After a 2 hr climb of pure stairs the next morning at 4 am guided solely by moonlight, and many other blinding flashlights, we arrived at the top. It was a GRAND challenge but I definitely have bragging rights now! We also were in the 400 people to climb Waynapicchu; only 400 can climb per day. Macchu Picchu was amazing and it was so worth getting there to early to have the ruins to ourselves and 100 other people instead of the thousands that tramped across from the Jungle trail and less ambitious that took the bus later on. We then climbed down and walked the 8 km back out that same day arriving in Santa Teresa where it was raining and there was no transportation to Santa Maria so we spent the night in a hostel for 3 bucks, crashing with profuse exhaustion at 8 pm (we had done everything in 24 hrs!).

Puno, Peru where Lago Titicaca is located doesn't have hardly anything in the city but the islands of Lago Titicaca were amazing. I have full intent to return to see the islands i didn't have time for (once again, we were only there for a day). The island we did get to go to was called Uros and the whole island is made out of reeds and the roots of reeds. When there is a meeting they tie up the islands and when there is a dispute they cut the islands, literally, with a saw. Not only is the island made out of reeds, they use it as fuel for the fire, their boats, their houses, everything! The most incredible thing was that they had television and electricity-battery powered! Talk about efficiency!

Iqueque, Chile was interesting with the festival and many dancers, although miniscule compared to the 100,000 tourists that usually come, cancelled due to swine flu. Which frankly i don't understand, how can you not cancel a futbol game, the metro, a mall, where people are gathered as well?

San Pedro was BEAUTIFUL! Not a desert like I had ever expected. Much higher up, beautiful salt bodies of water (not sure what these are called in English) and reflections like a mirror making for one of the most amazing sunsets I had ever seen, followed the next day by the anticipated amazing sunset in Valle de la Luna (look up pics on google my cam doesn't do justice!). However, you'd think the dryest desert in the world would be warm when frankly I was quite cold having packed for desert climate. Especially when we woke up at 4 am to visit the geysers reaching temps of 10-20?F. It was a nice end to the trip to be in a hostal again singing guitar, cooking communely, and sharing stories (the rest of the trip we did couchsurfing or buses).

Unfortunately, when I went to Vicuña where the museum of Gabriel Mistral is and one of the biggest observatories where you can look at the night sky through a 30 cm telescope, it was raining and the museum was closed, so I educated myself on how pisco was made and that was Vicuña.

The last days in Valpo were teary-eyed, sleepless days but full of wonderful memories of salsa dancing, eating typical Chilean food, discoteques, watching my last ocean sunset, and despedidas (goodbyes)

And now I'm back here! How strange! I look forward to seeing all of you and thank you for following my adventures. Pics should be up shortly.

Sara