CHILE

Chile was the first stop during my journey, as it borders Peru to the south. I took a colectivo taxi across the border to Arica, the northernmost city in Chile, which is in the middle of a very arid, dry and desert-y terrain but is right on the Pacific Ocean as well. I actually got dropped off at the bus station after a six hour bus ride, waited 20 minutes and got on another bus headed for La Serena...which lasted 22 hours. It's funny because as I write this I'm on a bus and have spent so much time on them, over 100 hours in two weeks, that 22 hours doesn't even sound painful to me anymore--I've built up great public transportation endurance ;-) Flying anywhere in South America is extremely expensive and buses here are not only very comfortable (with better food and service than airplanes) but are extremely inexpensive as well. I also avoided paying over $100 in both Chile and Argentina that apparently is supposed to be paid in the airport upon arrival. 

La Serena is a beach town about six hours north of Santiago and I wasn't there too long because it was more of a stop over point-I did, however, see 'Eclipse' there and learn that my cousin was in labor, so there are good memories there :-)

The beautiful city of Santiago was next on my itinerary, and I absolutely fell in love (...until I met its competition, Buenos Aires). Santiago is the cleaner, more old-fashioned looking, prettier yet smoggier, more mountainous version of New York City. Not to mention, I stayed at an awesome hotel there with a great breakfast buffet and steaming hot water (I took a bath for three hours), so that added some points to the city as well. There's this thing called a funicular there that is similar to a huge cable car that goes up steep tracks to a look-out point where you can see the whole city. The smog is definitely the downside of the city, but once you get over that you're left with beautiful buildings sprawled out with the snow-topped Andes mountains in the background. I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around, trying to understand the español chileno, which is beyond difficult to understand due to their different pronunciation and very quick sentences.

The last city I visited was San Pedro de Atacama, in the north part of the country, which boasts some of the most beautiful landscape in Chile. The town raises out of the desert...there literally isn't even a bus terminal, the bus just pulled off into the dirt and stopped. Even though I'm biased because I loved the Andes so much, the montañas here were second best. I woke up at 3:30 (yet again...) to go on a tour of the famous geysers they have there. Daybreak is the best time to see them because of the low temperatures (it was -15 degrees Celsius)--they explode when the hot magma under the surface comes in contact with the cold air, so the bigger the difference in these temperatures, the  more impressive the geysers. There are over 30 of them in this one area and even though I was absolutely freezing (I want VA humidity asap!), it was well worth seeing, especially since I've never seen anything like it before. There's a hot spring there too where people were actually swimming (it's verrry hot, 185 degrees F) and it's supposed to be very healthy for you as well, if you believe what they say. On the way back, we stopped at a frozen river and saw wild vicuñas (a smaller, endangered llama), llamas and burros, and we also went to one of the smallest towns in the world--literally only seven people live there.

Chile is worlds apart from Peru. For one, the infrastructure is more developed and I felt like I was in actual 'civilization again.' (note: this is only the differences from Cusco, I'm sure Lima is completely different) The fashion there is also more up-to-date and people dress more 'in style.' For me, Cusco is how I imagined South America before I came here-indigenous people and more poverty. In Chile, however, the people are a lot whiter. I could pass off as a chilena (and was actually asked if I was!)...and we're all aware of my paleness. I honestly felt, especially in La Serena, that I was in the States. Now if only their Spanish wasn't so aggravatingly hard to understand...