El Norte de Chile: sometimes it's better not to plan

Even more current update: Classes started. FINALLY! So far I'm taking a class called "Seguridad Cuidadana en Chile y AL" and another called "Estado y Desarrollo Sustentable".
We shall see if I last in these classes.

Current update : recently, its been raining quite a bit. Like now. Pouring and windy. Yum. Good and Bad. Bad because you get soaked. Shoes, clothes that are supposedly water-repellent, and it's not hard to get sick after a rainy day. BUT Good because it cleans the air. The sunny days that have been following the rainy ones have been so beautiful: you can actually see the snow-covered Andes behind Santiago, the air is crisp, the skies are blue, and everyone and their mothers are outside running, biking, rollerblading, kids playing in the parks. Its a beautiful sight. So I guess it's worth getting sick.

And now back to the belated updates:

So as I said before, we got to the airport at dark 5:30ish am for our 8am flight. Little did we know this was no LAX. I really don't know why I'm making a big story out of this, but I thought it was funny because when we got here we had no idea where our counter was-that was because it wasn't set up yet. It was a strange experience watching the pantallas (screens) with horarios (schedules) popping up 30 mintues AFTER we arrived at the airport. People were setting up those rope-things that made organized lines, others were pushing in the AirComet plaque-on-a-stick at the start of the line (in order to notify people that those counters were AirComet) . Anyways, we got our tickets and braced ourselves for the security line-which we soon learned barely existed. It took literally 2 minutes to go through the security checkpoint (only because it took 2 minutes to walk from the counter to the checkpoint). Such a beautiful thing, not having to wait 4 million years to get past security. Flew to Antofagasta and had una escala (layover). Then off to Iquique!

Iquique is the main city of the "greater Iquique area". It's located in north, about 6 or so hours from the most north main city Arica. Según Wiki: "The city's name comes from the Aymara word "Ique-ique", which translates to "laziness", but can also mean "sleep" or "bed."' Pretty sweet right? The city is way more easy going that Santiago. It's unique (to me at least) because when we flew into the Iquique airport, all we saw were sand dunes... but as we drove towards this coastal city, suddenly a city popped up and along with it a beach fringing the whole place. We stayed in Backpacker's Hostel while being in Iquique. GOOD Hostel. Very easy-going environment, nicely furnished, relatively clean, and a wonderland for people who like to meet people from all over the world. The picture above is the balcony view from the 3rd floor. there was also a roughly built loft above the balcony that gave us a view of the city pretty much from rooftop view. (see below)

One of our travel buddies, Liz, got in contact with Roberto via Couch Surfer. After a nice 3 course lunch (for 5 bucks!), we met up with Roberto. Roberto is a super nice self-employed free-lance photographer/designer. He spent the whole day showing us around Iquique, his hometown. yo. Not only that, he brought along his fancy pants camera and took pictures of us as we went along (not in a creepy way, no worries). As we walked he told us his passion for meeting people all around the world. He learned some English (still practicing) when he joined Couch Surfer. His philosophy of life and the need to replenish the broken networks of trust between humans is quite lindo. We saw the beach, a little zoo, free churros from his uncle, walked around the boardwalk a bit, saw old buildings/towers/ fountains/ theaters, browsed street markety-things, had delicious jugo natural (ie. guayananaranja, mango-leche), met his family, and his studio where he works on his projects. It was seriously amazing that a stranger would take an entire day to show us around like that.

"el reloj" in the middle of the city iquique. pretty no?

A super old theater from the 1800's.. it was closed, but the nice guard let us in and even turned on the lights for us. COOL.

In the theater there were pictures posted all over the lobby of old plays that were done in the theater. One of them being. this one.

Within the next day we went museum hopping, bus and tour searching. In all reality, we had no idea what we were going to do next. Everything we did was nearly a whim. And I must admit, it was pretty darn fun not having any plans. "Lets go walk around. Right now..." "OK!" "Let's cook dinner tonight!" "OK!" "Let's go on a tour" "OK!".

Virgin Carmen
We went to a museum filled with history of the region. A lot of the exhibits were that of the La Tirana celebrations that had passed a week earlier. The story of La Tirana goes, as I understood it, like this: Once upon a time, in the time of the conquistadores, there lived an Inca princess. She was captured by a conquistador, but escaped into the bosques (woods) that had existed before they were cut down. She became the ruler over the area and killed any foreigner she saw (hence the name La Tirana- The Tyrant). All the local people were happy because they didn't like the foreigners bombarding their space and exploiting the people. Then one day, a foreign guy from Portugal (?) came along and they fell in love. He tamed her so that she wouldn't kill anymore people. And she didn't. BUT the local people were anger at her so they killed them both. The end.

We shared a room with Dorothee, a German 18 year-old who has been living in Bolivia for 3 years now. She came along for a little bit.

Like all big cities, on the periphery there were shanty-townish houses made of wood, tin, cloth, and pretty much anything else. It gave me a reality check. Poverty is still here.

We went on a tour with some random tour agency. (whim!) Explored Humberstone, an old abandoned salitre (sodium nitrate mines)... The whole place was abandoned about 1940s.. A lot of exploitation and oppressiveness against the workers. History repeats itself all over the world. One word: company-stores.

These worker shoes have wooden soles. The workers dunked these shoes in water in order to soften the wood, but once the wood dried out, their feet would get splinters stuck in them. ouch.

The ghost town. Damage from the 2005 earthquake (magnitude of 7.9 or something really high)

El Gigante. One of the biggest geoglyphs around. To get to this place, we essentially drove through the boonies, through the desierto with no road or car in site. Pretty surreal.

TO BE CONTINUED. (i HAVE to post NOW else Grace Mao Wu will go crazy. =P)