im going to miss these mountains.

last weekend i camped out gypsy style with a bunch of my friends at this awesome little beach on the shore. we obviously fell under the choripan-palta spell again, and i officially have decided i will never touch, let alone eat choripan or avocado for a longg time. its way too stressful.


because who really needs a tent?
lena, jackie, me and austin (note that lena and jackie are sharing a sleeping bag)


our camping grounds.


around the campfire <3

how bittersweet it is to think that in a little over a week i will be back in the united states...and in rockville. on monday afternoon i fly out of santiago :( and into buenos aires where i will spend the week doing that argentine thing (and maybe mix some uruguay into it) with a nice little mix of the friends i met through my study abroad program and hopefully some new ones...

im never eating choripan again.

so I decided to go on a full on camping trip for the first time, and what better place than San Pedro de Atacama--the driest desert in the world. sounds appealing, yeah? as sarcastic as that was intended, my experience was anything but dry (pun intented..haha so lame, but I had to put it in there).

Anna, Lena and I flew up to Antofogasta and then bused it to San Pedro, at which point we met up with Jackie, Derick and Briteye at the camping grounds. I believe there is something in the air up there because you feel like you are on a high of sorts (and we didnt even have to take the san pedro...)

The town itself is pretty turisty, but being the travelers that we are, we have gotten pretty damn good at getting around paying tourist prices. what, what. so, on saturday night, lena, anna, jackie and i hopped in a chilean man's army-style truck with a french couple, and all of us drove to the salt flats. the water at these flats are saturated with salt to the point that when you jump in, you immediately float to the top. When we first arrived, the flats were crowded with tourists, but no more than half an hour later it was just our truck of people...and so we watched the sunset together. And saw wild flamingoes flying over head. It was magical.


the four of us relaxing at the flats :)


the moon coming up

on sunday, we rented bikes in the morning, first heading to rio san pedro. after some wrong turns we finally got to the water and came across a lovely french couple who invited us to go swimming, we obviously followed and happily stripped down to our bathing suits giving the couple room to enjoy the surroundings. it wasnt until maybe 10 minutes later when we caught them casually having sex maybe 15 feet away that we were a little unsettled at the situation. at any rate it wasnt too long before they parted ways, and we set up a little picnic and enjoyed our private space (for the most part).


a picture of me biking through the desert

after lunch, we made our way to valle de la luna, a famous spot in san pedro for watching the sunset. it was filled with tourists who bused their way up. we were gypsies and walked/biked first to some caverns and then eventually made our way towards the sunset. it was breath taking...


Valle de la Luna!