PATAGONIA---

Here I come!!

El fin--el ultimo fin de semana en Santiago de Chile para me.

It's almost over and it's so bittersweet.

I have one final on Wednesday and then my study abroad program in Santiago is over. While I begin to pack away my clothes, it's difficult to fathom the finality of it. Three years of college planning for this adventure. As I reflect, I believe my Chilean experience was exactly perfect, full of adventure, traveling, new friends, many wonderful moments, and of course, Spanish language learning. Cachai?

This weekend was the perfect cap to it all. Last minute a few friends and I decided to board the bus and head to a beach near the port city of Valpo. One more gypsy weekend, as we call our frugal camping/beach lifestyle. The beach was beautiful, rugged and even rewarded us with a night skyline view of Vina del Mar, the adjacent beach resort town to Valpo. It was cloudy and a little chilly for a December day in the southern hemisphere, but we enjoyed looking at the chilly water and talking together one last time before all of our lives change dramatically again.

Wednesday, after my final, Joe, Lena and I are heading down to the deep south for Patagonia, then, Buenos Aires for Christmas. I can't wait, but right now I'm trying to soak up these last few days in Santiago before my final South American adventure begins.

SAN PEDRO de ATACAMA...

..was so great it deserved all caps.

Thanksgiving came and went. Living in Santiago, if I wasn't an American, I would have no idea that the past Thursday had any significance up north. Nevertheless, a few friends and I celebrated in a mix of American and Chilean spirit with fresh salmon from the Mercado Central, mashed potatoes with a land mine of garlic, salad with homemade dressing and Chile's famously delicious Camernere red wine. It was satisfying and more than filling, just like a traditional Thanksgiving feast.

Five hours later, the four of us taxied it to the airport for the Norte grande of Chile, onward to San Pedro, famous for being the driest place in the world. Some places have never recorded rainfall, the parts that do receive rain are sprinkled with H2O two to three days a year each summer. A million years ago, however, a large river carved caves and rock formations that question the human mind of what is normal. The Valley of the Moon, el Valle del Luna, is the perfect example. While walking through the high arching red rock craters, one, inevidently, feels on another world. Hence the name. Today, however, some rivers still exist. Including el rio de San Pedro where my friends and I biked to. After an hour and a half of biking in the dry, red wasteland, the trickling river seemed an imaginary oasis. Upon example of the French couple that led us in the direction of it, we rubbed our arms and legs with the mud to cool off. Before leaving, we spread out our food for a delicious picnic lunch. In the extreme heat of the afternoon, we biked back to town and onward to the Valley of the Moon, where we suffered the harsh wind of the dessert in the absence of anything--vegetation, buildings, elevation of any kind. Seven miles later and an hour before sunset, we arrived, exhausted. Large, loaded tour buses blew past us, as we walked the remaining half mile to the large valley. The pact we made, if we were going to spend the money to travel to San Pedro, was that we would not do a tour, despite the belief of many that to enjoy San Pedro, you must do a tour. The tourist town of San Pedro is lined with tour companies offering everything from sandboarding, geyser tours, horsetrekking to flamengo spotting. We prevailed by biking, walking and arranging transport via a resident at our campsite, although admittedly we smelled and looked quite disgusting after the four days of no showering and weathering the elements of dust, mud, sweat and salt without air-conditioning of any kind. As a result, this led to a special kind of satisfaction, especially while those in the tour buses looked down upon us as we biked by the moonlight from the sunset in the valley.

To round out our San Pedro weekend, we also floated in salt lagoons. A curiosity indeed. The crystal blue lagoons contain enough salt that the water makes one impossibly buoyant. Even bobbing like a pencil is difficult. If you don't resist it, the salt mixture forces your feet up to the surface within seconds. By arriving to the lagoons apart from a tour, we will allowed to stay after sunset and watch wild flamengos fly overhead in the sky and watch one of the most beautiful sunsets over the towering volcanoes. It was beautiful and frugal.

Urug-why?

Joe, Nidhi (our Aussie friend from Santiago's journalism network) and I jumped the Andes and flew to the Atlantic, landing in Montevideo, Uruguay for a long weekend stay.

Uruguay is a small country, roughly the size of North Dakota, with approx. an equal population size. What makes Uruguay unique? Not much, I gathered, in all honesty. Although some could say bobbing matte gourds in the hands of all those wandering the streets, that, and the pride of winning futbol's first World Cup in 1930, according to my backpacker source of Lonely Planet.

I found meat, remote beaches, ostrich farms, and a small, indescript population of people. Neither loud, rapid speakers like Chileans, nor slow-speaking, amable people like Peruvians, or bubbly Argentines. Uruguay, for now, will be stamped with a big question mark, I have determined.

In a nutshell, our trio biked throughout most of the capitol city of Montevideo. Its pearl is the golden white sand coast that hugs the city's curves. The ocean water, however, slaps the clean beauty with a contrasting dirty puke brown. I didn't dare step my toes in its contaminants, although I'm sure I would have been fine. After all, I did soak in Lima's trash strewn Pacific coast.

After the toast of sun during our three hour bike ride on our beach cruisers, we arrived at Uruguay's flagship market, the Mercado del Puerto. Hidden within this atmospheric mercado are a string of restaurants serving meat with meat, toped with a great meat sauce, seriously. We devulged with a meat medley of steak, chicken, intestines, mystery meat, and even blood sausage (which I secretly enjoyed--this thought still grosses me out), all toped with a grilled red pepper to balance our overflowing meat pot. We sat next to the grill and I could feel my body swelling as we chewed our tender carcasses.

At an early 5:30 a.m. wake up call, we boarded the bus to Punto Lobes (incorrect, I forget the exact name) and slugged five hours by Uruguayan cattle, sheep, and ostrich (?) farms to arrive at the country's most remote and rural beach town. The village consisted of a few decaying restaurants and many abandoned buildings. I found it quite strange and perculiar. To be cont.

Well hello again.

The past 24 hours have been quite interesting, well, really it was just five minutes within that time span that expresses that.

After a power-packed workout at Andres Bello, including an air-boxing class with Chile's Billie Banks and a 30 minute cycling session, I was exhausted and half-way to my apartment on my walk home when the incident occurred. I was probably stressing about today's looming mid-term, listening to music on my ipod, when a street thief came running from behind unexpectedly and snatched my ipod. I, however, was not about to have that, no matter how tired I was. I screamed, what you could compare to a bloody murder horror scene, "Oh NO, not my ipod," and then took off after the runner. He darted past the bus stop, but in the shuffle, I realized that my ipod had been tossed, or at least I was hoping. I turned around, deciding it wasn't worth the effort to chase him, crossing my fingers with hope that I was right about the toss. I looked back with disappointment, if it had dropped, the area in question was covered with Chilean boys. Oh no, my ipod, I thought. But in a strike of good fortune, three chilean boys approached me with my ipod in hand. "Cuidado," they said. Be careful. Then they asked,"Were you scared?" I clutched my chest, "yes," not realizing until that moment how silly my move had been, but my ipod and I were safe. I chucked to myself. So, so silly. Just like a Chilean once told weeks ago, "In this country, someone is always watching you. You need to be careful." Although I think I would change that description to staring for better accuracy. On the rest of that walk home, I noticed every eye's gaze.

Word to wise.

Start from the bottom and work your way up to follow the sequence, otherwise you may be quite confused.

The end.

But onward we trudged to the boat on our lake tour. Lago Titikaka is the worldest's highest lake and splits its boundaries between Bolivia and Peru. I only saw the Peruvian side, but the crystal, sublime blue of the lake created lasting impressions in my mind for the hours we relaxed in the sun on the top of our cruiser. I attempted to redeem my sleep-deprived body with cat naps on the top deck.

The first island was a floating reed isla, comprised of 43 individual floating communities, this place puzzled me. It was incredibly touristy and quite fake, in my opinion. I'm still searching for the most appropriate description of it. Disneyland? Still, I enjoyed it. We danced, we doned "typical" island costumes, and snapped "hello, i'm on a floating reed island pictures." I bought a porcelin fish bowl I was particularly fond of, until it broke in various pieces, hours later.

Four hours of chugging on the sea, we arrived at our homestay island, a desolate place inhabitated by 4,000 people, almost all descendents of the Incans. Most of the older generation speaks only Quecha (sp?), the official language of the Incans, however, the younger generation is taught in Spanish in the island's elementary and high school.

Allison, my roommate, however, was unfortunately suffering from altitude sickness and slept away most of the day. I too fell asleep early, around 8, but before, I enjoyed one of the most spectacular sunsets with the rich, creamy blend of colors reflecting over the lake atop the highest point of the hilly island. I could feel the steep ascent as I climbed, the altitude luckily only affected me in the sense of shortness of breath while I trekked the Incan stone steps. I still arrived first to the top, before any of my other 20 boat mates.

After a 6 a.m. breakfast of a crep-like pancake and nescafe powder, we visited our final island, a previous prison for Peru's criminals. After the end of that reign, the island's residents now live tax-free for compensation, although officially it only acted as a prison for four years. We ate trout fresh from the lake and slurped sopa (soup) con quinoa (a Peruvian grain I have become quite fond of).

The next 25 hours involved the transition between Puno and Lima. Lonely Planet told me it would take 19 hours, it's not exciting realizing that while en route you have an additional six hours, but we survived. I even crocheted a red headband with my time and added a pound of grease to my hair, also I don't think I've smelled that gross since....hmmmmmmm. I don't think I can finish that.

Lima was like a large light at the end of a mainly dessert and sea filled ride of shacks and very poor, rural villages. Despite Lima's shining gloss, Peru is still a third-world country and that ride showed me evidence of that.

After a much-needed shower, we walked around Lima's centro historico district and visited the city's nearby beach in Miraflores. I jumped in the salty and quite dirty sea water. I pulled a bird feather off my body as I exited the sludge and soaked up the heat of the sun of the rock shoreline. But I'm not sick, despite gulping an accidental mouth full of water, luckily. My roommate, Joe, however, is feeling the effects of Peruvian cuisine with an upset stomach still.

In the morning we finished our trip with the perfect goodbye to Lima and Peru by paragliding over the sea and Lima's tall skyscrapers. It was magical and I felt like I was flying. Ah, I love Peru.