We survived Santiago and made it onto the plane to the Atacama Desert. We arrived with high expectations of stars, sand, salt, big rocks and sun.

Stars

I’ve collected earrings from each continent we’ve been to (the only souvenir I can fit in my backpack). We have correlated stars with Atacama for as long as we have been planning the trip; the bar was set high. I had already bought my South American earrings: they were stars. I had never really seen the Milky Way, but my parents had, including on their anniversary trip to Peru. They were excited for me to see it. We booked a viewing at the planetarium. On the night of our reservation, we waited at midnight in the dark for the van to pick us up. After being at the planetarium for a while, I discovered I wouldn’t be seeing the Milky Way. Sadly, the Milky Way was positioned below the horizon and the sliver of moon gave off too much light. Triste. With our chin still up we walked into a room with a large telescope. That’s when I saw it: Saturn. I peered through the scope: a milky cream-beige dot and around it, almost like a halo, there was a crisp solid ring. There are actually more rings around Saturn but the telescope wasn’t powerful enough to see all of them. Instead, all of the rings looked like one. The ring was only about the size of my pinkie finger on the telescope but it took up my whole mind to process what I was looking at. We saw more, too: nebulae that looked like rainbow chalk paint, craters on the moon and star constellations that included the Pleiades (a constellation that has seven stars and one of the stars is named Maia)! The stars were maybe not what we expected but they were still pretty great.

Sand (and Salt)

I don’t know what people picture when they think of the Atacama. Maybe, it’s stars or large rocks, but for me it was sand. Multi-colored sand painted the ground. It was pretty until the wind came. Large piles of sand departed into the sky, creating a very uncomfortable walk or run. One day, a huge dust storm lifted up into the sky. Dust devils spiraled up into the air and ran across the open landscape. We were driving along the road, when a big cloud of dust in front of us emerged. When we entered the cloud, we could only see as far as ten feet. Finally, we left the cloud behind us. There was also lots of salt. One of the main attractions was the salt pools. We went to the first pool and we saw 4 flamingos! The second salt pool was one that you could swim in. Supposedly, you could easily float because of all the salt. Now, let me tell you, this is true, but what they never tell you is that the salt hurts really, really, really bad! I had to get out after almost two minutes because the sting was getting so intense I couldn’t stand it any longer. When I got out, my skin was bright red and raw. It hurt sooo bad! Despite this, the quantity of the sand and salt was still pretty amazing!

Rock Formations

The entire town was made out of rock/stone walls. It looked like a desert fort in Egypt. The rock formations were outstanding! Red, tan, white and other colors were striped into the rocks. Thousands of different shapes of rock were always towering over you or you were stepping on them.

Sun

The sun was intense; it burned throughout the day, and when it set, the temperature dropped significantly. It wasn’t as cold as we had expected it to be. I had been prepared to put on five layers or more to sleep in. In the day, if you weren’t wearing sunglasses, you had to be wearing a sun hat.

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NEXT STOP: BUENOS AIRES part 1

A new country: Chile. We had debated a lot if we were going to continue to go to Santiago or if we should rewrite our plans. This was because there were violence and protests in Chile. Santiago is the capital city, so that’s where the violence was mainly happening. After much going back and forth, we decided to go. We went not for the scenery and sights, but because we would have lost or spent a lot of money if we went somewhere else. Also, we had made plans to meet up with my grandparents in Santiago. At dawn in the morning of October 22nd, we boarded the plane.

It all seemed peaceful when we arrived. We talked with the Airbnb host and she said that we were going to be fine in our neighborhood, which was good but not enough to completely forget that we were in a war zone. The president had called a state of emergency; we all still had doubts. I don’t think any of us slept well that night. Thoughts of violence, corruption and lack of food all nipped at us in our sleep.

The next day, we decided we were going to venture out and see what was happening. We stopped by a grocery store that was fortunately open, and went in. When my mom was about to buy the stuff, she said she needed another bag from dad, who was standing outside. I went out and retrieved the bag. My dad said that I better watch out because the guards were not letting people in anymore. I started walking to the door, prepared to get a “no.” Suddenly, a large crowd came out, and with all the commotion I slipped in, only to be noticed by one guard who pointed at me and cocked his head, but didn’t bother to stop me.

All of the streets were somehow marked with presence of the army, a constant reminder to the locals that their city and home was not the same. On some streets, large groups of men in full body armor and large rifles stood like statues that could awake in seconds and everything could turn into chaos. On other streets we saw many not well-loved vehicles that transported new prisoners cuffed that day, and other vehicles that sprayed the throat-burning tear gas that made you enter into a world of misery. The last vehicle was one that sprayed water on a very high blast at people who were causing a ruckus. These three vehicles had seen better days; they were covered in paint and dents from people that thought they were rebels saving the world, and in actuality they were destroying their city as they knew it.

There was a park right outside our AirBnb. We had changed our reservation to a further out, rich neighborhood, and the park confirmed that’s where we were. Unlike the rest of the city, this park remained normal. Roses towered over us like an umbrella and the grass was freshly cut. Later in our visit, we came back to this park in search of helado (ice cream). We found a little truck vender that sold “Thai helado.” Another name for them was “rollitos.” Like rolls. We found out why: the ice cream was rolled up into rolls! We ordered strawberry. He grabbed two strawberries, some creamy milk stuff and two large knives. He threw the strawberries onto a big, flat, freezing cold pan. He drizzled the cream over it, and in one big practiced movement he cut the strawberries into a million different pieces. He spread the strawberry goop across the pan until he was satisfied with the flatness. Then, he started scraping it off bit by bit into a roll shape; then, he carefully placed each roll in a cup. It was delicious!

We met up with my grandparents at their hotel called Castillo Rojo (red castle). It was a castle and it was red, and very fancy. One day, with my grandparents, we decided to go to Valparaíso. Valparaíso is a beach side city on the coast of Chile next to Santiago. We used a funicular to get up a hill to a famous neighborhood. The neighborhood supposedly had painted staircases and cool graffiti. We had lunch there, and then we got back in the car to go back to Santiago. We started driving along one road in Valparaíso. We stopped at a stop light, and I turned to look out of the window. Every other person was wearing a mask, I knew something was wrong.

I had learned what masks meant: the people wearing masks were expecting tear gas and violence. They wore masks so that the tear gas maybe wouldn’t hurt so bad, and the mask would be covering their face so no one could see who they were: protesters. In the peaceful marches not many people were wearing masks. As we pulled up to a large intersection, everyone in the car knew what was going on. Car horns beeping, pots banging and people chanting: these were all signs of a march happening, and we were right in the middle of it. At the corner of my eye, I saw the hated water cannon. People by it were fleeing everywhere, but most people just went on chanting. The pots banged in my ear. My dad, who was driving, said this was not good and we had to get out of here. People started to pick up rocks. Expecting the worst, I closed my eyes and lowered my head below the window. Finally, we maneuvered out of the large mass of people and sped down the road. With both ears still plugged I asked if it was over. My mom replied, “ Yes, I think so.”

The news was one of the main ways we saw the destruction. On the last night of our stay, my mom and I sat transfixed in front of the tv, the news blaring on about the fire that we could see out our window. Protesters had set a subway station and a supermarket on fire, along with lots of other important buildings. We could see the red glow of the subway station coming from down below and it looked even worse on tv. A video of flames towering above a supermarket was pasted on the tv. We watched stunned by the horribleness of it all. People dashed into the store, despite the flames, and carried off whatever items they could fit into their arms. Who were the criminals? Were they the president and government that the protesters were pointing their finger at? Or, was it the protesters themselves, who steal from the burning stores and who disobey the rules that make our world better?

One afternoon, when just out of curiosity we switched on the tv, we saw another incident on the news. The title said: “Miles de personas se reúnen ahora en Plaza Italia” (thousands of people gather now in Plaza Italia). We watched the immense gathering of people for a long time. Unlike our Valparaíso incident, not many people were wearing masks. After awhile we switched to a different news channel, a new number was printed on the tv: “ahora, más de un millón de personas se reúnen en plaza italia” (now, more than a million people gather in Plaza Italia). It went from thousands to millions. So far, I was fine with this march; nothing on the news indicated violence. Then, the curfew slammed in and the millions of people receded to the safety of their homes. The police could lock up anyone who was out after the curfew. Only the violent rebels and the drunk stayed.

The violent rebels were everywhere. They burned down buildings and destroyed streets. Was there some other reason for this destruction? Was it something about the excitement playing in a tag game ten times greater? Or, something about wanting to be put on a list of people that have saved the world? I didn’t know the reason, but I knew this wasn’t the way to solve problems.

We were in Bogota for a quick layover. I really liked the city, but sadly, we were only there three days.

We stayed at a hostel called Masaya. We got to sleep in bunk beds that I, personally, was a big fan of. They had big breakfasts with exotic fruits and pancakes. They also had a fun game where you could throw disks into metal holes shaped as frog mouths. The further back the mouth, the more points you got. The last night we were there, they had an activity called a “jam session.” We decided to check it out. I got to play drums while a guy was playing the piano and another guy was playing guitar. It was a blast.

I am not a big fan of museums and the Museum of Gold was not an exception. However, we did go there our first and second day due to my mom’s persuasion. It might sound cool, but it was just another one of “those” museums. There were lots of rooms and things to read, that’s what I mean by “those museums.” Not any interactive stuff, just words.

We also went to a museum of plump people, the person who did the art (Botero) claimed that he was just painting and sculpting with different proportions. The museum had a very nice garden. We started getting hungry towards the end and decided to eat lunch at the museum’s restaurant. It was there that I had the world’s best churro. The churro was under a blanket of powdered sugar and was paired with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce.

After lunch, later in the afternoon, we went to a famous hot chocolate and cheese place. Apparently, you are supposed to dunk your cheese in hot chocolate. I tried it and it was yummy.

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NEXT STOP: SANTIAGO, CHILE