Easter in the Desert

**Warning: the fonts on the page are being stupid and I can't fix it.

Happy Easter everyone! This weekend I had the amazing chance to see a new part of Chile. I went with my friend Cony who happened to be a student of mine at McMinnville High School while she was studying abroad in the U.S., to visit her family in Copiapó. The city is a 12 to 15 hours bus ride north of Santiago, but only 55 minutes in plane....so we chose the plane. :) Here's a map of Chile so you can see what I'm describing:

Copiapó is in the middle of the Atacama Desert and is so completely different from our landscape in Oregon that I was in shock for a good 20 minutes after getting off of the airplane. The city itself is completely surrounded by dusty, rocky mountains and the valley in between is sand. The town itself has palm trees and lawns and whatnot, but the natural terrain is quite barren. Typical for desert climate, we had warm sunny days and cold cloudless nights. The only thing I found strange was the amount of fog that we woke up to in the morning which disappeared within an hour or two!

This was the first time Cony had been home since she moved to Santiago for college, so everyone was so excited to see her. We had un asado (bbq) the first night at Cony's dad's house that was maravilloso, with chicken, steak, sausage, potatoes, salad, cake, and some amazing Chilean wine. A typical asado starts around 10 or 11 at night and lasts for many many hours, but since it was Thursday we started earlier to make sure that everyone was done eating meat by midnight to observe Good Friday. This meant meeting at 9:30 ha ha ha. All of Cony's family was eager to have me try their food so I think I ended up eating double what everyone else did! This definitely became the theme of the weekend.

Friday we went to the beach about 45 minutes from the house called Bahía Inglesa, which again blew my mind with its difference to any beach I had seen before. First off, the beach we went to was nearly surrounded by sand to form a lake-like body of water. With a lack of strong waves it made the perfect swimming pool for all of the little Chilean niños who were jazzed about their no school day.....but eliminated my favorite part of the beach: the sound of the waves! The other difference was that there were no trees/grass/palms/shrubs or seagulls to be seen. We arrived around 2 in the afternoon and had lunch first-thing at a restaurant near the boardwalk. Being Good Friday, we ordered a huge heap of mariscos (seafood) and pescado (fish). Even though I assured Cony's family that I was not a fan of seafood, they told me I had to try Chilean seafood "in case it was different." So I did, and guess what? It was the same ha ha ha. So I ordered my fish fillet and let them enjoy the seafood medley.

Saturday was spent mostly at Cony's mom's house and was kind of a lazy day. Cony was out the night before until 4:30 in the morning hanging out with friends from high school that she hadn't seen in forever, so we had a slow start to the day. I had been telling Cony's family about my obsession with Mexican food and they knew surprisingly little about it! So with that we headed off the grocery store and as a "thank-you" for their hospitality I made homemade tortillas with chicken fajitas for lunch on Saturday. There was barely any conversation at the table and I took that as a good sign when I noticed everyone's mouth was full of food. :) Later that night I went to Easter vigil mass with Cony's grandmother at the Catholic church in the main plaza. We didn't have any bautismos which I kind of missed, but it was still a beautiful service. At the end of mass Cony's grandmother introduced me to all of her friends and we had some delicious hot chocolate. Plus they handed out little souvenirs of holy water for each family to bring home! Mine barely survived the plane ride back to Santiago, but is now safe and sound on my desk.

This morning I woke up to a chocolate bunny and chocolate eggs on the staircase on the way down to breakfast! It was so nice of Cony's mom to include me in the Easter celebration and I felt completely at home. As we were leaving for the airport she told me I could come back whenever I wanted, with or without Cony ha ha, to visit. I think I'll take her up on the offer! We flew back to Santiago today around 4:30 in the afternoon and it was very peculiar to view Santiago as my home for the first time in 2 months. My ride back from the airport was far less terrifying this go-round and I felt rejuvenated after taking a little break from the hustle and bustle. Tomorrow I'm going to a 5th grade classroom at one of the schools I filmed at to help them practice for their Spelling Bee at the end of June. I had a chance to meet the English teacher the last time I was there and she asked me if I would volunteer one day a week to help the kids learn their 100 or so words for the competition. I'm very excited to help out and hope I can watch them compete in a couple of months. This week I also have a meeting with a new professor to discuss my research plan, so wish me luck! 

I'll end with some of my favorite photos from the weekend as well as a link to the rest of them. I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! Love, Krista

Seafood platter

Cony and her sister Cotee

Cony and her mom

Harbor at a nearby beach

The only trees I could find with the hills in the background