North Trip 2012

I guess the only people able to make more than 60 hours spent on a bus during a 9 day trip are exchange students. Because that's essentially what it took to get across the Atacama desert, to 4000m-above-sealevel geysers, to coastal inlets with dolphins, to tremendous beaches that stretch from tremendous desert, it's not all within walking distance if you know what I mean.

Anyways, all of the exchange students in Rancagua got together to take a bus to Santiago so that we could get on the bus before it left for the North. Unfortunately, the bus that we had bought the tickets for never arrived, so we hopped on another bus, and still got there moderately on time, but no worse for the wear.

We hopped on the bus and, with the other 40 students, some of them great friends, some of them complete strangers, we headed to La Serena, a city that I had already visited with the Sotos, but never in summer, when tons of Argentinean, Chilean and Brazilian tourists come to the beaches there. 
When we arrived in the night, we immediately went to a parade in the town center, where, since we were a large group of exchange students, we caused as great a commotion as we could, joining in with the parade, joining the people on the floats, and having an incredible time with the locals. That was then followed by a night bus ride to the observatory further in from the coast where it is said you can see some of the clearest starry skies in the world. We could see 3 different planets, and got to look close up at Jupiter.
The next day we packed up all our stuff and left the hotel (this is a common theme throughout the trip) and went to Punto de Choros, where we hopped in boats, and traveled up and down the coast seeing dolphins, sea lions, and even small penguins, the same ones that I saw in Patagonia, seems like they have travelled a good deal north here... It was amazing, and although we were all quite burned when we got back on the bus.
That night, we spent sleeping on the bus. I managed to make this experience as uncomfortable as possible. I began at the back of the bus, which was an over when the heat was on and a freezer when it wasn't on. I then moved back to my seat to find it occupied, and ended up sleeping face down in the aisle. I kind of felt like my dad on Garuda...

The night on the bus ended up being worth it, because we arrived, past Bahia Inglesa, in the one of the most extreme climates of Chile. We stepped off the bus, still tired from the rough sleep and were in the middle of the desert, with snow covered mountains all around us. When we arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, we were truly in the most "deserty" town we had ever been in. All the buildings were made out of mud, sheep casually strolling through the streets.

The next days in San Pedro may have been the best on the trip, seeing volcanic geysers, swimming in hot springs, seeing flamingos, it was really incredible. After spending all the time we had for San Pedro, we went to Iquique, the farthest north we would get on the trip, and lay on the amazing beaches, and visited the city, which is one of Chile´s most historically significant. 

Reaching this point meant we were beginning the treck home, but we managed to enjoy those last couple days nonetheless. We stopped at Bahia Ingles, which I was already quite familiar with, and after spending a day on the beach, playing soccer, we had our last party with all the exchange students where there was a bit of crossdressing that went on, although I wont put any photos us, sorry guys. Anyways, the next day was spent on the bus, and finally we got back to Santiago where there was a lot of flag signing, and tears. It truly was an incredible trip.