My Trip to the Desert

The other weekend I traveled to the Northern tip of Chile to San Pedro, home of the driest desert in the world. I traveled with two other volunteers, Amy and Katie, two French girls, Julie and Lucy, and a German girl, Anna. We were quite the diverse group. To save money we rented a car, which was the best decision we made! Naturally, the car was a stick shift so of course none of us Americans could drive it ha. The car we rented was a four-door truck. There were 6 of us, so to say the least, it was a tight squeeze in the back of the truck…but it was worth it for sure!

The things I saw that long weekend were incredible. None of the pictures I took captured the true beauty that I was surrounded by. But nonetheless, I still took a million pictures to try and capture some of God’s best work.

The town San Pedro itself is pretty small. Every store in the town was an adventure/tour company, a restaurant, or a convenient store. To say the least, the small town was flooded with backpackers and foreigners. The town had a nice little market place, where I bought some mittens, and there was a quaint white church in the town.

Our first stop of the weekend was to try and find Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley). We were unsuccessful in finding the park, but instead found a beautiful lookout and watched the sunset. It was incredibly windy though, so we only stayed long enough to take pictures (the theme of our exploring).

The next day we traveled to La Reserva Nacional Los Flamencos. It’s kind of hard to describe what this place was, but it was really pretty. The ground was made of rocky, salt formations.

We actually tried the salt and it was pretty tasty! The view of the entire place was beautiful though. (Sorry the panoramic picture is really small...hopefully you can still get a good idea of how beautiful it really was!)

The next day we went to Las Lagunas Altiplanicas. Absolutely breathe taking!

So cold!!!! 

Normally, you can swim in these lagunas, but it was way too cold that day and was super windy. We were all bundled up, and again only stayed long enough to take pictures.

After the cold mountains, we went to another laguna called Laguna Cejar. Since we went down in altitude, it was a lot warmer outside and we were able to go swimming in this laguna. The water was FREEZING, but totally worth swimming in because there was a lot of salt in the water, so floating was effortless. That was a really neat feeling. I was able to sit like I was in a chair and still float. I have never experienced something like that, so I enjoyed it for sure.

The next day we drove around a lot and ended up seeing some really cool things. We came across a herd of lamas.

There was a guy with the lamas who said it was one luka ($2) per photo. I couldn’t tell if he was joking around or not so I took a few pictures real quick and ran back to the car. Later on, a few of us needed to pee so we pulled off to the side of the road for a pit stop and this was our view:

Not bad eh? We later discovered that we drove too far and found ourselves accidentally crossing over into Argentina…so that was unexpected.

After that, we crossed over into Bolivia!

The boarder was very sketchy looking. There was an abandoned bus and a shack. Very official...

Amy and Katie were taking pictures when a guy came out of the shack and started yelling at them. So they ran back to the car and we returned to Chile. During our drive back into town, we went off the road for a bit to check out these HUGE boulders on the side of the road. They kind of resembled the face statues on Easter Island (use your imagination!).

              Look how tiny the man in the background is compared to that rock!

Later in the day we went to El Valle de la Luna. I had thought our first stop of the trip was the Valle de la Luna, but where we went that day was way better and much prettier. I saw sand dunes for the first time; that was pretty neat! We also saw a bunch of other salt and rock formations too.

We hiked up one side of the mountain to watch the sun set and the 360 view was amazing (this picture does absolutely no justice to what I actually saw, but kind of gives you an idea...again sorry it's so small!).

Sand Dune! 

On our last morning we visited El Tatio Geysers. These are the highest geysers in the world - at an altitude of 4200 meters. We woke up at 3 in the morning and drove for about 2 hours to make it to the geysers just in time for the sun to rise (apparently the best time of day to see them). It was hard to get a good picture of the geysers with my camera, but I got one with us standing in front of one of them.

The geysers themselves were pretty neat to see - smoke rising out of the ground, with the lovely smell of sulfur. There were small pools of water boiling on the ground, and a few of the geysers were spewing water. Over all it was a pretty interesting morning. The drive to the geysers was a little scary. We were driving on an unpaved road, with zero lights, not knowing if to our left and/or right was a field or a cliff. The four of us crammed in the backseat, wearing no seatbelts, were a little on edge the entire drive, but we made it! So all was good. The drive back was actually very pretty, and there were a lot less cliffs than we had originally thought earlier in the morning.

These four days were so amazing. I had so much fun exploring the desert with old and new friends. Everyone there spoke really good Spanish so we decided to speak Spanish the entire trip. It was so much fun (I was in Spanish heaven ha)! And I learned a lot too. It made me realize that I need to step up my Spanish game though, so I’ll be working on that my last two months here in Chile. I cannot believe I only have two more months before I come back home…where has the time gone?!?!


(If you want to see my panoramic pictures better and bigger go to this site: 
http://goodbellows.photoshelter.com/gallery/Decorative-Prints/G0000QUVc2XCHlQM/
This is Jason's new photography business...so feel free to explore the site!)

Until Next Time,

Liz

Not Always Sunshine and Rainbows

The other week was the toughest week of work I have had since being here in Santiago. However, Monday was by far the worst day.

Normally, Mondays are a little crazier than the other days of the week because it’s the day the Tias change shifts for the week (so the kids act a little crazier). Also, all the Tias and the professionals all go to the boys’ house for their weekly meeting. When everyone leaves the girls’ house, another woman comes and helps Allison and I out with watching over the girls. However, this Monday the woman left maybe ten minutes after everyone else left…leaving us alone with the girls. The woman had approached me and said she needed to go find something to fix the broken window, but would be right back, so I said ok. Not like I was going to say no to her. She never came back, and Allison and I were left alone with the girls for 3 hours. I know three hours doesn’t sound like a lot of time to be left in charge, but it’s an eternity when left alone with girls who have behavioral problems and you are not 100% fluent in the language. During these few hours, the girls did not listen to us once. They stole food to eat before snack time, even though we had given everyone some fruit to eat before official snack time, played with matches, two girls destroyed one of the rooms by throwing almost everything on the floor, and climbed on the roof. Everything was very frustrating, but the girls climbing on the roof made us really worried because if one of them had gotten hurt, there was nothing we could do to have helped them. When one of the girls came home, her hand was pretty hurt and she needed to go to the doctor. So Allison called the Tias, and it took over an hour for one of them to come get her (the boys’ house is only a five minute drive away). Thankfully it wasn’t a true emergency, but nonetheless it was still pretty frustrating. After that very stressful day, I thought surely the rest of the week would be ok…I could not have been more wrong.

The rest of the week all the girls were horrible. They were horrible to each other, to me, and all the other Tias. One girl was bullying another girl and would not stop, no matter what I said to her she just wanted to hurt the other girl. The other girl ran up to the third floor with the bully chasing after her so I followed trying my best to get her to stop. Once we got to the third floor I told the other girl to run downstairs and then I blocked the stairwell so the other girl couldn’t run after her. Oooohh she was not happy with me. She was kicking me, punching me, and trying to shove me out of the way. She’s 8 years old, so she didn’t have a chance against me, but she was furious. Once she finally figured out that she couldn’t get me to move she started yelling really nasty things to me. To be honest, I have absolutely no clue what she yelled at me, but I know none of it was nice. I just sat there smiling at her while she was yelling at me saying, “Oh that’s so nice of you to say that to me,” and “Thank you,” and things like that. Not going to lie though, it felt good to frustrate her with my smile. I probably didn’t react in the most mature way, but at the time I didn’t really know what else to do. I just wanted to get her to stop being awful to the other girl.

Another day, one of the younger girls kept pulling the two year old’s hair and pushing her around. I couldn’t get her to stop so I used my body as a blockade to protect the two year old. Because the younger girl couldn’t get to the two year old she started kick and punching me. It was so strange though because she wasn’t acting out in an angry way, she was kind of smiling the entire time. She had soooo much energy in her and I think the way she chose to release it was through fighting, and was enjoying it. The other girl, who was the bully, was filled with rage. I can understand that kind of meanness, but when the 5 year old was fighting with a smile on her face, I didn’t and still cannot understand it.

That week was really hard; however it was tough in a different way than I thought it would be. I didn’t mind the hitting, kicking, being yelled at, or being completely disregarded as an adult (ha); it was just physically tiring. Everything the girls did to me, I didn’t take personally at all. I could have cared less if they hated me. I knew that what I was doing was in their best interest, and that their “hatred” wasn’t really directed at me and would eventually pass. I think it was a good thing that I couldn’t understand what the 8 year old was yelling at me. It made me realize that in reality it really doesn’t matter what was coming out of her mouth. I’d like to think that she really doesn’t feel that way about me, but if she does, again, it really doesn’t matter. I’m the adult, and the reason why I am here is in her best interest. I’m only trying to help out the best I can and be a positive role model in her life, in all of these girls’ lives.

Until Next Time,

Liz

A Tribute to my Wonderful Cousin Wendy

Right before the weekend I traveled to Mendoza, I found out that my cousin Wendy was submitted to the ICU in the hospital. She had had a seizure, which caused other complications. She had multiple doctors looking after her and was using oxygen to help her breathe. Over the next week and a half, she was steadily getting better. She was able to breathe on her own, her heart was getting stronger, and the doctors weren’t finding anything significant. However, while I was traveling in Northern Chile, she had had a major stroke. Unfortunately, this stroke had caused a lack of oxygen to her brain for a significant amount of time causing her to go brain dead. My cousin Wendy died on Thursday, March 29th.

The Monday after I came back from my weekend trip, I skyped with my mom and she gave me the update of Wendy’s health. I had read my cousin Alison’s email (about the stroke) Sunday night while up North, but because Wendy had been improving the last week and a half, I didn’t think she was in bad shape. However, after talking to my mom I realized things were not looking good (at that point no one knew if my cousin was brain dead or not). Tuesday night I skyped with my sister and she told me that they discovered that my cousin was brain dead, and that they decided to have her funeral that Friday.

That Tuesday was a really rough day for me. The only place I wanted to be was back home with my family. Two of my roommates, Ben and Eric, were traveling so they weren’t around. I was a little bummed about that because they are my family down here and they weren’t here. Thankfully, I was able to skype with Jason, and we talked until I fell asleep. He did a great job making me feel a little better. My sister looked up how much tickets would cost for me to come home and they were RIDICULOUSLY high. There was no way I would have been able to go home at that price. Luckily, we have a relative that works for Delta, and I was able to use her buddy pass. So I was put on the stand-by list for the flight Wednesday night. I was able to catch the flight! So I had an unexpected trip home.

The whole time I was on the plane and while I was at home, it felt like everything that was happening was a dream. It felt so strange to be home (being surrounded by English), but was so great at the same time. I loved seeing my family and two of my friends, I loved having my dog around and being woken up by him every morning with kisses and a wagging tail, I loved sleeping in my bed with my 6 pillows (compared to just the one that I have here), I loved eating at all of my favorite restaurants (I left for Santiago Sunday night and I only ate at home once…yeah it was amazing!), I loved being able to flush toilet paper down the toilet (rather than throwing it in a trashcan), I loved riding in a car and not fearing for my life, I loved watching my movies and having fast internet. It was a bittersweet trip home for sure.

The funeral was Friday morning. It was so great to see my whole family and be surrounded by people who knew Wendy. The service was beautiful, and it was so great to hear classic Wendy stories. Wendy’s favorite color was purple, so a lot of us in the family tried to wear purple in her memory. For those of you who do not know my cousin, she was 28 years old, had Spina Bifada, and an Arnold-Chiari malformation. She was paralyzed waist down and was mentally challenged. Her life expectancy was not for very long (it was expected that she wouldn’t make it pass 3 years old); however, due to amazing care Wendy received from her family while growing up, she beat a lot of odds. Wendy had a very special place in everyone’s hearts. Her nickname was Goose Worm, but my favorite thing to call her was Silly Goose. She loved watching little kids, loved listening to her iPod with her headphones on while singing out loud, had a silly, contagious laugh, when ever she wanted to talk to you she would always say, “Come Here,” and then hold your hand while ya’ll talked, she could drink a glass of wine in one sip as if it were water, we (the whole family) would always play UNO while we were at the beach and she would always win (despite my grandmother trying not to let her win ha), loved her big ol’float for when she would get in the pool at the beach house in Hilton Head, loved tickling you, hated doing arts and crafts, gave the best announcements/toasts (I’m so sad that I will never get to hear her toast to me at my wedding and never get to hear her say what she’s thankful for on Thanksgiving), she had an awesome bossy side to her that always made me smile, she always spoke her mind about anything and everything, and would shamelessly flirt with every single male in the room (this was one of my favorite things about Wendy. She always had a special place in her heart for two of her favorite men in her life, Kyle – her brother-in-law and my sister’s husband, Brian – her favorite cousin). Whenever we had family get-togethers (which was often because everyone lives in Atlanta), Wendy was always my favorite person to talk to. The conversations would always be silly. I loved seeing her Christmas morning and seeing her wear the presents she had gotten and having her tell me what else she had gotten. I loved all her outfits, always having lots of purple in them. Her loyalty to her family was unbelievable. The way she talked about her two sisters and her dad always made me so happy because they were always sweet comments like “I love my dad, he’s the best dad in the whole world,” or “I have the greatest sisters in the whole world.” She would say that about her cousins and grandma as well, and she meant it for every person she said it about. It’s indescribable the sadness I feel for losing her. I’m going to miss everything about her. I wish she could be around for my future husband to get to know, I wish I had more pictures with her, I wish I had known that last summer was going to be last family picture I would have gotten to be in with her, I wish I could have visited her one last time in the hospital, I wish I could have one last UNO game with her.

Wendy taught me so much about life. She taught me that just because a person is physically and/or mentally different from you doesn’t mean they are not an incredible person. She taught me a different kind of patience and how to appreciate the small things in life.

I feel so thankful that I was able to go home for the funeral. I definitely think that that helped with the healing process. At home, I was very sad about Wendy, but being surrounded by my family really eased the pain. When I returned to Santiago, I was hit with a new wave of sadness that was pretty constant and wouldn’t go away. After a few days of really stressful work, I started to feel like my normal self again. Every now and then I suddenly get hit with the sadness of missing my cousin and realizing that I won’t get to see her again. I’m always going to miss Wendy, and family gatherings will never be the same without her there, but I feel so fortunate to have had someone like Wendy in my life. Wendy was an organ donor, and with her death she saved/changed the lives of 9 people. She was an incredible person, and I am a better person today because of her.

Until Next Time,
Liz