Gigante de Atacama & me

October 2004

flashback

El Morro de Arica, Nov. (?) 2004

Tropic of Capricorn

The Tropic of Capricorn passes just to the north of Antofagasta, near the city's airport.

pictures taken Sept. 18, 2004

San Pedro de Atacama

Last weekend, while Lindsey's brother was visiting, a group of us went to San Pedro, an oasis (tourist) town about a 5 - hour bus ride east of Anto. We got in late Friday night and had a quick dinner, and Saturday morning we started the day at our favorite restaurant, Todo Natural, and then rented bikes and sandboards to bike out to Valle de la Muerte. I'm not much of a biker, but it was an easy ride and sandboarding is always fun. Even though I managed to land upside down on more than one occasion. Saturday afternoon we shopped and then went to dinner at Cafe Export, a popular place that had live Andean music that night and always has a nice fire in the adobe oven for those COLD dessert nights.

dinner music

me with bike and sandboards

Valle de la Muerte

School days

I haven't been able to update recently, so here are some pictures from last week at school. 7th grade Social Studies, to be exact, creating their own Indus River Valley seals (out of potatoes instead of stones ) ...

Playa Escondida

Camped at the nearby beach, Playa Escondida, this past Saturday night. The sky was beautiful...

















but I wish photos could do justice to the real things.

salt flat near Uyuni, Bolivia

2005

self doubt

Happy Fourth of July!

One of my roommate's claims to fame is being the honorary Martha Stewart of Antofagasta. For the Beatle's theme party, she made a peace cake. For Easter she made a bunny cake. For the World Cup France v. Brazil game, she made cupcakes frosted with team colors. For the Fourth of July she whipped up these beauties...


Sadly, many had already been eaten before I got around to taking a picture.

Punta Diamante

Taken from the Balneario, here's some of Antofagasta's coast. The matching towers in the background are Punta Diamante; I live in the one on the left. I took this picture before I moved here.

Sunday Afternoon

You know you're in Chile when...

...the school day is put on hold so everyone can watch the World Cup. Yesterday, at 11:00 A.M. teachers and prinicipal set a TV up so the majority of the school could watch Argentina vs. Germany. (Germany won in overtime.) For the next two and half hours, everyone was gathered around the TV on the patio watching the game. The decision to show the game came as a surprise, but then I think about all the assemblies and fun things we had in school -- skits, shows, drama and opera presentations, the opportunity to go on field trips, and these kids don't ever have any of that. (Aside from the occasional lower school field trip.) It was neat to see it happen. And it beats last week's lice outbreak.