To the land of poets and UFOs

This past weekend I had a crazy weekend in Norte Chico which is about a seven and a half hour drive from Santiago. I took an overnight bus to Vicuña in which I actually got a lot of sleep. Here in Chile the overnight buses have seats that recline really far back (almost to horizontal) and foot rests which are surprsingly comfortable. On Friday, our first day in Vicuña, we went on a nice hike to the nearby mountain/hills. At the top there was a beautiful vista and a statue of the Virgin Mary.

After the hike we went to the birth home of Gabriella Ministral, one of the two poets from Chile who have won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The following day on Saturday we went to Monte Grande which is the city where she spent her childhood. While there we visited her tomb as well, where there was a beautiful poem she wrote about burying her heart in Monte Grande.

Down the road from Monte Grande is this HUGE rock with a bunch of pictographs from the Incas on it which we also checked out. From there it was on to Pisco Eilque where we bought dried fruits and had an amazing horseback ride through the mountains. It is here where we also saw the soccer match between Chile and Colombia. Chile won, which was amazing because that means that Chile has now qualified for the 2010 World Cup. WEEEE!

Sunday saw us head over to La Serena where we chilled at the beach, saw the beautiful churches that littered the city, and made a quick pitstop at a hydroelcetic dam. That night we when to an observatiry to see the starts (Chile is the best place on Earth to see the stars due to the incredibly clear skies they have in the north. All of the highpowered telescopes are here.) We learned about the Southern Cross and how to use it to find South, as well as how to spot several constilations. It was incredible. As a side note, La Serena and Vicuña are also some of the best places in the world to spot UFOs. Unfortunety, we did not see any.

We had school off Monday since it was Columbus Day, so we went to Colquimbo which is a port town south of La Serena. There we saw sealions, pelicans, and assorted fish. We also climbed up to the top of this huge cross buit to celebrate the millenium. After, we headed on back to Santiago, just in time to start our homework for the week.