Sleepy Sleepy

WARNING: Lots o pictures in this post. But that's what y'all like the most, right?

"Iquique, I love you."

Believe it or not, Madeline and I just survived a full 3 days of being apart since arriving in Chile. That's because, for our first trip organized by our program, they split us up into two groups. "Hannifan" and "Swayze" are not close to each other in the alphabet, so there you go. I left my house at 4:45 AM on Friday morning to head to the sleepy town of Iquique (which literally means "sleepy sleepy" in some language I don't know) in the northern Region I. 

It was quite the eclectic trip. Like I said, we started in Iquique. Iquique is a seaside city about 200 miles south of Perú. 

There were seemingly squishy sea creatures on rocks.

Don't let the slimy-ness deceive you. They were as tough as starfish.

And some churros filled with manjar (= happiness!).

The biggest sand dunes in the world (that's a fact). The biggest seals in the world (that might not be a fact).

Some pretty buildings. A cool mirror inside some important person's house.

Good food and cute restaurants.

Zucchini soup. Yum!

Some half-nude (mmm maybe three-quarters nude?) dancing in an outlet mall. 

And FINALLY a festival gathering of cueca dancers (cueca is the national dance of Chile that had been alluding my witness until this weekend).

Anddddd that was all in a day! We then headed to Pica, a town close to the Bolivian border. But on our way, we stopped by some spooky abandoned salitre factories (salitre is sodium/potassium nitrate found in fertilizer ... salitre production was a HUGE deal for the Chilean economy in the 19th Century).

Alright, so Abby likes posting pictures of flowers that nobody else cares about ...

Hey Kansas!

Play guns of children who once existed in this now ghost town.

We also stopped at some Aymara geoglyphs (mountain carvings made by an indigenous tribe in Chile long ago). LOOK! You see that Vanderbilt V in-between our heads? Go 'Dores!

And Allison and I just had to do some jumping shots.

Such a ballerina!

Pica was absolutely wonderful. We stayed at a colorful little resort dotted with orange and grapefruit and lemon trees. And we witnessed the most beautiful purple sunset over the desert Saturday night. I got up early to go running on Sunday ... and since I didn't know where to go, I just ran toward the mountains. Toward Bolivia. NBD.

One last thing: I feel I have some duty to share with the world that LAN airlines is just stupendous. Super-punctual, friendly, and they give you alfajores. And they show The Simpsons and have great music selections. So if you're ever in Latin America and have the chance to experience the magic, do so. Oh, but don't bring your remote-control toys. Instead of, "Please turn off all your portable electronics ..." the flight attendants say, "It is now time to turn off your remote-control toys." 

¡Hasta luego mis queridos!