El que no salta es Pinochet

I like starting my entries with..."Last weekend I..." because that means I did something cool.

Well, last weekend I went to an Audio Engineering Society Conference!!! What? were you expecting a rock concert? jaja, well I went to one of those also! It was for National Chilean Music Day. I saw the young rock band Difuntos Correa and the gypsy folk band from last weekend Mano Ajena as well as Inti-Illimani.What's awesome about rock shows in Chile is that the crowd of youngsters get pumped up by yelling "El que no salta es Pinochet." If you don't get it, then ask me.

Btw, this is how I dry my clothes:

Theremin

This last weekend I went to Plaza Yungay (in spanish it sounds like "and a gay") to check out their festival. The Yungay barrio was trying to prevent tall appartments from being built, preserve their culture and keep the place clean.

One band with a gipsy folk style came out with a theremin. The guy who played it was their guitarist and he made a little speech about it before the song. He actually got a melody out of the theremin and not just a special effect.

Same hat different stories

On the metro I saw a blind man finding his way to a seat. When I saw that he was wearing a Florida Marlins baseball cap I remembered that I used to have the same one. The one I had I won at some game in Las Vegas many years ago (at least ten). His looked almost as old and had the inner rim turned inside out with the tag sticking out. It made me wonder what a different experience that hat goes through than my old one.

My butt hurts but not because of Matt OK

I'm sitting on the floor of the Baquedano metro station because there is free wifi here. The library closes at 8pm so I think this is what I'll be doing for the next three weeks when I want to get online.

Hopefully by next week I'll be building something at the Plaza de los Dominicos with constructor Enrique Rebolledo.

Trip Summary

I just came back from an intense one month trip through Chile, Bolivia and Peru. I'll sum things up city by city.

Antofagasta:
I thought I was going to stay here overnight because I arrived from Santiago (17 hour trip) at 8am. I walked around trying to find a laundrymat but the one that Lonely Planet points out was gone and the other one that someone told me about was under construction. Then I walked with my dirty clothes (didn't have time back in Santiago to wash them) around the pier and the historic center and decided that this city was not very interesting. So I went to buy the next bus ticket to San Pedro de Atacama.

San Pedro de Atacama:
Awesome!!! I got to go sandboarding, but the ride to the dunes was tought because I was crazy enough to get there on bike. Oh, also, I met up with kids from Stanford that are studying abroad in Chile. I'd met Shira the week before when I went up to the cordillera to go hiking.
Even crazier than going sandboarding was riding a bike to Valle de la Luna which was a 15km ride. The way there was ok and the sunset was spectacular. But then the ride back, even though it was downhill, took place at night with trucks and cars passing me by on the highway. The big rigs were the ones that pushed me around with their currents.

I'm Still Alive!

I'm back in Chile...Iquique!

The Saddest Trip to Machu Picchu Ever

I was even wearing her Stanford t-shirt when she broke up with me.

The ride to Machu Picchu was the loneliest ever. The broken pieces of my heart were cutting a hole in the pit of my stomach.

Granted, its my fault for leaving, my fault for following a dream.

Before, when I was traveling by myself I didn't feel alone because I had the reasurance that she was still my girl. The break has come at a time when I'm the most alone, the furthest from home, with no friends and sick from the food. This takes away the courage I had to travel.

This trip has cost me the one thing I valued most in my life. Now there is mostly uncertainty and only a bit of hope.