Day 65
Today I'm in: Antofagasta, Chile
When I was planning the trip, I booked myself into Antofagasta with the intention of getting out into the Atacama Desert to see some of the more interesting sights there. After I bought tickets, I did a bit more digging and realized that most of the things I wanted to see weren't really doable in a day trip, unless I woke up at 5am and got back at midnight. So I found myself with the same problem I had in Arica - a full day booked in a place that, if you don't know anyone there, doesn't really have a full day's worth of things to do. I'll be the first to admit I didn't do the best job planning the northern Chile portion of the trip.
I took my time getting moving this morning and spent a lot of time just sort of vegging around in the hotel room. When I did hit the street, I visited a Hertz branch a few blocks away to see what a rental car would cost - I figured I could at least drive a little ways into the desert and check things out - but they wanted almost $100 USD for a same-day return. As I come up on the end of the trip, money is getting a little tighter, so that was out - Antofagasta it was.
I feel like I could just drop in my descriptions of Arica and Iquique here - Antofagasta is a nice enough city, spread along the Pacific coast with plenty of high-rise condos, sprawling suburbs and a compact, slightly scruffy city center with pedestrian malls and mobs of shoppers. It's larger than my previous two stops (I misspoke yesterday; this is actually Chile's second-largest city, not its third) but aside from the ocean and the starkness of the desert behind it, it's not a very noteworthy place. It's mostly just a large port and a base for mining operations going on in the Atacama.
At the recommendation of my guidebook, I did have an amazing (and cheap!) lunch at Don Pollo, a roast-chicken place in the center of town. I'm a fan of all chicken dishes, but this was particularly good - really juicy and succulent and seasoned damn near perfection. It's not an especially Chilean dish, but the place was thronged with people, so at the very least, it's a dish that Chilean people like, which is good enough for me.
More excitingly, shortly after I got back to the room around 4:30pm, Antofagasta was shaken by a mild earthquake. I've been in three earthquakes before - one in Los Angeles while I was visiting my friend Brandon in 2002 (neither of us felt it, although later in the day other people were talking about it) and two in Chicago that both struck at night while I was asleep. This is the first one I've been fully aware of while it was happening, although at first I thought it was just vibrations from the construction site behind the hotel. It only lasted about 15 seconds, and it took me a few seconds to register what was happening. Like I said, it was very mild - the power stayed on, the hotel made no announcements, nobody in the street below seemed to be bothered. The worst that happened was that hundreds of car alarms all over the city went off. But it was still an event for me.
It's really hard to believe, in a non-related item, that it's already Day 65. One part of me feels like I just left home, while another part is starting to be ready to get back and be a bit more stationary for awhile. With only ten days left in the trip, I'm starting to spend some of my evening downtime doing things like scheduling a Comcast installation in my new place and emailing my movers to figure out an exact delivery date for my things. It's the beginning of the end of the trip; tomorrow I'm off to Colombia for the last leg of the journey, where it will be good to put my jacket away and get tropical again.
Today I'm in: Antofagasta, Chile
When I was planning the trip, I booked myself into Antofagasta with the intention of getting out into the Atacama Desert to see some of the more interesting sights there. After I bought tickets, I did a bit more digging and realized that most of the things I wanted to see weren't really doable in a day trip, unless I woke up at 5am and got back at midnight. So I found myself with the same problem I had in Arica - a full day booked in a place that, if you don't know anyone there, doesn't really have a full day's worth of things to do. I'll be the first to admit I didn't do the best job planning the northern Chile portion of the trip. 
I took my time getting moving this morning and spent a lot of time just sort of vegging around in the hotel room. When I did hit the street, I visited a Hertz branch a few blocks away to see what a rental car would cost - I figured I could at least drive a little ways into the desert and check things out - but they wanted almost $100 USD for a same-day return. As I come up on the end of the trip, money is getting a little tighter, so that was out - Antofagasta it was. 
I feel like I could just drop in my descriptions of Arica and Iquique here - Antofagasta is a nice enough city, spread along the Pacific coast with plenty of high-rise condos, sprawling suburbs and a compact, slightly scruffy city center with pedestrian malls and mobs of shoppers. It's larger than my previous two stops (I misspoke yesterday; this is actually Chile's second-largest city, not its third) but aside from the ocean and the starkness of the desert behind it, it's not a very noteworthy place. It's mostly just a large port and a base for mining operations going on in the Atacama. 
More excitingly, shortly after I got back to the room around 4:30pm, Antofagasta was shaken by a mild earthquake. I've been in three earthquakes before - one in Los Angeles while I was visiting my friend Brandon in 2002 (neither of us felt it, although later in the day other people were talking about it) and two in Chicago that both struck at night while I was asleep. This is the first one I've been fully aware of while it was happening, although at first I thought it was just vibrations from the construction site behind the hotel. It only lasted about 15 seconds, and it took me a few seconds to register what was happening. Like I said, it was very mild - the power stayed on, the hotel made no announcements, nobody in the street below seemed to be bothered. The worst that happened was that hundreds of car alarms all over the city went off. But it was still an event for me. It's really hard to believe, in a non-related item, that it's already Day 65. One part of me feels like I just left home, while another part is starting to be ready to get back and be a bit more stationary for awhile. With only ten days left in the trip, I'm starting to spend some of my evening downtime doing things like scheduling a Comcast installation in my new place and emailing my movers to figure out an exact delivery date for my things. It's the beginning of the end of the trip; tomorrow I'm off to Colombia for the last leg of the journey, where it will be good to put my jacket away and get tropical again.
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