A Different Kind of Desert
Second time in the desert in 3 weeks? SIGN ME UP! A group of 6 Jumbos in Chile along with one friend on the American University program in Chile hit the road to head up to Caldera, a famous destination for being one of the closest cities to El Desierto Florido (The Flowering Desert). This wild phenomenon occurs unreliably every two or three years following abnormally large amounts of rain due to El Niño. The last flowering was in 2015, but this year's bloom has hit news outlets around the word for its exceptional display (to all my French speakers out there, check out the article my wonderful Aunt Heidi sent me: http://positivr.fr/desert-atacama-chili-millions-fleurs-pluies-el-nino/). A lot of this has to do with, ¡¡¡WAIT FOR IT!!!, the blizzard that hit Santiago when we arrived in July. What was snow to us was rain for the desert.
The 7 of us moseyed on over to Estación Central to catch our overnight bus from Santiago to Caldera on Thursday night. Never having been on such a form of transportation, I was expecting anything from a decent coach bus (special shoutout to the Buckingham Bus Company for 5 years of excellent service) to the Hogwarts Express on wheels. But more towards the first one. But how surprised was I?!? The seats were leather and reclined further back than any plane I've ever been on. We were given a complementary snack box and had no passengers behind us so spread out our bags to free up more leg room. With the exception of a could-have-been-worse-than-it-ended-up-being-but-was-frightening-in-the-moment NyQuil spill and a cough that just won't quit, we had a pretty darn perfect 13 hour ride.
We arrived in Caldera a little before noon on Friday. Expecting a partly sunny sky and warm weather, we were greeted by an overcast and misty cloud cover and a small port town. It felt like a mix between Valparaíso and San Pedro de Atacama. There was a lack of two story buildings but a plethora of color and graffiti that was missing in our first desert trip. After exploring the town a little (including touching the Pacific Ocean for the first time!) and settling in to our adorable hostel, we walked about 3.5 miles to Bahía Inglesa, often nicknamed the "Caribbean of Chile." It was a long walk filled with chats about favorite books and explorations of small roadside shrine/memorials, or animitas (there is your Spanish Word of the Blog!). We entered the beach escape that is full to the brim in the summer time and were met with white sand beaches and clear water, but also peacefulness due to the relative lack of winter time tourists. We explored the rocks that created little pools and bays within the bay at the beach, and after a failed attempt at trying the famous oysters (that I was just planning on watching for those who don't know my rough relationship with oysters), we took a cab back to Caldera as it started to sprinkle a little bit.
And what better thing to do when you get back to a small desert town from a different small desert town? Get Chinese food for dinner! Obviously. We all snuggled into the corner of a restaurant across the street from our hostel. A Brazilian soap opera dubbed in Spanish was playing in the background the whole time, and completely unaware of what a lot of the Chinese menu options were in Spanish, we placed our trust in the "6 Person Plate" which turned out to be a) the most perfect amount of food and b) exactly what we all needed. So tasty and one other fabulously spontaneous point of our weekend itinerary.
We woke up on Saturday morning and headed out by 9:15 with our guide/owner of hostel to do what we came to Caldera to do: see the flowers. The tour was so great because the guide was beyond chill and let us plan the day how we wished with good tips to help. We would just pull over on the side of the road when we saw flowers we wanted to spend more time with. We ducked through barbed wire to hike up to magenta hills and periwinkle fields. He took pictures when we wanted and made sure to capture candid ones as well because, in his opinion, they are the best. We had some bits of sun, some bits of clouds, and some bits of the day quite literally inside of the clouds. We hiked to a secluded beach and Bryce, Shayna, and Maria were brave enough to go swimming as the rest of us either dipped our toes or just remained all bundled up by the beautifully striped cliffs carved by erosion.
It was a weekend that really struck me because it was one of the few times in my life where I really felt as though it was a once in a life time experience. Not in a cliche way, but in an incredibly literal way. There are things I've done in my life that I most likely will never repeat, or will never be able to replicate in the same way. But many of them, if I wanted to, I could in theory do again. But this is different. It is so difficult to plan to visit the flowering desert from outside of Chile because you can never reliably predict when it will pop up, and when it does it lasts rarely for more than two weeks. We weren't even sure if it would still be blooming by the time we made it up. But thank goodness it was. At almost every stop we made, I just kept looking around as we walked through the fields and exclaiming: "I'm just so happy right now."
Don't forget you can subscribe now if you so desire :) I'll come straight into your inbox every Sunday.
xoxo
Olivia/Liv/Boo
The 7 of us moseyed on over to Estación Central to catch our overnight bus from Santiago to Caldera on Thursday night. Never having been on such a form of transportation, I was expecting anything from a decent coach bus (special shoutout to the Buckingham Bus Company for 5 years of excellent service) to the Hogwarts Express on wheels. But more towards the first one. But how surprised was I?!? The seats were leather and reclined further back than any plane I've ever been on. We were given a complementary snack box and had no passengers behind us so spread out our bags to free up more leg room. With the exception of a could-have-been-worse-than-it-ended-up-being-but-was-frightening-in-the-moment NyQuil spill and a cough that just won't quit, we had a pretty darn perfect 13 hour ride.
We arrived in Caldera a little before noon on Friday. Expecting a partly sunny sky and warm weather, we were greeted by an overcast and misty cloud cover and a small port town. It felt like a mix between Valparaíso and San Pedro de Atacama. There was a lack of two story buildings but a plethora of color and graffiti that was missing in our first desert trip. After exploring the town a little (including touching the Pacific Ocean for the first time!) and settling in to our adorable hostel, we walked about 3.5 miles to Bahía Inglesa, often nicknamed the "Caribbean of Chile." It was a long walk filled with chats about favorite books and explorations of small roadside shrine/memorials, or animitas (there is your Spanish Word of the Blog!). We entered the beach escape that is full to the brim in the summer time and were met with white sand beaches and clear water, but also peacefulness due to the relative lack of winter time tourists. We explored the rocks that created little pools and bays within the bay at the beach, and after a failed attempt at trying the famous oysters (that I was just planning on watching for those who don't know my rough relationship with oysters), we took a cab back to Caldera as it started to sprinkle a little bit.
And what better thing to do when you get back to a small desert town from a different small desert town? Get Chinese food for dinner! Obviously. We all snuggled into the corner of a restaurant across the street from our hostel. A Brazilian soap opera dubbed in Spanish was playing in the background the whole time, and completely unaware of what a lot of the Chinese menu options were in Spanish, we placed our trust in the "6 Person Plate" which turned out to be a) the most perfect amount of food and b) exactly what we all needed. So tasty and one other fabulously spontaneous point of our weekend itinerary.
We woke up on Saturday morning and headed out by 9:15 with our guide/owner of hostel to do what we came to Caldera to do: see the flowers. The tour was so great because the guide was beyond chill and let us plan the day how we wished with good tips to help. We would just pull over on the side of the road when we saw flowers we wanted to spend more time with. We ducked through barbed wire to hike up to magenta hills and periwinkle fields. He took pictures when we wanted and made sure to capture candid ones as well because, in his opinion, they are the best. We had some bits of sun, some bits of clouds, and some bits of the day quite literally inside of the clouds. We hiked to a secluded beach and Bryce, Shayna, and Maria were brave enough to go swimming as the rest of us either dipped our toes or just remained all bundled up by the beautifully striped cliffs carved by erosion.
It was a weekend that really struck me because it was one of the few times in my life where I really felt as though it was a once in a life time experience. Not in a cliche way, but in an incredibly literal way. There are things I've done in my life that I most likely will never repeat, or will never be able to replicate in the same way. But many of them, if I wanted to, I could in theory do again. But this is different. It is so difficult to plan to visit the flowering desert from outside of Chile because you can never reliably predict when it will pop up, and when it does it lasts rarely for more than two weeks. We weren't even sure if it would still be blooming by the time we made it up. But thank goodness it was. At almost every stop we made, I just kept looking around as we walked through the fields and exclaiming: "I'm just so happy right now."
Don't forget you can subscribe now if you so desire :) I'll come straight into your inbox every Sunday.
xoxo
Olivia/Liv/Boo
Hi Boo,
ReplyDeleteThanks for another great weekly update. The flowering desert looks amazing. You were all so fortunate to be able to see it in its prime. Kudos to you fellow Jumbos for taking a winter dip in the Pacific! Looking forward to your next update. Love you lots! Dad
Dear Olivia,
ReplyDeleteThanks to your mother's help, we can now tell you how thankful we are to read of your impressions and experiences in Chile so far. You write so well that we feel like we are sharing the pleasures of being there with you.
We really enjoyed the remarkable beauty of the flowers in the desert that turned blue
All our thanks and love,
MooMoo and Papy.