art, freedom, live music, and floating in the endless sky (domingo, 22 agosto)

Yesterday I slept in until noon and woke up to warm, golden rays of Iquique sun. I took the micro downtown where I bought some really nice but simple lapis lazuli and Chilean silver earrings for my mom and sister. Lapis lazuli is found in Chile and is its national crystal / stone, and the silver was mined in Chile too. I also bought a necklace for another volunteer (her 23rd bday was yesterday and she was inviting us all over for dinner so I wanted to bring a small gift). Then I found a local artist on this street called Paseo Baquedano where there are markets and street vendors, but it´s an artsy area of town and all the buildings are in the colonial style. It´s the kind of street where there are no cars, just pedestrians and bicyclists. At night, there are always street musicians playing Andean music on their flutes and drums, or a group of people singing traditional music. The artist was making jewelry out of different stones and copper (which is big here bc of all the copper mines). He showed me how he made all of the jewelry by twisting the wire into different shapes. I thought it was really cool and the jewelry struck me as something original. They are really cool, and no one else in the world will have the same pair because it´s art!

Then I found a tattoo shop and got my 7th tattoo. I got the word ´libertad´ (´freedom´in Spanish) on the inside of my right wrist. The outline is dark purple and the letters are filled in with a lighter purple, orange, a lime green, and a darker green. It looks pretty sweet, and it´s small enough to cover up with a watch or bracelet if I have to look professional for something. Freedom is what my experience in Chile means to me. Free to travel, to explore the world, free to run forever and get lost in my own thoughts, and it´s on my right wrist, which is the hand I write and draw with. For me, when I write or draw, I am free to express myself however I want, so the tattoo has a few different meanings for me. I got it in Spanish because I´m here in a Spanish speaking country and wanted it to reflect something of Chile too. It was a good experience, and fortunately I was able to describe things and ask all the right questions in Spanish. The tattoo artist was patient about my Spanish. It turns out he was also born on June 3rd like me! I made sure the place was clean and asked lots of questions. My tattoo was surprisingly cheap (15 luca--luca is slang here for 1,000 pesos. One luca is about 2 US dollars, so my tattoo only cost me the equivalent of $30 US dollars!!)

After my tattoo appointment, I went to Caroline´s host family´s house for her birthday party. Her host mom knew Caroline loves Mexican food so she prepared tacos. I was able to eat one with just vegetables, salsa, and guacamole in it. It tasted really good, but it REALLLYYY made me miss our taco and guac nights we had at our apartment!! I do miss the food in the States. I´m debating whether I want my first meal when I return to the States to be taco/guac night with Kyle, or eat out at Exotic Thai. Anyway, then we went to a bar that had live music (a guitarist / singer who was great! One of the songs he played was Interstate Love Song and it made me miss my bass). Anyway, I tried an Iquiqueña, which is a type of chela rubia (chela is slang for beer, rubia means light). Iquiqueñas are made here in Iquique, so I though I should try the local beer. I´m not usually a big fan of beer but this stuff was really crisp and refreshing. And by US standards, pretty cheap, even though apparently it´s one of the better beers here. After leaving that bar we headed to a discoteca. It´s the first time I´ve been to a club, but I thought I should at least try it and see what it was like. My ears were ringing for like an hour after we left. They played a lot of crappy American hip hop /rap songs I don´t like, but they also played some reggaeton, which I hadn´t ever heard of before coming here, but it´s grown on me a lot and I really like the rhythm of it. Strangely, the club serves as a gym by day and a club by night. Off to the sides we could see all of these weights, exercise bikes, ellipticals, etc and everyone was dancing in the middle of the gym / dance floor. There were also all these giant statues of different Roman gods / goddesses everywhere. Kind of a strange combination of things. I´m not a big dancing person (although salsa dancing is fun) and felt awkward there. Also, I felt like in order to ´fit in´there, I should have worn half as much clothing (I showed up in jeans, gym shoes, and a hoodie lol). I didn´t get back to my house until after 5am! It wasn´t really my thing (the staying up late was though), but at least now in all fairness I can say I´m not much of a club person and that I have actually been to one and that´s how I know it´s not my thing.

Today I woke up and the paragliding instructor, Patricio, picked me up to drive me to Alto Hospicio, this town on top of the mountain. He has been a paraglider for 17 years and knows what he´s doing so I wasn´t worried. Paragliding was so much fun! Not in the adrenaline, super crazy fun kind of way, but it was sooo peaceful and relaxing. We just floated around up in the sky, floated through some clouds, and enjoyed the views. I love Iquique so much more seeing it by air...it´s much more beautiful from the sky, with clear views of the Pacific. It was just silence up there, and because of the air currents there was this slow, rocking motion kind of like what it feels like to be on a boat. I felt very relaxed and calm up there, which was different than was expecting (more of an adrenaline rush, excitement, etc). The flight lasted around half an hour to forty minutes. On our descent we flew super close to this really tall apartment building near the beach. I thought it would be so cool to live up there and see paragliders flying right past your windows. We landed on the beach, put all the equipment back into Patricio´s backpack, and his driver came to pick us up to drive me back to my house.

They offer courses so you can get your paragliding licence. I think that would be cool, but it´s kind of expensive, and I´m not quite sure what I´d do with it. I think I definitely want to get my scuba license / certification when I come back to the US. I really enjoyed scuba diving and being here has made me realize I should try harder to be involved with things I care about like Spanish, the saxophone, and scuba diving to name a few. I took some pictures of my paragliding experience.

It was cool because after a light dinner of chips and guacamole, my host brother, cousin, and I drove to this part of the beach where there´s really rough tides and giant rocks everywhere. We listened to some really good music (not sure what it was, but kinda Pink Floyd-ish but with more guitar and a female vocalist) and walked along the ocean. I swear if it was warmer I could fall asleep to the soothing sound of the waves rushing on the shore.

Then we went to this place called Minero´s, which is an Italian style pizza place. We chipped in to get a pizza without cheese ( they didn´t really care if it had cheese or meat, they just wanted pizza lol). It was kinda funny because the Italian style pizza had tomatoes, corn, guacamole, kalamata olives, red pepper, and oregano on it. Here, anything that has oregano is considered `Italian or Mediterranean style.´The sauce on it was great and the crust was absolutely perfect...not quite a thin crust, but crisp and crunchy, and very flavorful. This pizza was way better than the pizza I tried in Santiago (and I liked that one a lot). Who knew vegan pizza would be so good?

I finally am going to sleep around 2am since I have to get up early for classes tomorrow. I´m going to read some poetry and then go to sleep. Buenas noches!

written by

Sara Florecita on August 22, 2010 from Iquique, Chile

from the travel blog: año de dos inviernos (Chile 2010)

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