Puro Chile, es tu cielo azulado...

Hello everybody!

My last message on this blog - for now, that is. Who knows, maybe I will be back in Chile soon and I can write here again? Dreams, sweet dreams. ;) We will see. :D Anyway, this is the perfect time to write here again. I'm in a very happy mood right now as Mr Roger Federer has just won his second round match in Cincy - a win he needed badly to gain more confidence again after all the disappointments. Phew, how relieved we were when Roger fought back from the brink in the 2nd set and then served the match out 6-0 in the 3rd set! Wow. Roger the Lionheart!

I need to admit something. I have been back here in Holland for a week now, but my watch is still ticking Chilean time. I just can't and don't want to change it. "Why?" you might wonder. It's just that I have the feeling that if I do change it, the trip really finishes. I don't want it to finish, I don't want to come back to the "real world". Let me just dream on for a while. I can look at my pictures (oh yes, I took a lot!) and feel like I'm back there. What scares me is that it already feels like it was a long time ago. I'm in Holland again, Chile is gone. It is slipping out of my hands and that watch seems to be the only thing that still connects us. I don't want to go back to normal life, I just want to take the next airplane back. But of course, it's not like that. I don't leave Chile, I never did, not really, that is. It's still on my computer, in the thousands of pictures and videos I took, it's on this weblog, it's still in the postcards that are standing on the table in the living room, it's still in the bracelet of lapis lazuli I'm wearing every day and night, and most important: it's in my heart and in my head, in all the thousands of memories I have. It won't go away, even though it feels like that. Besides, I should not worry: I will be back there. I will study about this beautiful continent and my future will be connected to it. I never had to say goodbye.

Tuesday the 15th of July - Thursday the 17th of July: Chañaral! Let's take a ride in our time machine once again. As I told you before, Chañaral was just another oasis in the neverending desert. It was a nice little town and we had the privilege of staying in its best hotel, which was no 4 star hotel, but it was perfectly fine for us! In the evening of Tuesday the 15th we arrived late, which is why we didn't do anything else but watching a remarkable movie ("50 First Dates" ), which I loved a lot. Wednesday was the day that we'd visit Pan de Azucar ("Sugar Bread" ) National Park! A beautiful place with quite some wildlife! The mountains (don't forget we are in the desert!) had lots of different colours, wonderful to see! The park also had a bit of vegetation, a lot of different kinds of little cactuses! It took me a while to find out that the piles of little brown balls on the ground were no Lama poo, but actually a certain kind of cactus! :p We drove to a place a bit higher on the mountain where you had a wonderful view of the sea. It was breathtaking, you should definitely take a look at the pics! When we were about to get into our car again (after having taken another Citroen advertisement picture!), Maca suddenly started screaming "Zorro! Zorro!" and a little fox appeared! It was so cute, but it was clearly used to seeing tourists there and when Macarena started feeding it some of our bread, it moved quickly towards her to take the little piece of bread and run away again. I guess there are more people like Maca who like feeding those little animals. Am not so sure if it (the feeding) does them any good, but it was nice to be able to see them! After a while, a second one appeared, which was a bit smaller and Maca tried to give them an equal amount of bread, but the little one was too shy to come too close. When all the bread was gone, they suddenly started screaming in a weird way, asking for more food. Definitely used to tourists, haha.

While driving back to the main road, a Vicuña (or a Guanaco) appeared! It's a beautiful animal! We also saw a lot of people walking with big backpacks and a couple of people on bikes as well, just like in the Valle de la Luna. I really admire them. It must be amazing to travel that way. Hope I can do that one day too! On our way back, we stopped at the beach to walk there a bit. There was no one to be seen and Leo slept for a while, lying on the sand, listening to the sound of the ocean, while I made a LOT of photos of the surroundings, haha. :D

Back in Chañaral, we were surprised by the sound of drums and music on the street! Everybody ran out of the hotel to see what was going on. It was a national holiday, I think it was Santa Carmen's Day and there was a kind of ceremony. Lots of kids and teenagers, but also adults, were dancing through the streets or playing drums. It was beautiful to see! Everybody looked so pretty in their special clothes. There were some very little kids trying to dance the best they can, cool boys trying to play the drums as loud as possible, people dressed in native american clothes. They danced La Tirana, one of the national dances. It was fantastic! The last ones who walked by were a couple of men dressed in suits, carrying a cross and a picture of the saint. They were walking to the church. Leo went with them and we went back to the hotel afterwards. It's really special to witness something like that. It just reveals another part of the Chilean culture. :D

On Thursday we had to leave to Tongoy. But, before that, Olguita and I went to look for a post office, because I had a million of postcards to send and I hadn't been able to find a post office before! You have no idea how the guy from the nice little post office looked at me when he had counted the cards I wanted to send. I don't think he has ever had to send so much mail in his life, haha! On our way to Tongoy, we stopped in Caldera, which we had visited the week before as well. We had lunch in our "famous" restaurant El Americano (delicious as always). I was thrilled to see they actually had pizza there, so Maca and I gladly ordered two of them. I had been looking forward to eating pizza for weeks, haha. It was slightly disappointing to see that that pizza was nothing like the pizza I had in my mind. Oh well, different country, different continent, different pizza! :D

Slowly, the landscape turned just a little bit more green. We were back in El Norte Chico (the little north) and had left the immense desert behind us. Still, all we could see was sand and a couple of cactuses, but it was a little improvement. We saw the most beautiful full moon. We were back in the area of the star observatories and the sky was oh so clear. Had never seen such a bright moon in my life before. We had a great time telling each other ghost stories or just scary stories. Leo was telling us about a friend of his who had been kidnapped by aliens (Am not quite sure if I should believe all this), "And then he walked towards the lights of the UFO and..." the sound of Leo's mobile receiving a message. Maca was scared and we all looked at each other before bursting out in laughter. We had so much fun. We even came up with a new family member called Ronald Felipe Nada ("nothing" ) Dwarf, our own house-dwarf. Things seem to disappear while nobody knows how that happens, so, Leo said, it must have been a dwarf. Since then, Ronald Felipe has been a proud member of the Pérez Selman family. ;)

After a good night in Tongoy (same beautiful appartment as before) we left to Cachagua the next morning (Friday). What a treat for the eyes. After having seen sand, sand and more sand for the past few weeks, everything suddenly turned green! It was amazing! We were back in the central region of Chile. Cachagua is situated not too far above Viña del Mar, so from there on, we'd only have to drive about 2.5 more hours back to Santiago on Saturday. We arrived in Cachagua at around lunch time, so we enjoyed a delicious lunch there. Our cabin was fantastic and, most important: it was actually warm inside! Because being back in that region, also means being back in the cold! After lunch, Maca and I went for a walk through the city! It was great! It's a city where a lot of rich people have summer houses, so you could see a lot of beautiful and big houses. I believe that even some celebrities have their houses there! The park where our cabin was also had a ping pong table and being Maca's best friend, I had to play of course, a lot. Oh yes, I have improved now, haha. So, anyone who wants to play a ping pong match against me?!

On Saturday our beautiful trip to the north ended. How much we had seen, so many different places, so many wonderful landscapes. We drove back to Santiago in the evening and it was great being back, although the weather was horrible. It was really cloudy and only 12 C. The last few days in Santiago went by really fast. Alejandro stayed with us and his girlfriend Soledad came for lunch on Sunday. Alejandro wanted to learn some Dutch, so we had a lot of fun! Unfortunately I wasn't able to do everything I had planned to do for those few days, but we still had a nice time. Went to the supermarket for the last time on Monday to buy some things for the trip and a chocolate box for the family. It was really hard to say goodbye. I haven't been able to say goodbye to Leo, because he was away on Monday evening and had to go to work early on Tuesday. It was really a pity, but he phoned me when we were in the car (way later than I had planned by the way. I just wasn't able to convince Faride that I really had to be there IN TIME!). Fortunately, all went well, even though there was a long line of people waiting to check in. When hugging Olguita, she whispered "don't cry!" which actually made it a lot harder not to cry, haha.

How I miss them. Can't wait to see them all again soon!

Lots of people left the airplane during our stop in São Paolo, Brasil. That was perfect for me, because the guy next to me was one of those, so now I had two seats during the loooong flight to Zürich. I became friends with a 16 year old girl from Austria, Mara, who was on her way back home, after an exchange year in Chile! She hadn't seen her family for a whole year, so she was quite looking forward to seeing them all again. She really misses everybody in Chile though. It must be so hard for her. On the left, there was a Swiss guy of my age, who was also returning home after having been in Chile for a year (also an exchange student!). He was having difficulties too, as I saw him nearly crying while reading some goodbye letters from his Chilean friends. He had a lot of bags filled with presents they had given him, so sweet. I survived the flight watching a couple of movies (The Other Boleyn Girl, Fool's Gold) and a documentary about Björn Borg and his victories in Wimbledon. In Zürich I helped Mara finding her way to the gate and we waited together until I had to leave for my flight. It was really nice to have met her and we exchanged e-mail addresses. It's nice how friendships start like that. :)

And now it has really come to an end. Keep an eye out for more pics, as I will post some more the coming days. Can't wait to start studying Latin American Studies. Can't wait to return to Chile. :D

I hope you all enjoyed reading my blogs, thank you all for your wonderful messages. It's been a pleasure for me to write this. I loved every minute in Chile and I will never forget it!

Lots of love, Anouk x