Iquique!

My family has been wanting to go to Iquique, the nearest Chilean city to Arica, for a while. We were going to go last weekend, but that didn't work. Then we were going to go this weekend, but then they found out that the hotel they wanted to stay at was booked. Then they told me Friday that they wanted to go anyways, and jsut not stay over. I'm not really sure if all this seems crazy becasue I'm  missing details when they explain what's going on, or maybe they really change plans every other day like this all the time. Anyway, we finally went this weekend! We left at 6am in the morning and got back at 1am the next morning...basically a full 24 hours minus the part when you're supposed to sleep. The common theme here seems to be that Chileans are just crazy!  =)

Typical crammed yet cozy family car ride: people sleeping, listening to music, and me having no clue what is going on

On the way there, I was sleeping but woke up to my mom screaming as we almost got hit by a boulder falling from the cliff next to the road. Luckily, my uncle slammed on the brakes and the boulder passed in front of us and continued down the cliff. We pulled over and realized that there was a temblor, or tremor, a mild earthquake going on. It ended pretty quickly and there wasn't any harm done,but there were little rocks in the middle of the road the whole way to Iquique because of it. That would never happen in Amercia--there would be tons of caution signs and guard rails and fences to stop the rocks from falling. But here driving is just your own risk.

Eventually we made it to Iquique! The city is really similar to Arica-- lots of houses and little buildings close together surrounded by mountains of sand on 3 sides and ocean on the other. We went to a mall--the first mall I've been in since I've been in Chile! That was pretty cool, except everything was overpriced. I saw an imported Polo Ralph Lauren button-down dress shirt for $136.00. Crazy! We walked along the boardwalk to see the beach, which was nice as well.

We stopped in Pica on the way home ("on the way" for them would be considered "one hour out of the way" by me, but everything is so spread out in Chile that it's normal) It's near a volcano so there was a natural pool supplied by warm underground water. And there were little caves we explored a bit. You can kind of see them in the pictures. That was pretty cool...

 We got home at 1am and were all super tired....that was all!



And today we went to surf! There's a little surf school on the beach and this was our second time going there. It's really fun! The waves were huge today-- Some of them were probably about 7 feet. They say that may be from the tremor yesterday. It was really hard work because the waves were so strong, but I loved it anyway. And I can stand up!! It usually takes me forever and by the time I'm practically on the beach. But we got some good surfing in for sure  =)

At the surf place, the secretary saw my name and asked if I was Jewish. It turns out that she is a member of one of the two Jewish families in all of Arica! That;s pretty cool that we met one of the few Arican Jews! We exchanged numbers and might order matzah together from Santiago or do something together on Passover. =)