Catching my breath in Iquique
Ahh, Iquique. It's the perfect place for me to come after Bolivia, a vacation from my vacation. I feel like I came here to breathe. It's a sea level beach town, so all my altitude problems are gone. Plus I did so much running around checking out areas of interest in Bolivia that it's nice to just get to a relaxing place and chill for a few days.
For a minute I wasn't sure if I would make it out of La Paz as scheduled. When I got back from Lake Titicaca, the city was swarming with soldiers, and the air had a crazy energy to it. The night before I left there was a massive demonstration in the Plaza de San Fernando. Some miners were protesting a government tax hike on their wages, from five percent to forty. They were setting off dynamite in the streets, and people were everywhere, it was intense. Because I was staying a block from where the president works, the street my hostel was on was totally blocked off by the military. The next morning I wondered if I would get to the airport at all; sometimes when Bolivians protest they just close down roads in and out of town, to and from the airport. However, everything was clear, and I caught my flight on time into Iquique, Chile.
I'm not really a beach person, but immediately after checking into my hostel, which is right across the street from the beach, I headed over to lay in the sand and play in the waves. Unfortunately I didn't apply sunblock evenly, and though I was only out for 90 minutes, I got burned pretty badly in random patches.
I lucked out on the hostel situation: this is a good one, where everyone is eager to meet people. Plus, there are three girls in my room that are really fun, I have been hanging out with them for the last two or three days: two Chilean sisters from Santiago, and an Ethiopian girl who grew up in Germany. It's been fun talking to her, makes me miss Berlin quite a bit. We are travelling together to San Pedro de Atacama on Saturday morning, so that will be nice.
One of the Chilean sisters, Dani, has been surfing for five years; Iquique is a bit of a surf mecca, and the hostel is run by and populated with surfers. Yesterday evening before sunset she took me out and tried to teach me how to surf, something I have never done before. It was fun, difficult, mostly just paddling around. I almost caught a decent wave (not really, I never stood up), and got knocked around a bit. After a while one of the surfers who works at the hostel came out and gave us a a nice basic lesson, for which I bought him some beer later. I had fun trying to surf, and maybe if I put a lot of time and energy into it I could become decent someday, but I don't really care enough to make the effort, I think I prefer to just play in the waves, sans board.
After the ocean session we celebrated the birthday of another girl in my room with a feast of guacamole that I made (with amazing avocados), bread, cheese, and chicken spread, lots of wine. Chilean wine so far is pretty cheap and not too bad, though I enjoyed Argentinian wine a little more. Then post-digestion we piled in a van and went out dancing at a club, raggaetone for hours until I was ready for sleep.
Today I might go see some cave drawings outside of town, but I will probably just continue to relax, maybe hit the beach again once the sun is less strong, and then a BBQ tonight. Iquique is in a desert, so it's really hot. The city of about a hundred thousand has the ocean on one side and a mountain that looks like a giant sand dune on the other. I spent most of this morning sitting on a rooftop deck, watching a single wave break across the entire distance of the beach. It really is a wonderful place to catch my breath.