Not Chilly in Chile

Chile was amazing! We had such a great time. It started off stressful....we came into Asuncion the day before we were going to leave hoping that our credit card would be in the mail. We were sadly disappointed when we had an empty mailbox. After talking with the Heitritters they wired us money from Walmart, ironically my dad was at Walmart at the same time and sent us some money as well. We were happy to have some money but very careful that we wouldn't lose our American dollars. We happily made it to the airport the next day and our flights we smoothly. We could see the Andes mountains as we got closer to Santiago. We stayed in Santiago, the capital of Chile, for a couple of days. We enjoyed seeing the city, taking the clean metro, wine tasting, and eating delicious food. We went on top of a hill to see the beautiful city. After Santiago we hopped on a bus to Valparaiso.
Valparaiso is a city built on a hill. We walked up and down the hill many times. It was interesting to see the colorful houses, some of them were very skinny, and we also got to see the port. On New Years we were in Valparaiso because we heard it has a huge party, which was true there were people everywhere. We got to see some amazing fireworks, we were up from the bay and there were fireworks right in front of us but also fireworks were being shot off from 5 other places along the bay. We took a video and will have to put it up soon. It was one of our favorite parts of the trip. When it turned 2010 we were sprayed with Champagne and hugged by random Chileans. We then went to a party in the giant plaza when a band and people dancing, it was a memorable way to welcome 2010. The rest of the time at that spot we just walked around and enjoyed the city.
I was so excited for our next stop. After 5 hours on a bus we arrived in La Serena, a city right on the beach. I couldn't want to spend some time in the sand on the Atlantic Ocean. Our hotel consisted of apartments and was right across from the beach. We spent every day at the beach enjoying the sand. We got pretty burnt and Joe is still peeling skin. We didn't care though we were so happy to be there. We went to an Archaelogical muesum that had mummies and one of the giant statues from Easter Island. Also on the trip we went a supermarket called Jumbo, it was like a Super Walmart. We were so happy to see American products (lately we get pretty excited about dumb things like that) we bought Doritos, Lays Potato Chips, Starbursts, Gummy Bears, Mountain Dew, Dr Pepper, microwave popcorn, and chips with salsa. We can't find those things in Paraguay so we stuffed our faces. After La Serena we took a bus about 7 hours back to Santiago and then went about an hour south to a nature perserve with cabins.
Next we relaxed in the valley of the Andes foothills and stayed in a cabin for a couple of nights. We hiked around, went swimming, had a campfire..with marshmellows, and went white water rafting. One day Joe and I went with a group on a hike and we went right by a water fall, it was beautiful. White water rafting was a blast, we rode some huge rapids and got pretty wet in the freezing cold water. I loved it and wouldn't mind doing it again.
Our trip ended with a 22 hour lay over in the Buenos Aires airport. It was so long! Joe and I luckily slept for about 5 hours and played many cards. We ate a lot of Doritos and drank a lot of Pepsi. We are safely back in Paraguay...back to the humidity and heat. When I came back to the Peace Corps office the credit card and debit card were in our mailbox, at least we will have them for vacation with Paul and Emma.
I cannot add pictures. I would love to but our camera broke, we are going to take it to get fixed tomorrow. Luckily our friend let us use his camera and I will try to post pictures as soon as possible. I miss you all so much and hope you are staying warm! We love you!