Two GREAT Days

It's day two (tonight will be night three) here in San Pedro. Our first night, Andy and I decided to check into a hostel to avoid ending up with nowhere to sleep our first night. It was just too dark and too late to really be thinking about finding a campsite. Immediately after getting settled and meeting the two British chicks living in our dorm room, we set out for dinner and ate at this place called the Dragon Room (Salon de Dragon). Andy ate a huge veggie lasagna and I got stuffed on llama meat. Afterward, we took to drinking most of a bottle of Pisco (grape liqour) on the street while walking around and getting our bearings.
That evening at the hostel, we found a neat little pavilion behind the main building and hunkered down to chat and drink some more. A lovely Dutch woman named Miriam came and sat with us for a couple hours and we got to know her and her beautiful accent. During the exchange, the power all went out and I traipsed off into this big field adjacent to our table to get a great view of the night sky. I've never been so awe-stricken by the sky before. There is no light pollution here and all the nearby lights were off. It was truly a sublime and humbling moment, one of the best in my life. We three stared and stared until, unfortunately, the power came back on and we lost the perfect view. The bottle of Pisco emptied, we parted ways and went to bed.
Next morning, the 19th of March, we were woken up by the English girls and their excessively loud packing. Apparently they hadn't begun to pack at ALL the night before, so they rustled for a solid 30 minutes at seven in the morning. Bah! We checked out then and went to find the campsite where we now live. It sucks pretty bad, though, so we plan to go scout another spot as soon as I leave this net cafe. After setting up camp and using the net, we got lunch and found a SWEET secluded little spot under a large bridge. While BS'ing and enjoying some juice and beer, we were surprised by a massive thunderstorm moving in. In this desert, it only rains once a year on average. A lightning-packed, thunderous monster of a storm dumped a bunch of rain on us while we were drinking under the bridge! Really amazing, really special.
When the rain stopped, we made our way back to a little plaza that has become our kind of rally point. There, a group of about twenty giggling high school girls was on a field trip tour from Santiago. They asked me to take a picture, assuming that I speak no Spanish, and I of course came back at them with a smart-aleck "well, you didn't ask me, now did you?" For the next twenty minutes, I had them eating out of my hand while I was showing them American dance moves, telling jokes, grilling them in English and generally being a maniac. Of course, they all wanted tons of pictures of me and they each wanted a cheek kiss before they left. Even their 25-year-old chaperone was thrilled and we all got side stitches from laughing so hard. Really fun. After they split, Andy and I just shook our heads for a little while, then had to cruise back to the campsite to get some warmer clothes. The wind was blowing REALLY strongly by that point.
Last night was a whole big collective experience of wine and meeting people. We ran into some cool Australians and New Zealanders, then Miriam again. After a nice bit of exercise, I went of to sleep restlessly.

In San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

Hey y'all. The internet here is pretty expensive and rare, so this time I'll leave it to you to do a little research. But do it! This place is really unique, tooootally in the middle of nowhere, and very historical. We took a five hour bus ride from Antofagasta yesterday, then found a nice lil hostel to stay in and ate llama meat and vegetarian lasagna for dinner.
Unfortunately, I'll be posting a lot less while I'm here since it's tough to make it work, but you'll live. It's great temperature, FULL of tourists (which I don't actually like, but it's only a short stay), very quaint, very lush even in the Atacama Desert, and full of interesting old history to check out. Also, geysers, llamas, Europeans, rock formations, horseback riding, and all kinds of other stuff. Check it out on Wikipedia, it's very interesting.
This stay should be pretty short and then the plan is to take a SUPER long bus ride and get to Peru. Probably Cuzco first. My best friend Martin has a ton of family all over Peru, so maybe I'll get to meet some of them.
Thanks for reading, I miss you all. Stay warm during the U.S. winter and we'll see each other before you know it.

Much love, Brad