De-Santiaguinating Myself

...And he's off!
I left Santiago on Monday afternoon, after I managed to coordinate the movers coming and packing up my stuff (it will be sent to my parents' house in Camarillo...sorry guys, it looked like a garageful!), handing my keys over to the property manager, and getting to the airport on time, all within a span of like 5 hours. For those of you who have ever been to Chile (or anywhere in Latin America, I'm sure), you know that this kind of logistical coordination is almost impossible. So I was pretty proud of myself when I got on my plane. Or at least, I was for like 10 minutes, before the accumulated exhaustion hit me and I fell asleep.
Yes, by the way, you did read that right: I went to the airport. Yes, I know I reneged on my commitment to not take a single plane on my trip, right from the get-go. But really, the first place I was going, Calama, was a 24 hour bus ride from Santiago, and you could fly (in 3 hours) for basically the same price. And I have already taken busses more than halfway up there, so I felt like I paid my dues. Anyway, this is my trip, and I can do whatever I want.
However, I think my urgency to get out of Santiago as fast as I could came from a mentality that I am (at least for now) trying to escape from on this trip: the urban mindset of always needing to do things as quickly as possible, always being in a hurry, always running from place to place. Santiago is like that. The rest of Chile is...not. At all. So since leaving, I have tried to put myself through a process of detox from the fast-paced way of life I was leading up till now.
This process began in San Pedro de Atacama, a sleepy adobe town near an oasis in the Atacama desert, the world's driest. It's sort of a backpackers' paradise, with a ton of hippies decked out in Inca knits and checking each other out as they lounge in the plazas, trying to figure out who's traveling down the so-called gringo trail in a more authentic fashion.
North American and European "more granola-than-thou" pretentiousness aside, it's a beautiful little town, where the white adobe contrasts amazingly with the deep blue, cloudless (it hasn't rained in like 5 years) sky. From there, I was able to take several cool day tours. One, yesterday evening, to the Moon Valley, and another, early this morning, to the Tatio Geysers.
I was at the Valle de la Luna, so-called because of its cratered, uneven landscape, in the early evening, and so I was able to watch as the setting sun bathed everything in orange-reddish-gold colors. Meanwhile, behind me, the moon rose. It happened to be a full moon (or at least almost full), so it was really striking and it seemed like the valley was just as illuminated by the moon as it had been when the sun was up. The moon even cast shadows, which I don't think I've ever seen before. A lot of stars were also out, as well, and were particularly visible because of the atmospheric conditions there. In fact, apparently there's some huge project underway (ALMA, I think it's called) by Japan, the EU and the US to set up a series of telescopes there to find out "the origin of the universe" (according to our guide). Who'd have thought that would be possible here in little ol' Chile?
This morning, a bus picked me up at 4 am (ouch) to go to the Tatio Geysers. They aren't really geysers, though, as far as I could tell...my idea of geysers comes from Yellowstone, with forceful jets exploding every which way. The Tatio ones were more like steaming pits of sulphur. It reminded me of Bumpuss Hell in Lassen. In fact, that's why you have to get there so early--because later on it gets warmer and you don't even see the steam coming out, and it's just (I assume) a barren yellow field of smelly pits. And no one wants to see that, so that's why they make you get up so early. Not that it wasn't cool, anyway. I don't want to be a jerk about it. I liked the geysers, despite my bleary-eyed, crabby observance of them. Apparently some Italian energy company is going to try to harness the geothermal energy of the "geysers," so they might not be around for too much longer. But those copper mines need their power, and we sure ain't gonna get it from Bolivia!
And on the way back (for you animal lovers) we saw ñandus, vicuñas and vizcachas, which are all altiplano camellids. So check that out.
Still figuring out how this all works, so be patient! I will be posting often now. I am going to figure out how to upload photos, too, because I already have some good ones.
Now I am in Calama for the night. Calama is a city, but it's smaller, so as you can see I am slowly weaning myself away from my fast-paced city kid mentality. Calama is the capital of miners (it's near a big copper mine, but I'll get into that another time), easy money (copper prices are up right now), and--the result of putting the previous two together--whorin'. But I guess I will not be partaking of that particular aspect of this ugly, ugly town tonight, as I have been up since 3:45 and I'm a bit tired. I know--disappointing!
So, for now, buenas noches.