El pueblo de Codpa

I got picked up from the bus station by Roberto and Fabiola that I had gotten in contact with through work away. As we stopped at an apartment they have in the city, a baby goat and two dogs tried to escape through the door closely followed by two kids yelling at them in Spanish to get back inside. Roberto and Fabiola have three kids, Matias (first grade), Augustina (fourth grade) and Valentina (sr. in high school). It looks like they split their time between a house in a small pueblo about two hours into the desert with weekend missions into Arica for food and errands. I really hit the jackpot getting to spend time with this family. The love they have for each other and their happiness is just so obvious only after spending half an hour with them.

Breakin' up the bus ride

My ultimate destination was Arica. It's so far in the north of Chile that it's only about a half an hour busride to the border with Peru. But if you do it all in one shot its a 28 hour bus ride. Soooooooooooooo I decided to break it up and spend a day in La Serena.

On the road again

I had originally planned to buy my tickets down to South America for a few weeks after Burning Man, similar to what I did last year. Then for various reasons, I didn't end up buying my ticket out of Washington until the week before Thanksgiving.