Hunter Crabtree: Chile

     Chile: Ancient Cultures and the Atacama Desert

Chile North

            My trip to the North of Chile was an amazing experience that I would repeat in the blink of an eye if I were given the opportunity to do so. During my trip I met some amazing people from all parts of the country, and I feel that my group was the driving force in what made my experience in Chile so wonderful. We, as a group, bonded amazingly fast. Twenty minutes after having met in the Miami airport, all ten of us were the best of friends. We, along with our leader, talked later about how “scary fast” we had bonded and meshed into our tight-knit group, “Los Nortes” or “Los Gringos,” as we called ourselves, depending on the occasion.

The whole group at the mine where the thirty-three miners were trapped.



     The trip itself started with a whirlwind of tours and Spanish exercises in Santiago, Valparaíso, and Viña del Mar. We then continued to our two week homestay in Copiapó where I spent my time with my host family. I tried to throw myself into every situation that I could with my family and did everything from going to my little brother’s soccer practices and matches or shopping for refrigerators with my parents to having a late night horror movie marathon with my sixteen-year-old brother Matías after watching our family’s soccer team, La Universidad Católica de Chile, fight hard to win their match.

My host brothers and I with one of the girls from the Group, Christine, at the bus station after the homestay

 
During this time, we also completed a service project at San Vicente de Paul, my nine-year-old host brother's school.  Following a tearful departure from Copiapó, the rest of the trip was spent exploring the natural wonders of the country, learning about the country's mining history, and experiencing more of the culture firsthand. The incredible thing about the trip was that the month-long experience seemed to take no more than two weeks, but by the end, all the students in the group felt that we had lived in Chile for the last year or more because so much was crammed into our short time in the country.

            Some personal highlights of the trip were the side trips to see the wildly different landscape, seeing much deeper into the culture than I initially anticipated, and gaining a close knit group of new friends from all different parts of the country and walks of life. The natural beauty of Chile took my by surprise as we took trips into the desert and the mountains surrounding Iquique, Calama, and San Pedro de Atacama. Seeing snow capped mountains in excess of five thousand meters tall, surrounded by the driest of dry deserts, was totally different from the rolling, green hills of Tennessee, to which I have spent my whole life seeing.  Also, getting to experience one of the frequent earthquakes, a personal first for me, helped me to understand how Chile’s landscape came to be. As a rock climber, seeing the sheer walls of rocks and the massive boulders turned me into a small child in Toys ‘R’ Us, running from toy to toy, or boulder to boulder in my case, wanting to play and climb on any rock face that I could get my hands on.

 

A picture of me walking into the hills on which the Aymara had placed their geoglyphs

       The most memorable experience of the trip was meeting all of the people who were so willing to help us learn Spanish and experience and love all of Northern Chile. I will never forget the friendships that I have made with both my host family and my “gringo” family. This trip has truly confirmed my love for the Spanish language, and I know for sure now that I will continue to study Spanish in the future in college. I am incredibly grateful to the Wilson Family for the opportunity to make this journey, especially for this trip to be my first experience traveling out of the United States. This will be an important part of the rest of my life, and I will definitely try and participate in another study abroad program in the years to come.