piece of mind

we arrived to chile yesterday. we are now in arica, the northern most city in chile. later today we leave for the capital, santiago - a 27 hour bus ride away. ah! yesterday was incredible and re-instilled my faith in humanity and people and everything. we arrived here, then headed towards a beach, playa corazones, and headed out for a trail bryan had heard of. the walk was amazing. sand dunes, the pacific ocean, big black birds, caves, and SEA LIONS! i saw wild sea lions! i heard them talk to each other. i saw them move around. there was a whole colony. i was blown away. then we hitchhiked back to the city - it was both me and bryan´s first time - and the lady who picked us up told us she was from the south of chile, where the people are way nicer than those of arica. we talked, she thought bryan and i were on our honeymoon (luna de miel, she said, and we couldn´t understand what she was saying!). she was so sweet and dropped us off by the center of the city. bryan and i wandered into a market, and i ended up befriending these rasta-hippies and an older activist couple from chile. bryan left, and i went back to my hostal and took stuff from my backpack that i no longer needed or wanted. i went to the market and set my stuff down next to the rasta hippies, and we all became really good friends. the woman from the couple came over to me and we started talking, she had books on the worker´s movement in chile, anarchism in chile. we talked about capitalism, feminism. amidst all these new friends was omar, and he ended up hanging out with bryan and i till late into the night. i gave him a feather and put it into his dreads (the rastas turned me into a hippie!) and we sung lauryn hill and erykah badu together. it was such an incredible day and night. i am excited for what awaits.