'Cause We Are Living in a Material World...

Hi Everyone! It's been very hard for me to get to a computer, so I've been writing entries in my journal and plan to share them with you now. So my apologies for bombarding you with thoughts. :)

First, let me just say that Chile has continued to impress. I thought San Pedro de Atacama was cool (a little hippie desert town), but when we arrived in La Serena, I thought it was equally chill in other ways (a huge colonial city on the beach, complete with Japanese gardens). We only had 1.5 days in La Serena, but we really made the most of it. The first afternoon I spent shopping for a new camera. Yes...I didn't want to admit it publicly, but I am a moron and lost my camera and all my pictures from Bolivia that I hadn't backed up yet. I was devastated, but managed to get photos from friends, etc. so it will be alright. 

So I got my new camera and then went out for a delicious dinner on the beach (white wine with tomato and pesto crusted swordfish on a seafood risoto - so yum!). Afterward it was strong cocktails and a bit of dancing to songs that we wanted hear about 7 years ago. 

The next day me and a couple folks took a tour of the Elqui Valley, a very beautiful Pisco grape and fruit growing region. We visited a dam (which sounds boring, but was actually really cool), a Pisco distillery, and the small towns of Vicuna and Pisco Elqui. It was an extremely relaxing but long day, which we finished off with a visit to the Mamalluca Municipal Observatory. 

From 9-11pm we watched the sky transform into an dazzling (hehe, I wanted to use that word) collection of constellations, galaxies, and star clusters. This region in Chile has one of the best atmospheres in the world for astronomical observation, and so it's no surprise that the world's most powerful telescope resides there. We could see Venus and Jupiter very clearly with the naked eye, and we viewed other clusters through the telescope. It is so weird that we could look at a star through the telescope, but know that it is 20 light years away...so it could have exploded 10 years ago and we wouldn't know for another 10 years! 

So what about all this made me title this entry after Madonna's ¨Material World¨? (Possible Interesting Fact: Madonna is performing in Santiago this week, and we almost went to a Cyndi Lauper concert, but the tickets were too expensive. ) Well, I experienced an interesting phenomenon that I wanted to share. While Chile has been so wonderful because it offers comforts that I've missed, like toilets that flush and food you can eat without fear, it also made me realize that the more you CAN have...the more you WANT. 

I've been traveling for 2 months with a couple outfits, 4 pair of granny panties (yes, that detail is important to make this point :)), and 3 pair of shoes (all of which smell like a monkey's butt). I haven't used conditioner or dried my hair once, and EVERY time we went ¨out¨ I sported the same $20 black Old Navy cotton dress (which never once saw a washing machine). 

I tell you these things not to completely gross you out, although I'll admit that that part is kind of fun (hehe), but to show that while I was really ¨limited¨ in terms of the material things I had to work with on my trip, everyone was in the same boat, and more importantly - that's all I really NEEDED. But as soon as I walked into Ripley's Department Store in La Serena, I was overwhelmed with clothes and shoes and bags and make-up and perfumes and...the desire to have it all. Seeing everyone in the store and on the streets looking stylish and desirable, only made me feel really ugly and inadequate. I managed to escape with only my new camera, a $6 top, and a sample spray of my perfume (ahhh, it was so nice to smell it), but my head was spinning and I was completely aware that while I wish I wasn't...in a small way - ¨I am a material girl.¨