March 31 Day 44
We told Javiera we wanted a tour with her before we went so we decided to go to the Tulur historic site. We got everything packed up, had a big breakfast and said goodbye to the dogs and cats before leaving.
Tulur is essentially an office area followed by a long path leading to a recreated house. Beyond this is a short walkway leading to a platform overlooking the ruin. The ruin is a series of foundations and walls from a cluster of roundish adobe houses. Without any context, you would spend 5 minutes looking at it and turn around again.
On the platform was a ranger who gave an overview of the site, which Javiera translated for us. What the houses were used for, where the animals and tools were kept and what they were made from were some of the facts that we were given. Only when Meg asked what she would like to see as the future of the site did she get a long answer. She balanced the "leave it" argument with wondering how much could be found there and referred to modern ways of using lasers and such to see what is under surfaces without disrupting them.
We walked back and looked at the decent displays at the main office, some of them in English as well as the usual Spanish. Javiera then dropped us off at the bus station and helped us find our ride, who was early as well.
We quickly picked up the rest of our group and headed to the Calama airport to grab our flight to Santiago. The desert around the city had many wind turbines and solar farms as the land is more suitable for these alternative energies than most of Canada.
At the airport we were hungry but the sandwiches looked nasty so we got two $3 bags of chips, only to find out later that they would have been cheaper on the plane. At Chilean airport they group you by your seat, loading in the order: preferential, window, centre then aisle. They also checked some of our boarding passes in advance so we just had to hand in a card to board the plane.
The flight was uneventful and we decided to pay a few extra dollars to get a cab after the confusion around our shared van last time. We had to give all of our data to the concierge before she let us into our building to meet our host's representative. We booked the place on booking.com but it felt like a creepy airbnb rule breaker. It was obviously an apartment building and the woman representing the owners had a credit card reader, not something everyone has.
At least the place had everything it was supposed to and was close to a supermarket. We got and cooked food for dinner and complained (with several other of our floormates) about our next door neighbours for cranking out the music. They turned it down a bit but a local club seemed to be channeling live music into the neighbourhood. They quieted down by about 11 and we slept well.
We told Javiera we wanted a tour with her before we went so we decided to go to the Tulur historic site. We got everything packed up, had a big breakfast and said goodbye to the dogs and cats before leaving.
Tulur is essentially an office area followed by a long path leading to a recreated house. Beyond this is a short walkway leading to a platform overlooking the ruin. The ruin is a series of foundations and walls from a cluster of roundish adobe houses. Without any context, you would spend 5 minutes looking at it and turn around again.
On the platform was a ranger who gave an overview of the site, which Javiera translated for us. What the houses were used for, where the animals and tools were kept and what they were made from were some of the facts that we were given. Only when Meg asked what she would like to see as the future of the site did she get a long answer. She balanced the "leave it" argument with wondering how much could be found there and referred to modern ways of using lasers and such to see what is under surfaces without disrupting them.
We walked back and looked at the decent displays at the main office, some of them in English as well as the usual Spanish. Javiera then dropped us off at the bus station and helped us find our ride, who was early as well.
We quickly picked up the rest of our group and headed to the Calama airport to grab our flight to Santiago. The desert around the city had many wind turbines and solar farms as the land is more suitable for these alternative energies than most of Canada.
At the airport we were hungry but the sandwiches looked nasty so we got two $3 bags of chips, only to find out later that they would have been cheaper on the plane. At Chilean airport they group you by your seat, loading in the order: preferential, window, centre then aisle. They also checked some of our boarding passes in advance so we just had to hand in a card to board the plane.
The flight was uneventful and we decided to pay a few extra dollars to get a cab after the confusion around our shared van last time. We had to give all of our data to the concierge before she let us into our building to meet our host's representative. We booked the place on booking.com but it felt like a creepy airbnb rule breaker. It was obviously an apartment building and the woman representing the owners had a credit card reader, not something everyone has.
At least the place had everything it was supposed to and was close to a supermarket. We got and cooked food for dinner and complained (with several other of our floormates) about our next door neighbours for cranking out the music. They turned it down a bit but a local club seemed to be channeling live music into the neighbourhood. They quieted down by about 11 and we slept well.
 |
| The Tulur ruins. |
 |
| Saying goodbye to Javiara. |
No comments:
Post a Comment