At home in Tahoe, a busy weekend for me would be to leave on Friday afternoon in the van on some grand climbing or skiing adventure and not come back until Sunday night. This past weekend in Chile was similar in that I was out and about basically the entire weekend, just without any mountains.

In La Serena, I am staying in the visitor housing near the observatory offices, which are uphill from the beach at 300 ft (100 meters) elevation. Everything in this town is either down towards the ocean or up towards the mountains. The observatory office/housing complex is a ten-minute drive from the beach on a winter morning when no one is around, or almost an hour on a hot summer afternoon in traffic. Considering it’s currently the middle of summer and high tourist season, it’s basically impossible to get anywhere by car, so I bop around on my bike.

Thus it came to pass that on Friday afternoon, I set off on my bike downhill towards the new climbing gym close to the beach. For a while, it was just me and a 12-year-old named Lukas that I’ve seen there a few times. We’re sort of friends in the sense that basically anytime I try a boulder problem and don’t get it on the first try, he proceeds to complete it perfectly. I’m not totally sure whether he thinks he’s being helpful or a showoff but his beta is useful. Plus kids have a wild strength-to-weight ratio so I don’t feel bad about it. 

Anyways, on one particular boulder problem, there was a dynamic jump from the left side of a corner to a big hold about a body length away on the right side of a corner, followed by getting your feet super high on the left side until your body is almost horizontal and then pulling yourself up and over the big hold into a horizontal plank position on the wall with and then bringing one foot over to your hands and you’re now standing in a split straddling the corner and breathing hard. If none of that made sense, just know that it was a powerful move and/or scroll through these handy slides. Actually, definitely scroll through, I worked hard on these.

After several failed attempts, I was finally able to do it and went on to complete the complete boulder problem while Lukas never quite made it past that move so that was my win of the day. He may have dominated in every other boulder problem we tried but those are ancient history now and this is the one I remember. I think it’s partially a height thing (he’s maybe 2 inches shorter than I am) but to be fair, he was able to reach all the relevant holds, just couldn’t find the right position to pull himself up and over. It’s a classic problem some people have (ahem Will) where they’re too strong and can muscle through most climbing routes without needing a lot of technique, and occasionally that lack of technique means that an almost-30-year-old woman can outclimb a 12-year-old boy on a single boulder problem and then brag about it. Hey, it’s the little wins that matter.

After climbing, I biked the remaining quarter-mile to the beach to meet up with my friend Dani and go swimming. Dani and I were planning to have dinner at a fun vegan restaurant up the hill, so we got on our bikes and started pedaling. She bikes to work every day and I don’t bike hardly ever so I was huffing and puffing to the extreme as Dani sailed smoothly up the incline. We got to the restaurant at 8:05pm and it was deserted and turns out they close at 8pm and we were screwed and also hungry. The solution of course was to order sushi and go eat at the house I’m staying in, with the caveat that it required biking up yet another hill. My coworker who is also staying in this house informed us that we looked like we were going to die when we finally stumbled into the house heaving with the effort of the last steep uphill to the house, so that’s an ego deflator. But we for sure earned that sushi.

Dinner sushi date with a great view from the house I’m staying in

Later that night I went out salsa dancing. It’s always a struggle to decide whether I want to go out or not, because arriving anytime before 11:30pm is just weird and most people don’t get there until after midnight which is already two hours past my bedtime. But I love to dance and on this particular Friday there was a live band at the salsa bar so I figured it would be a fun time. I’m normally in bed by 2am or so when I go out to these things, but I was having a good time and didn’t look at my watch and I didn’t end up going to bed until 3:30am. Whomp. (One of my friends took a video when I was dancing mambo style and I didn’t realize that I accidentally coordinated outfits with that partner until I saw the video, pretty fun).

Some of the Chileans stay out that late that several times a week and to be honest I’m not sure how they’re still alive and functioning. I’ve learned that I can stay out late only on Fridays such that I have two nights to recover before waking up for work at 6am on Monday morning. Social life can be tough in Chile for an early-to-bed gringa like me.

I really wanted to sleep in on Saturday but it wasn’t meant to be and the sun woke me up at 9:15am. Oof. I went to a yoga class at the beach followed by lunch with a coworker’s family (which sounds short but it was a four-hour asado extravaganza) followed by a drive to Guanaqueros to go see my friend play in a volleyball tournament. It’s a really cool spot with a huge campground next to the beach and five or six sand volleyball courts and the ocean is right there. 

My friend and her partner played well but they didn’t make it to the playoffs scheduled for the final day (Sunday), which meant it was time to party on Saturday night. This was a huge tournament half of the players didn’t make it to the Sunday playoffs so when a DJ started playing music on the beach, people showed up ready to dance. I’m not usually a club music / reggaeton dance person but it was way more fun than I expected, and even better, they shut down the music at midnight so that the other players staying in the campground who were going to play in the finals the next day could sleep. I was amazed. Parties in Chile normally don’t start before midnight, let alone end. It was a gringa dream come true. My friends complained about how early it ended and took a small speaker to the beach to keep the party going. Meanwhile, I was in my tent sleeping by 1am and stoked. The friends didn’t go to bed until almost 4am so I was understandably shocked that everyone was awake at 9am ready to prepare breakfast. I guess they have a lifetime of practice staying up late and functioning the next day. 

Sunday was a chill day spent watching some elite volleyball matches, swimming in the ocean, and eating empanadas. Honestly pretty great. I made it back home by early evening just in time to turn around and go to another salsa and bachata dancing event at the local beach, this time an “afternoon” event that nominally started at 7pm but most people didn’t show up until 8pm or later. Is it even allowed to be called an afternoon event at that hour? Chilean timing is weird.

It was a packed weekend with a lot of dancing for someone who literally never dances at home in Tahoe. I guess the sun and the beach are inspiring. Also I don’t have to drive for an hour to get to a studio, which I’d have to do at home. Gotta take advantage while I’m here!