So much to talk about! Three weeks ago I went to Pichilemu, a town south of Viña, for a surfing competition. At the last minute I decided to ditch my last class on Friday to first head to Santiago and then take a 5-hour bus ride down south. There were quite a few of us and we rented 2 cabañas to stay in for the weekend. At this year's competition, there were 24 surfers from countries such as South Africa, Peru, the US, and Argentina. Pichilemu is a really neat, total surfer town. On Saturday we got up really early (7am) and headed to Punta de Lobos (beach where the competition was). Since we were farther down south the weather was much colder and we were all super excited when we found out they were giving out delicious coffee. Punta de Lobos was awesome, it was pretty much on a cliff which made for a great view of the competition. The waves, oh my gosh, I don't even know how to describe their enormity. Watching the competition was thrilling to say the least. The waves crashed into huge rocks, so at times we were all scared to death that one of the surfers wasn't going to pop back up out of the water. The atmosphere of the competition was incredible, there were over 2000 people there, everyone focused on those few surfers in the water. When one surfer had a great ride, the whole crowd cheered in unison. It was awesoommee. We ended up staying there for the majority of the day. The winner was Marcos Monteiro, from Brazil. We finished the day watching some soccer and making dinner back at the cabañas. Needless to say, I think it was worth ditching class.

Up next! Brazil! Just gotta find the time to write it.