The term relates to the belief of the Americans expanding throughout the North American continent. Ultimately ending up at the Pacific ocean. Maybe it applies in the way that the goal was to reach a final destination, being the Pacific ocean. So that was my goal as well...
So after months of living deep inland in Bolivia, far from the ocean, in which I'm only minutes from on Long Island, I was determined to reach the water.
Little did I know... stepping over from Bolivia to Chile had a very similar feeling to when I crossed from Nicaragua to Costa Rica, a couple years ago...
I took a bus straight to this place. Iquique, Chile. Felt like I was in Miami Beach or something. Very strange. It felt like I was back in the US. Except it's even more expensive!
And of course I had to be their during everyone's holiday. New Year.. the beaches were packed.
Going from Bolivian living to this in a day was a shock. Which is totally strange because I'm always used to the shock only being when I get back home to the United States! This was a pre-shock. A pre-shock in South America... Which will probably make the US shock less. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
Seals playing around in the harbor.
There weren't too many prospects as far as surf spots. Only this one little break by the main beach. Unfortunately, it was littered with body-boarders.. aka spongers, aka boogers. I ended up renting a paddle-board and stayed out of the way of the army of boogie-boarders.
It was nice to be by the ocean finally, but to my surprise, after about five days, my craving was to get back to Bolivia! I really missed Bolivia. I guess since this place was so similar to the US and had the ocean like my home on Long Island, I realized it really wasn't that different. Still awesome though. One day I would like to see the southern part of Chile, which everyone says is beautiful.
So I took a plane and said goodbye to Iquique, in northern Chile. Heading back to Bolivia. To the Capital, La Paz.
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