I woke up again to the sound of crashing waves and a wake-up call from the front desk. I needed to tweak some of my education text and organize some images before we had our morning breakfast meeting with all team members.

At breakfast Nathalie outlined the plan: get enough food and other supplies to feed us during the expedition. We would meet at noon and drive to a large supermarket called "Lider" to do this.

After breakfast, Nathalie and I reviewed education update #1 for the web site that described our flight from the United States to Antofagasta.

I headed out to run some errands of my own by accompanying Cristian, Edmond and Michèle who also needed some equipment. I soon ventured on my own into the Antofagasta markets to get a cable to connect the video camera to my computer.

Running Errands in Antofagasta

I was soon having a lot of fun hunting for this cable in Antofagasta. The streets were on a grid and each street was filled with little shops that had every imaginable item that a person may or may not need. It was only a matter of minutes before I passed a small computer store. Without knowing spanish I was somehow able to communicate the kind of cable that I needed to the friendly store clerk. In the process I learned that the word "pequeno" means "little" [when the store clerk was asking me about the kind of connector that I needed]. Moments later, I found some technical drawing pens at a drawing supply store that I also needed.

To get back to the hotel, I needed a cab and fortunately in Antofagasta the cabs are not hard to find. Cabs swarm the streets in every direction.

However, the first two cab drivers that I talked to would not take me to my hotel! I quickly realized that these cab drivers don't like to turn the cab around to head in an opposite direction from the one they are facing.

Seconds later I crossed to a street with cabs that was pointing in the direction of the hotel. I was soon in a nice, clean cab, swerving through the bustling streets to regroup with the team at the hotel for our supply run at the supermarket "Lider". While the cab efficiently navigated our way toward the hotel, I thought about the cab system and my errands a bit. The cabs were sort of like miniature subway lines that point and head given directions on the Antofagasta grid. In this way the cabs can quickly shuttle people from one end of the grid to the next or any point in between in a semi predictable fashion. This system makes sense in a city with small narrow streets that are hard to turn a car around on.

All of these errands happened amazingly fast. In many American cities [Pittsburgh and Dallas for example] small shops in the center of town are replaced by large malls and shopping centers at the outskirts of town that can only be effectively reached through one's own personal car.

Reflection

I emerged from my errands remembering the recurring feeling that I often have when I am in a city like Antofagasta that is configured in a tight, bustling grid with great cabs and buses. This Antofagasta grid is like an advanced computer chip, where instead of transistors and tiny pathways for electrons routing information on a tight, compact chip, Antofagasta's conduits are traditional city roads arranged on a grid with efficient cabs that rapidly shoot goods, services, and people from one end of town to the next. The irony is that this is the way cities have been built since ancient times. However, in the United States these kinds of cities have been rapidly replaced by sprawling suburbs at the outskirts of town.

Our Supply Run at "Lider"

To get supplies, we loaded into the van and headed to another part of Antofagasta to a large Walmart style store called "Lider."

We split into two teams, each with a list of different supplies that would be needed over the next five weeks. Nathalie, Andy, Clay, and Edmond formed one group. Me, Michele, and Rob comprised the other group.













This was not normal grocery shopping. These were supplies to feed ten to fourteen people for around five weeks in an environment where we would not have access to a grocery store. Complicating things further, none of us are very familiar with spanish. Prior knowledge that one takes for granted such as brand-names and names of ingredients were all slightly different. Fortunately Michele is a native French speaker. The nearness of that romance language to Spanish helped her help us decode the labels and fill our carts with the proper provisions. The store was very Walmart-like [even though it was in the city instead of the suburbs] and overwhelmingly massive. We became disoriented several times.

After we collected the supplies, we filled all of our vehicles to the brim and then piled in for our trip back to the hotel to organize and pack our provisions for our drive to our next destination of San Pedro the next day.



We arrived at the hotel and "commandeered" the dining room at the hotel in order to create a staging area so that we could pack our food supplies into boxes and coolers.







After all of this we were worn out. Cristian took us to a nice restaurant for dinner before we went to bed. We would get a good night's sleep before our drive to San Pedro the next day.



Quote of the Day:

"It is easier to relate to other humans than to microbes."