Summertime in Antofagasta

Three more weeks of summer vacation and then school starts here in Chile. Everyone is enjoying their last dog days of summer. I think the entire city spends the days at the beach. Today we took a walk and took pictures of the people of Anto enjoying the sun and sand (or dirt in some cases).

Camping at the beach seems to be the most important vacation activity. Especially over the weekend there are multiple tents set up all over the coast. The vacationers don´t seem to need sandy shores to enjoy the ocean. Many just sit under their umbrellas or walk among the rocks.
Never mind that there isn´t any shade, this doesn´t stop the residents of Antofa.

Enjoying the surf at 6:30 pm on a Sunday afternoon.

A local family spending the day on the dirt. I think they visit the ocean to cool off because their houses are so warm.


This is a typical camping setup: several small tents covered with with a large tarp. The black car is a collectivo, which is the local taxi in town.

Here is the tennis club of Anto. The courts are dirt, just like everything in this city.

Strolling down the street in Antofagasta. All of the tall buildings are apartments. Not many office towers around here.

There were plenty of people playing basketball at the outdoor courts.

These exercise machines have recently been installed all along the coast. As we drive from our home to the office each day we see people constantly using the equipment. Personally, not much cardio resistence on this machine.

This machine challenged my coordination.

As soon as I got off the machine this cute girl jumped on. I think the machines are best utilized as play things for the kids.

The local beach at 6:30 on Sunday.

The people place their umbrellas practically touching their neighbor´s tent. There is a different sense of spacial proximity here in Chile. Everyone stands really close and sits closely at the beach. No one sits without an umbrella and no one has a chair. Needless to say, Leland and I stick out with our beach chairs, huge towels and no umbrella.

So many people in the water. No waves, brown foam, and cold temperature.

Wall to wall umbrellas.

Everyone is in the water.

This barge sits in the middle of the bay. And today there were plenty of guys but no girls enjoying the barge.

The guy next to me climbed along the wall behind me while I was sitting there. Remember what I said about Chilean´s standing too close? He had no problem getting water on me walking along the wall.

We feel blessed to be living in a beach community. It isn´t like any beach that we´ve enjoyed in California but seeing the ocean everyday and being able to go to the beach occasionally really keeps us sane on this mission. We love the summer weather and don´t need winter to arrive in a few months.

On our walk back to the car we found a soccer game starting at the only turf field in town. The "island" in the background is actually a pennisula out past the airport. Sometimes it feels like Catalina in on the horizon. We´ve visited the beach there but found it to be sand-less and crowded. I think we will stick with our local beach.