Cachai?: Playa Blanca

Hola amigos! I knew I have not been posting as much, but I was awfully busy with final exams and projects that I was mentally all over the place; however, all of that is over and I have been able to go continue on with enjoying Chile.

Recently, with a group of friends, we headed to Cartagena, a Chilean commune located in the San Antonio Province, Valparaiso Region to visit its beautiful beach “Playa Blanca” (translation: “White Beach”). Unfortunately the weather was not the best to go to the beach, but seeing that one of our closest friends , also a resident from my building Fentastic, Paula was leaving soon, we wanted to make a small trip with her before we had to bid her farewell.


We arrived in Cartagena at a pretty late hour, planning to spend the night there and enjoying the beach both at night and in the morning the next day. Luckily, my friend Cristobal’s aunt owned a cabin pretty close to the beach and was willing to rent it to us for a fairly cheap price.

It was about 11PM and about the whole neighborhood was sleeping except for the few passing cars every now and then. Cristobal’s aunt had invited us into her home for some cheese empanadas and tea. The empanadas were absolutely delicious and we spent a good amount of time chatting until we decided that we should start heading out to Playa Blanca. It was a pretty chilly night so I, for some reason, did not think to pack a sweater, but luckily, his aunt had one that was surprisingly my size. Afterwards, we went to the cabin to unpack and grab snacks, drinks, and a large blanket to lay on the beach. We then made our way with a bunch of youth-filled shenanigans in between.

When I finally got to the beach, we laid then the blanket at a fair enough distance from the water, pulled out some beers, opened the bags of chips and jammed out to music. It was really dark out so I did not snap any pictures plus my phone was playing music so I left the photoshoot to the others. It was extremely calming and exhilarating at once. The beach was completely empty, literally no one in sight making it perfect to be loud and have fun, but at the same time, the soothing sounds of the washing gently crashing against the shore at times left us quiet and watching the combination of sky and sea in the distance with the bright lights of the city to the left.

The next morning, we woke up kind of late since everyone was feeling pretty lazy and wanted to sleep in. Once we got the gas working for the stove, we started making breakfast and ate a great heap of food. We had scrambled eggs with cheese, toast with options of peanut butter and peach or strawberry jelly, cookies, and crackers. After stuffing our faces, we headed to Playa Blanca once more since we were slightly pressed for time. The next day we are having an International Dinner (Cena Internacional – part 2) since many people are leaving the residency and returning home. We wanted to have one last large dinner while everyone is still here and thus Paula and I needed to head to the beach as soon as possible and manage to get a bus back to Santiago at a reasonable time to still be able to make it to the dinner.

Anyways, we got to the beach again and kept it fairly the same as last night but it was much more calmer. Instead of party music, we played lots of calm Chilean funk or folk music (which is pretty good if I do say so myself). It was very cloudy so no one really changed into their swim wear and just napped on the large blanket. Cristobal and I, like children, played in the sand and tested out the freezing beach waters. I also have been trying to get more into the habit of meditation so we took the opportunity to use the beach’s waves at our advantage and meditated for a fair amount of time. Once it hit around 4:30PM, Paula and I thought that we should start heading back since a bus back to Santiago is about 2 hours and we need to be at the dinner by 9PM. Before exiting the beach, I really wanted to dive in and actually swim in the beach so I quickly ran in with Cristobal jumped into the ice cold waves.


Day well spent


Cheesy-before-the-credits Shot




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