Arica

So I finally made it to Arica. I got here last night around 8:30pm local time. Of course my luggage was not here. It took me about 20 minutes to communicate to the person working the airline booth about my luggage. She told me it is in Santiago, and it should be here today. I am waiting until about 6 to go up to the airport and see if it is there.

Today has been a very productive day. Matt and I went over everything I will be doing while at sea. It appears that nothing is going to be too hard, but there is just a lot that needs to be taken care of on a daily basis. He worked out a pretty rigid schedule, and I am going to attempt to stick to what he has done. It appears to have worked. Between taking cloud photos every 2 hours, and releasing weather balloons every 4 hours, making sure the radar is working, processing all of the radar data, and finally sending all data back to NCSU I should have my work cut out for me.

For reasons not known by me at this time, the departure of the ship is delayed until Sunday, so I will get a few extra days here to experience the country. I will also be using this time to get some school work done, but I am not sure how much time I will actually have to devote to school work on ship.

Arica has been a cool town to visit. It is much more European than I originally thought. All of the locals also seem to be very happy. The food is good and pretty cheap. My hotel is next door to the casino, so I might try to sneak in a trip. See below for some pictures I have taken.



Flying from Santiago to Arica along the Chilean coast


The Ron Brown

Coastal view

That is it for now,
Jake