(old) It’s chilly in Chile

GOOD MORNING ADRIAN! I tested the severity of his hangover but was disappointed that he was fine this morning. I guess passing out at 9pm will do that. That meant we could get going because we’d seen everything Mendoza had to offer. Adrian whinged that he wanted to do another wine tour but I ignored him. Why the hurry? Well, despite the discount we’d asked for the hostel was still one of the most expensive ones and the prices didn’t look much better for the rest of South America. Plus, we wanted to do the NaviMag Patagonia ferry and November 1st the prices went up for high season. So we were going to have to move it, if we wanted to save those pennies. We checked out and told Molly we’d be back if we couldn’t get a seat on a bus to Santiago. But at the bus station we easily got tickets, quickly picked up some food at the station for the ride and were on the bus and on our way out of Argentina. Don’t worry, we’d be back.

The bus took us through the flat wine country and then began the trip up and up and up and up into the Andes. Soon we were surrounded by snow and rocky mountain tops. The landscape reminded me of that movie Alive! and I realized that we weren’t too far from here that those Uruguayans had survived the plane crash by eating each other. Luckily, our bus driver was a huge improvement on his Bolivian counterparts so there was no fear of a remote crash. Plus we had our food supplies just in case. Although the food wasn’t really necessary. I’d forgotten that they fed you on buses down here. Besides food, the ayudante also passed out immigration forms to everyone and even helped us to fill them up. Soon we were passing ski lifts just closed for the season. Although it was warm on the bus, I was glad I’d wisely worn pants. We’d gone from 30º to 0º in just a few hours and we’d go back to 30º when we got to Santiago. So I had pants on but a t-shirt and sandals not a problem on the bus but when we got to the border post I noticed lots of people in front of us milling around outside in the windy mountain pass. I dug out our Bolivian woolly hats and mitts But we sat in the line up of buses and waited. It was Friday and there were two full buses ahead of us and two behind us waiting to be processed. To the right was another line up of fancy cars that were taking part in some sort of cross border rally. Between all the bus passengers, their luggage and all the paperwork for the cars, the border was severely backlogged. Not that I was in a hurry to stand outside in the cold. After an hour, the ayudante led us into the hanger-like border post where we stood in line for another hour. Now it was cold, freezing even, and I stamped my feet to try and keep warm. Two little girls in front of me were very bored and driving their mother crazy. But they held still when they saw me and then started giggling. It was my silly Bolivian hat – they thought it was the most amusing thing ever, probably because it looked like something a child should wear. So I let them play with the dangly bits which kept both of us amused while waiting. We eventually passed through the Argentinean exit and on to the Chilean entrance. Then it was another hour wait while all our luggage was examined. After three hours we were finally back on the bus. And in Chile.

Despite the long wait it was one of the easier borders. We didn't need to change money since we still had some Chilean pesos left over from our time in Iquique and would need our Argentinean when we returned. But now it was time to get back down the mountains. This proved to be tougher than the trip up as the road wound its way down the precarious road. It twisted and turned but that barely slowed the convoy of huge trucks carted goods across the border. The bus had to hug the road to make room for them as they made their way up giving us all a good look of the sheer drop down (photo above). We survived and were soon in the lush green vineyard and farm land of Chile. Thanks to the border delay it was getting late in the day and by the time we finished with the suburban stops it was late by the time we got into Santiago. We were given a light dinner on the bus. Now we didn’t have to worry about finding dinner and could just concentrate on getting to the hostel.

We were definitely in downtown Santiago but I didn’t recognize any of the surrounding street names from the guide book map. We looked around for a subway station but in the chaos of dozens of buses and hundreds of people (and just as many taxi drivers) we couldn’t find it.So we gave up and grabbed a taxi. I gave him the address and the cross streets and even then he overshot the location and had to double back a couple of blocks. Of course he then asked for more money but I refused and despite my basic Spanish I understood a couple of the epithets he muttered under his breath. Hmm, not quite as friendly as the Argentinean taxi driver. But who cares we had arrived at the Moai Viejero Hostel. We didn’t have a reservation and they didn’t have a private room so we grabbed two dorm beds and crashed. Discovering the charms of Santiago would wait until tomorrow.

(old) Cold showers and hot baths.

It was a rough start to our tour when we woke up to no hot water and no breakfast in the hostel. Since we could see our breath we skipped the cold water shower and pulled out some cookies to tide us over until we got the breakfast the tour company had promised us. And looked forward to the hot water shower we’d get tonight. We didn’t let it get to us probably because we were getting out of San Pedro before we went bankrupt. The tour office was just a couple of blocks down the road. There was already a small crowd waiting although at this early hour no one was feeling particularly talkative. Or perhaps they hadn’t had their hot showers either.

Right on time, a guide appeared and shuttled us over to a waiting minibus. There were twelve of us in total but we weren’t all traveling together. This was just the bus to the border where we’d be separated into our different tours, depending on how long we had signed up for. Chilean tour companies aren’t allowed to got into Bolivia and vice versa and since we were only 20km from the border this journey was going to be a short one, that is until we got to the Chilean border post just outside of town. The two Colombians onboard had forgotten to bring their tourist cards with them and we had to wait a half hour while the driver took them back to their hotel to fetch them. Then it was back on the bus for the drive past the turn off for the Argentinian border past some volcanoes to the Bolivian post another 45 minutes away. Even the word post is perhaps too strong a description. It was just a hut in the middle of the desert. There was nothing in sight in either direction except a burnt out bus shell yet the Bolivians had taken care to put up a free-standing gate across the road, perhaps not realizing that the hard packed desert on either side of the road was probably easier to drive on than the potholed road they were blocking.

We were given forms to fill out and then waved into the hut one at a time to pay our entry fee. The fee was a surprise since we hadn’t needed to pay one at the Peru-Bolivia border and when I raised my eyebrow at the $2 they wanted they showed me the official-looking seal in my passport that my money bought. Our border crossings in Central America taught us that individual border posts are good at coming up with official looking receipts for fees at supposedly free crossings. But rather than protest I reminded myself that $2 was a lot less than the useless bus tickets we’d had to buy to get into Panama or the $150 the Americans had to pay.

Once we were all paid up and stamped in we were divided up into three groups – those doing a one day tour, those doing a two-day tour and the 6 of us who’d signed up for the full 3-days to Uyuni. Unfortunately for us 3-dayers, our jeep had yet to arrive so we huddled into the bus to protect ourselves from the bitterly cold wind that was blowing across the desert. The cold got to Adrian’s bladder and with nothing except the burnt out bus to hide behind he ran off to do his business. He returned quickly breaking the ice with the rest of our tour mates by providing a full report of his journey.

“Don’t go back there,” he warned the rest of us.

Apparently the burnt out bus was the local toilet for everyone crossing the border and was a minefield of excrement. It must have been bad because Adrian didn’t even ask for the camera so he could take a picture. Either that or he knew I would have denied his request. Before he could launch into more detail, the jeep arrived saving us from the cold as well. The jeep driver jumped out and began loading all of our bags up on the roof of the jeep. He did an amazing job of fitting it all up there and even more amazingly, the vehicle didn’t topple over under the weight. Now it was time to fit all of us in the vehicle. Adrian and I hopped into the back and let the skinny others share the middle and front seats. Our driver was just about to launch into his introduction when Adrian interrupted him to ask about breakfast and was distressed to hear that it wasn’t coming for a while. But at least it silenced him long enough so that we could all introduce ourselves and let the guide begin his tour.

Up in front was Kai, a young German guy on a three-month whirlwind round the world tour. In the middle was Tony, an older German guy on an extended vacation in Bolivia and next to him Bart and Anna a Dutch and French couple (respectively) on a 6-week vacation of South America. Our guide didn’t speak English and his name would become the subject of much debate amongst us over the next few days. Was it Ruben? I heard Brugen? I thought he said Robeto? Even Kai who was half-Spanish didn’t catch the name as he stepped in to act as translator for all of us. Instead we just avoided any situation which would require us to call the guide by his name.

Our first stop was the park entry office where we had to pay our entrance fee. Adrian asked if this was where we were having breakfast but Ru-bregen-erto just shook his head and with a small smile said no. Anna and Bart went to the take advantage of the washroom located in the office thinking it a better option than the bus at the border. But judging by their expressions when they came back, perhaps not too much better. With our entrance fees paid we piled back in the van and headed to our first site, Laguna Verde. Amidst the dusty desert, it was a perfect aqua colour that reminded me of Llanganuco in Peru. Our driver drove past the other tour vans and headed up to a ridge overlooking the lake so we could take it in. It was the perfect spot but not perfect enough for Adrian who once again asked if this is where we were having breakfast. And once again our guide shook his head no although this time there was no smile.

After we’d all had our fill of the view, we piled back into the jeep and drove to another small lake remarkable only because of a small flock of flamingos camped out nearby. Adrian was about to ask if this is where we were having breakfast but I stopped him. Of course this was where we were having breakfast. There was a small hostel just over a ridge with a good view of the lake and an empty dining room. We may have been in the middle of nowhere but breakfast was already an improvement over the typical bread and jam we’d been offered at other hostels. This place had cheese and it was real cheese not the weird feta-mozzarella cross we’d had for the last 7 months. Adrian was finally happy as were we since we wouldn’t have to listen to him ask when we were going to eat. Thanks to the leftover bread on another table we had plenty of food. Kai left us to scout out the bathrooms and accommodation and it wasn’t promising. We hoped that our luck would be better tonight. We paid one last visit to the flamingos before getting back into the jeep.

It was another hour until our next stop which Rubregenerto told us were called the Dali rocks. This was a bad name since we all conjured up images of rocks that looked like melting clocks or cities on giraffe legs and when we got there they looked like a bunch of boulders in the sand. I think the guide sensed our disappointment because he quickly moved on and promised us we’d love the next stop. We were headed to the hot springs although considering how cold it was outside I wasn’t sure how fun or how hot the springs could actually be. When we pulled up I was encouraged by the sight of 5 others already in the springs steam rising up from around them. However, that still didn’t solve the problem of the blustery cold wind that we’d have to fight before we got into the water. I was about to point out to Adrian that there was also no place to change into our bathing suits but when I turned around he was already in the midst of stripping down and jumping into his trunks in front of our group and the 20 others standing nearby. He jumped into the water and repeated ad nauseum “nice, nice, nice”. Well if he didn’t care neither did I. But I did care about exposing my bottom to everyone. So I wrapped a towel around me and somehow managed to change without flashing everyone then ran into the water before hypothermia set in. Kai joined us but the others passed. The water was indeed hot and super relaxing but with all the minerals I don’t think it was the best choice as a substitute shower. We soaked in the bath as long as we could mostly because the idea of getting out of the hot water and into the freezing cold was so unappealing. But eventually, our guide told us time was up. It was still freezing and the wind on wet skin meant certain wind chill frostbite. I sucked it up and quickly managed to get changed back into my dry clothes without exposing my bare ass to everyone else and without getting my dry clothes wet. Quite an achievement.

Just beyond the springs was another hut. This was our lunch stop. Inside it was filled to the rafters with folks from other tour groups. The room was just a dining room and the food was provided by the tour companies and there was a definite difference. The Japanese had a major spread while others were eating rice and not much else. Our tour group fell somewhere in the middle and considering the cost it was pretty good. The best part of the stop (after the bath in the hot springs) was courtesy of one of the older Japanese women. She pulled out a bag of origami peace cranes which she proceeded to hand out to us backpackers. She didn’t speak any English but understood everyone’s garbled version of Domo Origato (I stopped myself from adding Mr. Roboto, disappointed aren’t you?). It was such a simple gift but we all loved it and I wished there was a Canadian equivalent to break the ice as we traveled – Timbits? Hockey Pucks? Touques? Not quite the same. Although I wish I’d had a touque at that moment – it was freezing.

It was time to get back in the jeep and this time we all changed our seats which meant poor Tony was crammed next to Adrian in I in the middle. Oh well, at the very least we warmed up quickly. But it was a short cramped ride as not too far from the hot springs we pulled up to a field of smoke and boiling mud. Signs warned that this was a dangerous field of volcanoes (photo above) and I suppose it was although the volcanoes were only an inch or two across although constantly erupting. The steam-smoke was a noxious sulphur mix that made it hard to breath and hard to enjoy the warm so we headed to a windy spot to view the field. That required us to walk over suspiciously unstable parts of caked mud and I expected us to fall through into the boiling mixture just below the surface. Of course we didn’t and Adrian accused me of being as melodramatic as the warning signs. However, warning signs aren’t common in Bolivia so I figured they must be there for a pretty good reason. Too many boiled stews of tourists was my best guess. At this point the driver called us over to make a decision. We were headed towards the Laguna Colorado and afterwards we could go in one direction and stay in a refugio with no electricity or running water and tomorrow we’d see more lakes and the arbol de piedra or we could go in another direction and stay at a better place with lights and water (and a shower) and tomorrow see other rock formations. Faced with the prospect of roughing it we all voted for the nicer option. Although I was a bit torn because I wanted to see the rock tree that I’d seen in photos. However, the guide told us that we’d see lots of rocks like the arbol. So I felt better and I’m sure I’d feel even better after that shower.

Laguna Colorado was a giant pink lake covered in flamingos. But these weren’t ordinary flamingos they were super smart. Or at least it appeared that way. The closer we tried to get to them the further away they got without appearing to move at all. Somehow these birds could bend the laws of physics. We all tried to get close to them but nothing worked until the convoy of Japanese tourists pulled up at the opposite end of the lake causing the birds to motionlessly move right in front of us to get away from them. Good for us but bad for the Japanese tour group – perhaps they should have tried giving the flamingos some of those cranes.

The guide then told us it was time to go to our accommodation for the night. It was another hour of driving to Villa Mar – weirdly named since there was no sea anywhere nearby. But that wasn’t the only disappointment. Our “deluxe accommodation” was a six bed door and the showers were there but none of us could figure out how to get them to work. Not at all what we expected. This was the first time we were staying in a dorm on our trip so we warned the others about Adrian’s snoring. Oh well, nothing like a sleeping on top of each other to ensure our group would bond. Just behind the guesthouse a woman was washing clothes in the stream oblivious to the fact that it was freezing. Just beside her llamas grazed on the bit of grass growing on either side of the trickle of water. It was pretty but it was also too cold to explore so I hid back in the room trying to get some blood and feeling back into my fingertips. If the rest of the trip was like this I was in trouble - I only had that long sleeve polo shirt and a windbreaker and this was full fleece weather. The others headed into the village to explore (and look for a pub Bart said half-jokingly) while Adrian headed up to climb the rock cliff that circled the village. But everyone returned in time for dinner. Bart hadn’t found his pub but Adrian had found a store selling beer by candlelight so we created our own pub atmosphere over our soup and spaghetti. It was probably just the alcohol but for a brief moment I was actually warm so I left the others and crawled into bed fully clothed hoping to wake up with all my digits unfrozen.

(old) Beam us outta here Scotty.

Tonight we were off on the night bus to San Pedro de Atacama so it was time to put our affairs in order. Not because we feared for our life or anything so melodramatic but because San Pedro was a small town on the border with Bolivia and where we hoped to join a Salt Flat Tour back into Bolivia. That meant we might not have internet for quite a few days. The hotel here in Iquique supposedly had wifi but I had been unable to connect to it and their desktop in the lobby was so slow that after 20 minutes it had yet to load up the home page. I hoped that this was just the hotel connection and not a sign that the internet had taken the holiday off as well. Ivan and Catalina had told us that where they were staying was full of posh restaurants and hotels and we set off in that direction beach combing for a coffee shop with wifi.

We packed up all our gear and checked out of our room leaving all our bags except for my pack and computer in their storage room. Then it was time to walk down the beach towards posh Cavancha. Today the waves were huge and the water was full of surfers taking advantage of the swells. But they weren’t the only ones. The beach was absolutely heaving despite it being what we considered a bit too chilly to be sunbathing. The surf competition was still going on and with the big waves the experienced surfers were battling it out so we pulled up a rock to watch the action. Beside me Adrian continued to chant one, two, three, chum pretending to jump up on his invisible surfboard in some sort of imaginary competition with the pros. I didn’t ask him if he was winning but did tell him it was time to go when the backpack and computer got too heavy.

At the far end of Cavancha was a totally different world from downtown Iquique. Here it was nothing but those shiny condos and five-star hotels and restaurants that were way beyond our price range – or at least that’s what the linen table cloths and wine glasses said to us. But most of them looked closed anyway. There was no sign of a coffee shop with or without wifi. We considered heading downtown where we had seen a place with wifi but doubted that it would open today. So we kept walking all the way to Playa Brava. All though it was a wide beach it was empty because the waves here were deadly. Not even the surfers were brave enough for Brava. There wasn’t much in this area and we were starving and headed back to Cavancha to try and catch a bus into town. However, on our way back through the condos and hi-rises we took a different turn and discovered a bunch of restaurants that were open. One even advertised it had wifi so although it looked quite pricey we decided to give it a go. The prices were steep but we decided to just enjoy the ambience and the wifi and order anyway. I had my first Peruvian ceviche (albeit in Chile) and a salad while landlubber Adrian stuck with steak and potatoes. While we ate I used the wifi to upload some photos. It was a shot upload session since there was no plug and my weak battery quickly drained. There was more bad news when I used the little power I had left to look up some info on San Pedro. The hostel prices were ridiculous - $40 for a room with shared bath!?! I just hoped that we’d be able to find a tour out of town as soon as possible. We sipped our drinks as slowly as possible and just before dark we headed back to the hotel to get our bags and head to the bus station a few hours later.

When we bought our tickets the helpful clerk had spoken slowly and repeated everything so I could understood but I was still not 100% sure if I had understood it all. I was still puzzled by the fact that she had said the bus would stop in the middle of the night so we could get some sleep. That seemed weird and when we got on the bus I had trouble drifting off wondering if we were going to be woken up and forced off the bus to wait for a connection to San Pedro. When I finally decided just to sleep and figure it out when we got there, sleep was made difficult by the bus temperature. There were no blankets on board so Adrian and I alternated between sweating and freezing as the driver clumsily adjusted the heat throughout the trip. But we must have fallen asleep and indeed sometime in the middle of the night the bus did stop because when the sun came up, I woke up to discover that we were parked in the Calama bus company office with just Adrian, myself and a couple of other passengers left on the bus. The bus was locked up tight and so was the onboard bathroom. That was the most distressing since I now had to piss like a racehorse. It was also freezing now which did nothing to help my bladder issues. I thought I was saved when the driver opened the door and came onboard. I asked him to unlock the bathroom but he said no and directed me to the bus company office. I quickly ran off the bus only to discover the office just opening up and told by a clerk that the bathroom was across the street in the shipping office. It of course was closed for another hour. I set the world record in pee-pee dancing on the street waiting and hoping that some keen worker would turn up early for work. He didn’t but my bladder held until he showed up. Feeling 10000 times better I boarded the bus as the rest of the passengers filed on for the trip to San Pedro.

It was a 4-hour drive through the desert to the small dusty town of San Pedro. When the bus stopped and as we got off it felt like we’d traveled back to Bolivia already. We grabbed our bags and headed into town to search for a place to stay. The first place had a room for $60. And the next had a dorm that was going to cost us $20 each. Both were more than we wanted to be paying so we continued on to the HI where they at least had a room with shared bath for $40. The price wasn’t great and neither were the facilities but we were sick of walking and after a night on the bus just wanted to shower. However we were told we had to pay upfront and we didn’t have enough cash on us. So we set out once again through the small town in search of an ATM. The first machine we found only took Mastercards and our bank cards are Visa. We were directed to another machine on the other side of the thankfully small town but it was out of service. Now we had to find an internet café so that I could go online to look up our Mastercard PINs that I had stored in my email. But first we decided to stop for breakfast using the bit of cash we had. Breakfast was more expensive than we’ve paid so far and was mediocre like the rest of the town so far. But just next door was an internet café so I was able to grab our PINs while we waited for the food. Then it was back to the ATM which was now only giving out $100 at a time. I took this as a sign that our time in San Pedro should be as short as possible and after paying our hostel bill and showering in the lukewarm dribble they called a tap, Adrian and I went out to search for a tour that was leaving tomorrow.

San Pedro appeared to be a town that existed only for the tourist. The streets were pretty in that generic cookie-cutter sort of way and they were filled by alternating tour companies, cafes, and gift shops. It was like a Disney version of Spanish Colonial South America but at least it made it easy to do some comparison tour shopping. The guidebooks and fellow travelers warn that the tour companies in San Pedro were hit or miss and all somewhat mediocre. We tried one recommend by the Aussies we’d met back in Costa Rica. The rep there told us that the accommodations were basic; they only had dorms and there was no hot water (way to sell) and they cost more than we’d hoped to pay. So we walked down the street to another place that I’d seen reco’ed elsewhere. Their price was 10% less and they showed us pictures of their private rooms and promised hot water. But more importantly they took credit cards without adding a service charge. It was kind of a no-brainer and we booked with them to leave tomorrow. With our escape plotted we walked around the town but just saw more of the picture perfect white washed adobe buildings, souvenir markets, generic backpacker cafes and more pricey package tour restaurants. One of these had wifi so we decided to abuse their facilities. We ordered copious cups of coffee while I finished uploading the photos from the past week. The connection was rather slow and when the restaurant closed between lunch and dinner I thought they would kick us out. But they didn’t and four hours, and $20 worth of coffee later I got all the photos up.

We stopped to pick up snacks and water for the three day tour and then went to find a place where the locals ate for a cheap meal. Our search led us out of town to a not so pretty suburb. The homes were still adobe but were no longer painted and there were no more leafy trees lining the streets. It was amazing that this totally different village lay right next door to a tourist mecca. I thought for sure we’d find a place to eat but the streets were deserted and we saw nothing that looked open. You know in those Western movies when the stranger walks into town and all the locals close up pretending to have moved away hoping to avoid him? Well, that’s it what it felt like as we walked through this side of town. We were the outsiders looking for a meal (not a shoot out) and the locals were all locked up tight inside hoping we’d just go away. It was eerie and unnerving. I know the locals ate somewhere but we couldn’t find it. Instead we ate at the first place we came to back in San Pedro. But being on the edge of town, food was cheaper than what we’d seen elsewhere. It wasn’t the best but at least it cost less than our coffee. The best part came when we left the café. The sun was setting and thanks to some low-lying clouds it was the most unbelievable sunset ever. It was apocalyptic and I expected a space ship to appear out of the clouds (photo above) at any moment and blow up the church in the plaza. And when I looked down the street I wasn’t the only one that felt that way. Every other gringo stood motionless looking up at the sky. Before all of us zombies were beamed up, the sun dipped below the horizon breaking the spell. But I took it as a good sign that we were leaving tomorrow to be beamed up into the other world of the salt flats.

(old) Turning the clocks back and forth.

“What day is it?”
“Do you mean the date or the day?”
“Either, I guess.”
“I don’t know. Does it matter?”
“Not really, I guess.”
Adrian and I must have had this exact conversation about 100 times in the last 7 months. I’m not sure when we lost track of the day or at least the day of the week, but I know it happened relatively quickly. Although we’ve discovered that we have a knack for trying to visit museums or galleries or other sites on the one day of the week they are closed. We’ve also gotten very good at forgetting what time it is. But most of the time it really doesn’t matter. And Bolivia this was particularly true. There the only clocks people use is the sun. They get up when it’s light and go to bed when it’s dark. And as for calendars, well their way of life really hasn’t changed all that much in the last 100 years. But here we were in Chile which had already shocked us with such modern wonders as shopping malls, stoplights and Pakastani corner shops, so it was rather fitting that last night before going to bed I had to dig out the alarm clock (my cell phone) to charge it and set the alarm. Today we were on tour time and I wanted to make sure that we’d have plenty of time to get ready before professor Luis came to pick us up punctually for our tour.

The stress of having to be some place at a certain time, meant I got up before the alarm went off. So I had my shower and returned to the wake up Adrian and turn off the ringing alarm he was ignoring. I was feeling mighty pleased with ourselves for leaving us enough time to gentle wake up when the hotel bell rang. It was Luis – 45 minutes early. He must have been very eager to continue his English lessons. I told him that Adrian was in the shower still so he said he’d go and pick up the others and then come pick us up. He got back in the van and headed back inside to tell Adrian to hurry up – although I don’t think he heard me over his loud shower singing. As I quickly scoffed my breakfast and packed Adrian’s up, the hotel clerk turned to me and said “ahora mes por verano,” which didn’t appear to make much sense. Now is a month to summer? I assumed he was talking about the weather or something equally banal so I smiled and nodded and repeted “verano” to him to which he smile and nodded in return. Adrian was finally out of the shower and I hustled him, or at least tried to, but since Luis was an hour early, Adrian didn’t feel the urge to rush. Luckily when the van returned we were ready although both a little annoyed by Luis’s early arrival.

We scrambled into the minivan that was full now full with Chileans. This was the first time we’d been on a tour and it was local tourists rather than foreigners. I guess, Chile is the first country we’ve been to in a while where the locals actually have vacations and the money to travel. Sitting nearest to us were Catalina and Ivan, who spoke perfect English and were happy to translate for us. Since I was still rather discombobulated by Luis’ early arrival I appreciated the break. The couple were from Santiago and had flown here for the long weekend (ah, good to know that tomorrow was a holiday). He was an environmental lawyer and she was a journalist. And both of them were very nice, despite Adrian continually calling Catalina, Catarina to go with what he called Ivan’s “odd Russian name”. Oh Adrian, the Miss Manners of the road. Luckily, Ivan and Catalina found us entertaining, particularly when they heard about our trip. We did our best not to bore them to death as we headed out of town to our first stop on the tour.

It was this first stop that Adrian and I were excited about. The tour was taking is to Humberstone in the middle of the desert. It was once a thriving town built to house the workers of the British nitrate mining operation on January 1st 1961, the town was closed, the people moved out and everything left in the desert. Adrian and I both love ghost towns. Just like us on this trip, time has stopped for them. But we also like the broken down, decaying state of everything and this site was mecca for us. Because it was the first stop on the tour, I feared we might be rushed but we ended up spending almost 3 hours exploring every nook and cranny. And there was lots to explore, the town had living quarters for all its staff but also everything to support them. There was a theatre, some churches, a swimming pool and school. But there were also many stores and shops. You see the crafty British managers didn’t pay the workers in cash but in company credit good at only the company stores. So the workers had to give back what they earned to the company. As long as nitrate was in demand, the company was laughing but soon the market dropped out and the company could no longer support the town and its workers. So they just abandoned the whole place and for decades it was left untouched until the Chilean government realized they could make some money out of it by turning it into a tourist attraction. They stepped in and stopped the decay and in some places they were even trying to fix up the old buildings hoping to prevent the tourists from injuring themselves on the broken floorboards and rusty nails and to attract a different type of visitor. The old hotel was now available to rent for events although I can’t imagine many people wanting to host their wedding in the midst of this eerie ghost town. The mine operations were also open for exploration and there the combination of rust and decay was awesome, particularly in the early morning sun (photo above). I’m pretty sure after the first hour that most of the people on the tour were bored but Adrian and I were sad when Luis told us it was time to go three hours later.

If the tour had ended now, I think Adrian and I would have felt like we’d gotten our money’s worth, but we still had the whole day ahead of us. But the sites were far spread out far across the desert giving us lots of time to take in the landscape. There were the huge sand dunes that surrounded Iquique forming the cliff we’d come down on our arrival in town two nights ago. And Humberstone was located in the rocky desert. Now Luis stopped on the side of the impossibly straight highway that was surrounded by some weird lumpy plain. As he picked up some of the lumps and threw them on the ground they broke apart revealing that they were salt and we were currently in the middle of the Chilean salt flats. Luis invited us to touch our tongues to the rock and we stupidly did. And it tasted exactly like a brick of salt, d’uh.

Before we were burnt to a crisp on the black hardtop, Luis shuttled us back into the van towards our next destination. Back when Luis had outlined the itinerary of the tour Adrian was disappointed that we wouldn’t be seeing El Gigante, a giant petroglyph in the desert. Luis had told him, that he had something even better in store. But Adrian still pouted. As we pulled up to our third stop, he finally stopped the pouting. We were at Cerro Pintado (or Painted Hill). From back on the highway we could see a series of markings on the hills the lined the edge of the desert. As we drove across the desert the figures got clearer. Here there were over 350 different figures from 4 different eras and four different people. There were some from the Tiwanaku, Inca, Aymara and Quechua people and for some reason that anthropologists have yet to determine, they all chose this spot to leave some sort of message that was still visible centuries later. Some were simple geoglyphs but there were also animals and humans depicted. And the sheer number made Adrian forget about El Gigante.

Soon everyone started grumbling about lunch – a bit unusual since it was only about noon. But I guess Chileans are used to eating at exactly noon. Luis placated us with cold drinks and snacks from the cooler and told us the next stop was lunch – an hour away on the other side of the desert. As the air conditioned van cut across the desert road, I was just thankful we were inside as we could see the heat rising off the highway and even the sand. At first I thought I had even spotted a mirage but it was an oasis and our destination. The town of Pica had been built around the oasis hundreds of years ago and was now known for its springs and orange trees. But the only site that my fellow passengers cared about at the moment was the café where we were stopping for lunch. We ordered and then chatted while waiting for our food to be prepared. When it finally arrived, everyone dug in and it was silent while we chowed down. As the dishes were being cleared away, I noticed a clock on the wall and noticed that it said 3 oclock not 2. I asked Ivan if there was a time difference between Chile and Bolivia. He explained that there was now because the clocks had sprung forward last night for daylight savings time. D’oh, Luis wasn’t an hour early this morning, we were an hour late. And the clerk at the hotel wasn’t say “Ahora mes por verano.” He was saying “Una hora mas por verano” (One hour more for summer). I guess we really had lost track of time.

It was a good thing it was so hot out so everybody was as redfaced as I now was. The heat was truly oppressive here in the middle of the desert but Luis told us he had just the thing to cure it. He took us to the hot springs in town. Unfortunately soaking in a thermal bath was the last thing I felt like doing. Adrian had no such qualms and immediately changed into his trunks and jumped in amongst all the families in the water. Ivan and Catalina invited me to walk with them into town but I passed and found a shady spot to hang out and wait for him and Tatiana, the only other one from the van who decided to jump in. And it was Tatiana, who proved to be the one who held us up as she dawdled out of the water and then back to the van and all of us were soon overheated.

It suddenly felt like a very long day but Luis had two more stops for us. Both were small towns with some very important churches. The rest of the tour group were happy to get out and explore but Adrian and I were less enthusiastic. Ivan tried to encourage us but we explained that these were the upteenth churches we’d seen on our trip. But since we were here we took a look. The first town was Mantilla and the church must have been important but we missed Luis’s explanation. So we tried to figure out our own explanation. It was white and red and a church and that was the best Adrian and I could do. The second stop was La Tirana and here I paid a bit more attention. La Tirana was famous for its yearly carnival celebrating the Virgin of Something or Other. But it wasn’t carnival so the only attraction was the church which was interesting because it was made out of wood. When we were done looking around it, we joined Ivan and Catalina to wait for the others who were shopping at the stalls in the square. We thanked Ivan for his translation services and jokingly asked how much he charged. But instead of handing us a bill, he handed us his phone number and email address and told us to give him a call when we arrived in Santiago so he could show us around the city. He and Catalina also invited us to join them for dinner and drinks that evening but Adrian was determined to watch the NFL game that night so we passed. They were really the nicest people and their generocity was awesome and we would definitely have to give them a call when we got to the city. When we got back to Iquique, we said goodbye to our new Chilean friends and set out to search for an open restaurant or pub where we could watch the game. However nothing was open, not even the chicken and chips place from the night before. Either everyone was still confused by the time or everything was closed on Sundays. We walked another street over and stumbled across a chirasco shop. Chirascos in Chile appeared to be sandwiches the size of our heads we discovered when our orders came. We stuffed as much as we could into our bellies and then rolled back to the hotel where Adrian watched the game and I went to sleep.

(old) From Icky Iquique to Yay, Chile.

I felt rather bad waking up. No, not ill, just a bad conscience. I felt responsible for that Bastien and Anita had followed us to Iquique because on first impression it wasn’t anything special. After breakfast at the hotel (the one good thing about the place), we walked to the beach. The stretch the furthest away from the town was nice and there were lots of families and surfers already out. But the closer to the city we walked, it started to get not so nice starting with the appearance of lots of graffiti, then the drug addicts and/or homeless folks we had to step over and a stretch that smelt like human piss. Once we got through that and arrived in the old part of town (photo above), things improved but not enough to make me feel any better. Iquique was an old port full of old clapboard seaside buildings. It was a nice change after Bolivia but it wasn’t pretty. And I’m sure Bastien and Anita were wondering what they were doing here when they woke up this morning. We didn’t see them as we walked down the pedestrian promenade so I hoped that they’d taken the first bus out as they had planned.

But we were here for a few days trying to make something of our detour. We popped into a local tour company to see what there was to do, other than the beach. The owner was a lovely old guy who spoke very little English. He was happy to find out we were Canadian because according to him, Canadians were a lot more polite and orderly than other nationalities who he found very demanding. Luis started showing us some of the tours he offered, and trying his best to explain in English what we would see. I told him that Spanish was okay but he told me that he was trying to teach himself English because so most of the foreigners who come through speak better English than they do Spanish. He showed me the website he was using and said he’d been at it for 4 months. At the moment he was a little frustrated by his progress because not only does every English vowel have 5 different sounds but every verb seems to have 50+ meanings. He pulled up “do” as an example and showed me the list of meanings for it. I agreed that it was more difficult than Spanish but also told him that most of the meanings they had listed weren’t common and to just treat “do” like “hacer”. Adrian tried to convince him that English was so much easier than Spanish but wasn’t making much progress – mostly because it’s not true. In the end we ended up talking about languages for an hour before getting back to the tours. Another customer came in so we quickly signed up for a fairly comprehensive all day one for tomorrow. It was pricey but included lunch and we hoped it would be an improvement from our mine tour with Evil Julio.

The promenade ended at the town square and it was interesting only because there was no cathedral on it. Instead there was theatre and bunch of fancy schmancy dining clubs. I wonder if that means Chile is less Catholic than the other Latin American countries we’d been to. It probably had more to do with the English shipping company influence in this part of the continent because we eventually found the Cathedral it was beyond the main drag in the area we’d been in last night. Even in the daylight, the area was quite grotty and didn’t feel safe. So we embraced that feeling and walked towards the port area, which was deserted on the weekend. We popped into the naval museum that was dedicated to the Battle of the Pacific. You’d think that since there was a museum that Chile won this sea battle in their war with Peru but you’d be wrong. Nope this was a museum dedicated to the heroic sinking of a ship, heroic because the captain didn’t surrender, and used his ship as a really big battering ram killing everyone on board in the effort. I guess I’m just not a warmongerer since I’d have surrendered rather than drowned. The museum was full of ship-spotters eating up all the model ships and naval paraphernalia, however it wasn’t quite our thing so we did a quick and polite tour of the room and then left.

Continuing on with our embracing of the dodgy and seedy we continued on to the bus terminal. Like the beach, the neighbourhood smelt of piss both human and canine as it seemed like this is where all the stray dogs (as well as humans) hung out. The terminal was a small building with 10 tiny kiosks crammed inside. We walked down looking for any offering a trip to San Pedro the Chilean end of the salt flats. One of the clerks saw us searching and called us over to help us out. When I told her what I was looking for, she told me that they were the only company that went directly to San Pedro but that it was a night bus. She was very nice and took the time to tell us all the other companies’ schedules. They all involved changing buses in another town and due to the vagaries of the schedules we’d have to spend the night in that town before we could catch the bus to San Pedro. I told her I was going to ask one of these other companies and she encouraged me to. Of course, she was right (as well as being super nice) so we decided to buy two tickets. She told us we’d made a good choice since the bus would stop for 4 hours in the night so we could get a good sleep and we wouldn’t need to spend money on a hotel room. Actually, I’d have preferred that the bus just continued directly to San Pedro but at least we’d be getting into town at 10am rather than the middle of the night. As she handed our tickets to us she explained everything slowly and carefully one more time just to make sure we understood. I hope everyone in Chile is this nice.

Adrian had already decided that they were all nice and convinced me that we should continue walking to Iquique’s other famous landmark, the Zofri Free Trade Area. It was located just north of us according to the map and looking in that direction it appeared to be the seediest part of town. I tried to convince him not to, but the promise of duty free products was too strong a pull for him so we plodded on. It was indeed even seedier and grittier. It was weird – although Chile (or at least Iquique) looks more civilized than Bolivia it felt more rundown and a whole lot less safe, so much so that I wouldn’t even take my camera out. It didn’t help that once we passed the entrance to the Zofri, we were immediately in an industrial area surrounded by shipping containers, fuel depots, car import lots and distribution centres. After 30 minutes of feeling uneasy I told Adrian we should turn around. I began searching for a bus or taxi to take us back but saw nothing. Then ahead on the horizon, Adrian spotted a mall, a gigantic mall. This was the Zofri and inside was a collection of small kiosks that looked more like a gigantic flea market than what I would call a mall. It was an Honest Ed’s the size of 5 football fields. We soon discovered that cheap was realitive. For Chileans the cost of the electronics and brand name items for sale may have been cheap but compared to back home they were the same or even more expensive. I find shopping about as enjoyable as drinking battery acid so after 30 minutes of wandering around, I had a mall headache. Luckily Adrian was prepared to walk away empty handed, finally convinced that there were no affordable PSP games in the giant complex.

Back outside in the daylight and fresh air far away from the glazed-eyed crowds of shopers and oxygen-poor air, we refreshed ourselves at a juice stand. Actually, stand is a stong word – it was a shopping cart full of oranges, and a cooler of ice under a scrawny tree just beside the ginormous parking lot. As we drank our juice, I asked her where we could catch a collectivo or bus back to Cavancha and she pointed to the corner. She also let us know that we shouldn’t pay more than $1 each and if they tried to charge us more not to give it to them. She was so adamant that I expected a hassle when we got on board but the driver asked us for about 80 cents, the same amount he asked from everyone else on board. The bus took off towards Cavancha but rather than travel along the beach road, it took a road further inland, letting us off about a kilometer or two in front of another large mall. Oh, the horror made worse by the fact that the mall was the main obstacle between us and the beach road. I took a deep breath and we stepped inside, attempting to walk through it to get to the hostel. Unforutnately after a month in Bolivia, we’ve lost all our mall navigation skills and we were unable to find an exit amongst the fast food chains, neon signs, and familiar brand names in every window. If it weren’t for the Spanish signs everywhere I’d have thought we had to some anonymous suburb in North America, not Chile. Eventually, we managed to retrace our steps to exit the same way we entered, still no closer to the beach than when we started. But we followed the steady stream of cars through the parking lot and on to the main road until we stumbled across the beach road once again.

Seeing the beach snapped us out of our mall daze. But didn’t help with our disorientation. This end of the beach was lined with modern condo buildings and the beach itself was filled with families, and scantily clad hardbodies enjoying the sun and the water. We could have been in Southern California. Since none of the people in the water had blue lips, icicles off their noses, or other obvious signs of hyporthermia we cut across the boardwalk to the water’s edge. But when we dipped our toes in the Pacific, we were shocked by the icy water. Nope we were definitely in Chile with the ocean bringing the cold Antarctic waters north. Further down the beach, the surfing competition was still on although the waves had died down leaving the young girls competing at the end of the day nothing to ride for more than a few seconds. Just beyond the beach was a rocky bit where the waves were bigger and where the real pros were having a go. At least I hoped they were pros as they were dangerously close to slamming into the rocks. We watched them until I couldn’t take the anxiety anymore and had to head back to the hostel.

I tried to get the hotel’s wifi to work but after an hour gave up. We headed out to find some food vaguely aware that there was a strip of restaurants and bars somewhere nearby but no clue in which direction they were. We didn’t find them but we did find a corner shop, run by a Pakistani family who were happy to speak English with us. They also had a tiny internet café inside so we logged on and tried to catch up with life back in Canada and UK until we were distracted by commotion out on the street. Cars were beeping their horns, people were yelling and chanting. The family explained to us that Chile was playing Colombia in a World Cup qualifier and at the moment Chile were ahead. Suddenly the commotion became chaos as everyone in the neighbourhood ran out to the streets. The game was over and Chile had won. It became impossible to concentrate in the internet café so we headed to the small greasy spoon next door for something to eat and to take in the celebrations. As we ate our chicken and chips we alternated between watching the tv coverage of celebrations in Santiago with the celebrations here in Iquique. Apparently every Chilean of every age was out in the streets turning the entire country into a giant street party. Although we were on a small street in a residential neighbourhood cars were trolling up in down in front of us, with the drivers’ palms firmly on the horns bleeting out a morse code of congratulations to one another.

The beach road was even worse. This appeared to be the main party drag and every vehicle in town was commandeered by happy partiers, from Municipal garbage trucks to Mercedes SUVs. From each one people were hanging out the windows and in some cases the trunks, waving flags. We even spotted a small dog wearing a small Chilean flag as a cape held on the roof of one car and numerous babies wearing red white and blue bandanas being dangled out of windows. As the party progressed, road flares, fireworks and even lighters were thrown into the mix next to the thrown rolls of toilet paper, shredded paper, broken bits of stryofoam and wedding confetti. It was just a party but a public service announcement about fire safety. A couple of flat bed delivery trucks were turned into portable stages and dance clubs with bands and dozens of dancers bouncing up and down. If this is how they celebrate just qualifying for the World Cup, I can’t imagine what would happen if they actually won. Despite having to dodge the occasional fireworks, we sat at the side of the making the side of the road to take in the spectacle. The atmosphere was infectious but at midnight we called it a night, although we could hear the party going on until almost dawn.