We finally headed out of Santiago. It had been a week of enjoying
the creature comforts of indoor plumbing and good friends, but the calendar
showed that we had spent the last week in the city! The trickiest thing was
that we had already turned in our Santiago toll road gadget and we had to leave
the city without hitting a toll road or we would have a $30 fee coming our way.
Ben and José Antonio
planned out a route, but I wasn't the best navigator assistant and we quickly
got off route. Ben was able to figure out where we were on the fly, and though
we had to backtrack about 5 miles in gridlock up a fairly steep hill, he
avoided all fines and swears.
We did it. We left behind what was known and comfortable and
headed out into new territory. Well, mostly new. During the winter (July '13)
we took a great trip to La Serena and Valle de Elqui. You can read about that
HERE on Ben's Fulbright blog.
Like I said, we left behind our life and friends in Chile and now
were heading out where no one knew us. José
Antonio gave us a list of numbers of mechanics all the way to the border
of Perú. He
knows us well! We drove late into the night and after a round of highway food at the Copec cafeteria, we found a side road that will
eventually become a new subdivision called Mina Talca and made camp.
In the morning we discovered that the muffler had fallen off and was hanging loose. We also discovered Bessie, our trusty 4 liter thermos, needed some repair. Ben set to work while Wells and I went exploring. It was clear that we were at the beginning of the great Chilean desert.
Having recognized broken welds, he secured the muffler with some bailing wire and we headed north to La Serena to find a welder. Of course, José Antonio knew someone that could help us, and had a friend meet us to take us to the muffler repair place which was situated in a residential neighborhood. They went to work immediately. They did some quick surface welds to mark the correct fit and then did the rest of the work using a vise. The final fit was perfect but they neglected to shake out a few chunks of metal that were left by the process and the muffler now has a nice internal rattle sound from the metal chunks vibrating around each time Ben shifts. To be delt with.
Wells and Dylan took out the skateboard and fearlessly rode down the hill outside the muffler place over and over again until Dylan fell and scraped her knee and the tops of her feet, resulting in a few minor strawberries. I have to mention this because we have heard about this injury almost daily since then and fortuitously the dang scab finally fell off this very morning (June 8th). If you talk to Dylan, ask her about her scraped knee, she'll know what you're talking about and gladly show you the mark.
The muffler man worked for about an hour or so re-welding the connector bits and charged us 20.000 pesos ($40). A very nice price. We said goodbye, thank you and headed out to find some food, a skatepark (Malecon Coquimbo) and a recovery group that was located nearby.
Unfortunately, we found that the group had dissolved recently.
They still had all the signs up, but no one answered the bell that I rang.
Luckily, the neighbor of the papas fritas place (which happened to be
furnishing us dinner) heard me asking about the nearby meeting. He came up to our
van while we were eating to invite us over for some dessert and coffee. How nice! We found that we had friends in
common--isn't that crazy?!
Wildo, his wife Rocio and their infant son, welcomed
us with homemade Sémola
con Leche with Arrope de Higo on top (like a sweet cream of wheat with fig
syrup). Wildo said the recipe was passed down through his family in Valle de
Elqui, where it is the typical dessert. It was delicious! After chatting for a couple hours, we said goodbye and continued
north.
We drove and drove and drove, wanting to put distance behind us so we could spend a little time exploring the Atacama. Ben pulled off onto a little road in a place called Vallenar and we started to look for a place to camp. The road seemed like it had a lot of litter, so we kept driving down it to find a better place. It got worse. We were in a dump! Though it would make a great story and probably cool photos in the morning light, we elected not to camp in the dump. Sorry readers. We're so boring. Instead we found another little road and slept next to some old tires.
We awoke to find that there was very, very little vegetation. Dylan and I found a cactus with the longest spines ever and that was about it. Dirt and a couple cactus. By 8am the sun was hot. We were officially in the desert.
We knew we were going to have yet another long driving day since we hoped we would be able to make it to the Mano del Desierto sculpture about 75 km south of Antofagasta.
All along the highway, even in the most remote places, you'll find shrines, or animitas, that are dedicated to saints or loved ones who have died. There are many with little plants and trees that are carefully taken care of--there isn't any rain, so all watering is done by hand. You can also find recent offerings of beer and cigarettes, for the adults I assume, or toys for the children.
There are also animitas that utilize the modern plastic canvas printing phenomenon.
To keep up our spirits during this long day of driving, we stopped for lunch at a beach a little past the surfer town of Portofino. Though it was a beautiful place, it was totally trashed. So much garbage, like tons of people came and camped and just left everything behind. It was pretty sad, but lunch was tasty, so that made up for it. Also the big piles of empty sea urchin shells. Those were fun to line up and stomp on. They gave a satisfying crunch that cured all our road rage. Highly recommended.
We drove on and on and finally arrived at Mano del Desierto at about 9pm. We watched a movie as a "holy cow you kids have been so good today, thank you!" and took some night photos of the sculpture and camped.
In the morning we ate a nice breakfast and watched as folks came by to take photos with the giant cement hand. Even a semi-truck came by and posed! We finally got our turn. Personally, I like the graffiti. Something about the self-importance it takes to scribble on someone else's beautiful work of art, makes me chuckle.
We left the hand and headed into Antofagasta. We needed some
propane for our kitchen and we also heard they had a great skatepark. While
searching for the propane place, it seems that we were spotted by the Chilean
paparazzi and Ben's photo was taken. It turns out that the son of our mechanic
in Santiago recognized "El Bombero," or Ben, from when Ben had helped
save his house from a wildfire earlier this year. He was in Antofagasta on
business and saw Ben driving around and snapped a photo!
After gassing up the propane, we went to the skatepark. It was huge, beautifully constructed right on the water, and empty with a large fence all around it. Wells and I approached the guard and he told us that we couldn't use the skatepark today because today was 'bicycle day.' Only bikes allowed. But it was totally empty. No--We would have to come back tomorrow for skateboard day. Wells was crushed as we walked back to the car. Ben came up with the plan that Wells should go back to the guard without his skateboard and explain in his most pitiful voice that we were traveling and this was his only chance, blah blah blah, and can he please have a few minutes to try it out. It worked. The guard said he was going to leave for lunch in 30 minutes and he could use it until then, unless someone with a bike came along. Ben and Wells happily played around until 2pm, and we drove away with smiles on our faces.
This isn't about peeing, it's a sign that shows where to meet up in an emergency (Punto Encuentro Emergencia)
This is a relatively common view in our car...lost and leafing through the guidebook. This time trying to find that elusive Indian food...after 45 minutes of driving and walking around we found that the place had closed 6 months earlier.
I also want to mention that there is absolutely no vegetation
anywhere. It is so weird. It makes for easy driving and a chance for the kids to catch up on home-school responsibilities (maths).
Along the road between Antofagasta and San Pedro de la Atacama, there are many ghost towns, called "oficinas" or "expueblos." After passing a few, we finally stopped at Expueblo Pampas Unión. It was founded in the early 1900s and abandoned in the 40's in order to strip the roofs and give all the metal to support WWII. All that was left was adobe shells and some debris. We explored around and tried to imagine what the buildings were used for. There were a few with some paint that indicated that they were a bar or sold bread, but otherwise, all was left to the imagination.
Back on the road, we continued on until we reached the copper mining town of Calama, largely supported by the immense Chuquicamata mine. We needed groceries and stopped at Jumbo (pronounced Jewm-bo). This was the absolute nicest Jumbo we had ever seen. Well, "nice" meaning, there was all sorts of foreign food and specialty food and beautiful produce. It was fancy. Big money in copper. Lots of foreign miners or something in Calama, which is out in the middle of nowhere...no offense.
As we organized our recently purchased hoard of international goodies, I noticed a little pitter patter sound. It was raining! I was super thrilled to experience the lightest (and fastest drying) rain in the Atacama desert. My dad told me it NEVER rained in the Atacama--but I have proof that it does!
We drove on--through a little snow on the pass--and camped at the lookout over the Valle de la Luna, just outside of San Pedro de la Atacama. We made it!!
