Goodbye Chile, Hello Peru
Trip Start
Mar 31, 2006
1
27
37
Trip End
Mar 31, 2007
Arequipa,
Peru
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
We have had another two weeks or so in Chile what with taking Simon to the coast and my working in Santiago and we were in the end very sad to leave even though it was rather too sophisticated for us; the Chileans like everyone else are wonderful and generous people and they are justly proud of their little - but hugely long - country especially when they compare themselves with the rest of Latin America; and now that Pinochet has died the one blot on their political landscape can be buried. It was very surprising - or not - how little notice anyone seemed to take in his death; I think Chilenos on the whole were embarrassed by him and the harm he did.
Anyway to our time on the coast with Simon our primero hijo: he arrived so late out of customs that we were wondering what we were going to do; the reason was the non-arrival of his surf boards etc (they only arrived three days later at 1 in the morning, banging on our door to wake us up!). Since he only had four days of surfing he was not such a happy little camper but it was wonderful seeing him. The surf was not great and the wet suit he rented was too big so the freezing cold water just flowed right through and we really felt for him. Renting was quite an eye-opener as we paid no deposit and gave no contact address and when we wanted to return the stuff the place was closed but as this must have happened to lots of people we found that if you pulled hard on both steel doors you could bend them back far enough to slip everything through the gap! It was a real shame about the surfing but we lucked-out in terms of where we stayed as it was a lovely little town tucked into the hills called Maitencillo where we stayed in very plush (for us) cabanas. In fact the whole area north of Vina del Mar is really very pretty and reminiscent of a down-at-heel California but much more funky. We had a wonderful dinner in a local restaurant which had several trees growing through the roof and it took you down into the depths before climbing up to the dining floor; and the place was packed with clearly well-heeled Chilenos. And a lunch we had was in an equally funky place that looked a bit like a shipwreck tucked into the corner of a beach; we were served by a very young Aussie who was over visiting with his Chilean parents.
Colours of the desert
Anyway although the surf was lacking Simon did have many happy hours freezing his balls off being watched by his doting parents! We got him safely onto a plane on a Sunday then motored into Santiago to our splendid little hotel courtesy of my client Meridian. I tell you, it was extremely difficult getting into clean jeans, proper shoes and shirt and going to a proper meeting where I had to appear intelligent. I left Sheila with her cup of tea on the patio restaurant being the lady of leisure that she is. I then flew out and left her to explore a city that she has fallen in love with. Santiago is not beautiful but makes the most of what it has and is laid out very interestingly along the river (which is filthy!) with nice gardens and lovely leafy streets and pavement cafes. I think she was quite pleased to see the back of me for two days and was very pleased with the filthy lucre.
Now we are on another route march to get to Ecuador to meet up with Finian our secundo hijo. Santiago is 2,000km from the Peruvian border and then there is some 2,500km of Peru to go before the Ecuadorian border. Makes me tired just writing it down. And all we have done is reach Ariquipa with another few thousand to go. But although we drove long and hard and it was all (and still is) in the Atacama desert which is the driest place in the world (as you can see from the photos; yes I am back in business) the drive has had its moments and the desert is hauntingly beautiful; the sand and rocks are a variety of soft subtle colours and there are fascinating traveling sand dunes. We had two nights of free camping: one on a most gorgeous beach (photo) about 50km south of Chanaral where the only activity seemed to be collecting seaweed; the second in a huge plantation of trees just south of Iquique (where the water came from we have no idea). The other two nights were first in a hostal in La Serena which although huge has a very intimate and pretty town centre and then finally in a grotty but clean and empty campsite in Arica just before the border. Arica is a bit of a dump but interestingly has solved some of its housing problems by just providing the first floor of a house and then when people move in they seem to do what they want with the second floor from wooden boxes to continuing the brickwork.
We had much debate about a detour over to the high altoplana as a compensation for not having made it to Uyuni in Bolivia cos of my altitude sickness, but in the end decided we didn't have enough time to really ensure I got acclimatized.
Cool Dude
So as a compensation we took an interesting road to a village called Codpa. The road ran parallel to a deep ravine and at the mirador we built a tower of balanced rocks to join the several hundred other towers which were already in place. In this area we saw many examples of geoglyphs which are different to petroglyphs since they are huge pictures either made from dark rocks placed on a light background or through scraping away the dark weathered surface. They are very impressive and were thought to act as signposts for the trading trails. We crossed the border on the 11th December and, silly us, thought it would be easy and quiet; we had not reckoned with the Xmas rush of Chilenos crossing to Tacna, a duty-free town just across the border, for cheap goods. Mostly very well organized but even Chile slips up sometimes and one of the forms we needed was only available from the customs cafeteria which said "no entry" to unofficial people. We would never have worked it out if a very kind Chilean had not helped us with his impeccable English. As usual we handed over lots of food before we crossed - never seem to learn this one. And as you cross over you know you are back in the real Latin America; nothing immediately apparent just that feeling of chaos and the unexpected around each corner. And of course we got lost immediately on entering Tacna which is not a very large town; and outside the town were rows of impounded buses with the drivers standing around - no idea why but somehow it did not look out of place given that we were now in Peru. And here they do not examine our number plate with interest as they did in Chile but just get terribly concerned that our lights are on.
We made it to Ariquipa on the same day which I will write about in the next blog and it is living up to expectations. I write this from the lawn of a very posh hostal (Las Mercedes, Av.
Goes forever
La Marina for other travelers) that for some reason allows scruffy campers like us to use their immaculate grounds. Sad to leave Chile but relieved to be back in the real Latin America. 
