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Not A Very Good Place
Entry 58 of 69 | show all | print this entry |
To get off the island of Chiloe, one must either take the bus back the way they came (north), or take a ferry (south). I needed to take the ferry to go south, because going north would have been silly, since I am going south through the continent. Anyways, I got to the ferry terminal to find that advance reservations are needed to take the ferry to Chaiten, and they were booked solid for the next 2 weeks. I was lucky enough to get on the boat that day, i don't know how, it was really just a stroke of luck. The guy taking tickets must have felt bad for me or something, but all i did was ask him if there was any way of getting on the boat without advance reservations. He told me to go to the booking office, and i told him that they told me the boat was full, he told me to go there anyways and wait for him, so i did, and 15 minutes later he came over and told the guys working there to sell me tickets for the boat. the ferry was giant, and had a big movie screen (they showed the same movie twice), and toilets that didn't flush. five hours later we docked in Chaiten, a town with about 3 blocks worth of stores. by stores, i really mean a few bodegas. there were no buses out of chaiten until the next day (I'm sure they do that on purpose so that the tourists are forced to spend money there while they wait for the way out...) spent another night camping in someones backyard, the worst campsite ever, rocky uneven ground, and no shade. i did all of my laundry in the sink the next morning and hung it out to dry by the tent. Went out to use the internet, and when I got back the woman in charge (who charmingly dressed in her best clothes every day like she was running an actual business), told me that i must pay her more money for use of the sink that i washed my clothes in. many hostels have signs that say do not wash your clothes, but this one didn't, and anyways, her husband came and yelled at me, and he was super frustrated that i was eating while he was talking to me that he just gave up on trying to get the extra money and told me to have a nice trip. I was really happy to get the bus out of there.
The bus was actually a minivan, and it was 30 minutes late picking us up. well, it was not 30 minutes late picking us up, rather, the van sat outside of the bus station, empty, while the driver was nowhere to be found. Eventually, we all piled into the van to go 3 blocks, stop at the gas station, and find out that there was no gas at the gas station, and we all had to get out and wait another two hours for the gas delivery. Why, you might ask, didn't we just go to another gas station? Because the next closest gas station is in Argentina. Well, believe it or not, i did finally get out of that place, only to find that my backpack, and many of the things inside of it, that had been attached to the roof, were now covered by a layer of dust 2 inches thick. sort of not surprising!
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