Advertisement
Published: September 26th 2005
Edit Blog Post
They say that you can’t travel around South American and not have something stolen and the're right! On an overnight bus from San Pedro Atacama to Arica we had one of our bags stolen in a split second laps of concentration. We had a backpack (with Rich’s new camera in it!) on the shelf above our heads only because there wasn’t enough room by our legs. We had stopped at Calama to pick up other passengers and I got off the bus to get a drink, leaving Rich sat on the bus. A couple of guys got on the bus and walked up and down the isle, seemingly looking for their seats. Then one guy lent over Rich pretending to wave at someone outside, thus blocking Rich’s view whilst the other guy grabbed the bag. We only realized the bag was missing once I had returned and went to put something in it. Gutted was not the word for it! We felt stupid for letting it happen and devastated for loosing the camera that we worked so hard for in New Zealand. To top it all off we found out that our insurance won’t cover the total cost! Not quite the
‘finishing on a high’ that we had hoped for.
Ah well things happen and there’s nothing we can do about it now, we just wanted to explain what happened so the ‘Bastados’ (Rich’s new favourite word) wont get away with it so easily in the future.
So, this entry on the journal is going to be lacking in the photo department as all the pictures were still on the memory sticks! We have a couple thanks to our little back up camera but there not great.
Now what was I meant to be writing? Oh yes…….
From Santiago we got an overnight bus to La Sarena where we were a little disappointed to find out that the room that we had booked was no longer available and we ended up in some non descript hole in a random house with about as much character as a digestive biscuit! The town itself was not anything too special and the tours looked pretty dull so we decided that one night would be enough. We spent our time looking around the town which is dotted with some pretty buildings and some good cafes. All was looking OK until our
Chicha session with the locals
They started alot earlier than we did! last meal where halfway through my chicken salad I realized that the meat I was eating was raw on the inside! Just what I needed before a thirteen hour bus trip! Luckily the effects didn’t hit home until after we arrived at our next destination. Phew!
San Pedro was much more of the ‘Chile’ we had been expecting. A small town in the middle of the Atacama Desert where the buildings were made of mud bricks and the views of the Andes were to die for. We had managed to time our arrival in San Pedro with the weekend of fiestas to celebrate the Chilean independence and we soon realized how much these guys liked to party! We thought it would be only right to join in so, along with some new friends, we found a tent full of very drunk locals and settled down to some ‘chicha’, home brew maize beer. It was only half way through the second two litre bottle that Sebastian (one of our new German friends) decided to let us in on the secret of traditional chicha brewing. Apparently the beer is distilled using human spit! Not quite the thing you want to find
out mid swallow! Luckily for us we were reassured that this technique hand not been used on this batch so we got back to playing catch up with a table of six very drunk men. The hostel owner had given us a pre party pep talk and issued us all with a small white hanky. It is used as part of the local dancing and as far as we could make out it is waved about in the air to attract a partner and then held whilst dancing. After a few too many chichas we thought it was amusing to start waving the hankies to the music and before I knew what was happening, one of said drunk locals was swinging me around the dance floor! I haven’t laughed so much in ages, it was so much fun and it broke the ice between us ‘Gringos’ and the locals. When we woke the next morning at seven we were shocked to hear that the music was still going on and this was only the first night of three parties!
Rich spent one morning on a tour to some lagoons whilst I was dealing with raw chicken issues. We then
went together to walk Death Valley, explore some salt caves and watch the sun set over the Moon Valley. One evening we booked ourselves onto an observatory trip but were really disappointed to find it cancelled as the cloud was too thick. We were surprised with how much there was to do in and around San Pedro and were really taken with the place and the people.
As I have already explained, the bus trip to Arica was pretty eventful. With a night of no sleep and stress we reach our destination as physical and emotional wrecks! We stumbled out of the station (one bag lighter) and walked the five minutes to Sunny Days Hostel which we had seen recommended by others on the blog. I truly believe that certain people enter your life when you most need them and this was certainly the case with Ross (a New Zealander living with his Chilean wife). Rich and I arrived on the doorstep of the hostel at 7.40am and were greeted by a bucket full of Kiwi hospitality. After explaining the situation with the bag, we were fed breakfast and told not to worry. Ross then drove us to the
police station and helped us sort out a report for our insurance. Along with helping us he was also in the middle of helping a Swiss couple with a very complicated vehicle problem (lots of random paperwork and phone calls). Without his help we wouldn’t have known where to go or what to do. If we had made it to the police station there was know way we could have explained ourselves with our broken Spanish and little phrase book! Once back at the hostel we got settled into our cosy room and had a lovely hot shower. The place (and Ross) has a way of making you relax and forget your worries, definitely one of the best places we have ever stayed at.
The following day we took a walk into town and on Ross’s recommendation went to check out the sea lions and pelicans that hang out down at the harbour by the fishing boats. We were expecting these animals to be far out in the water, but when we arrived we were shocked to see these huge animals on the shore within a foot of where we were stood! Because the fishermen feed then all the
time they don’t leave and are quite accustomed to humans hanging around taking pictures. It was a real treat (and free!), I don’t think we will ever get that close to a bull sea lion ever again.
Thanks to Arica and Sunny Days we managed to put the loss of the camera behind us. We said goodbye to new friends and headed up to the Peruvian Border.
B & R
Advertisement
Tot: 0.07s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0471s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
saran
non-member comment
bummer
such a shame about your camera. I just left the americas, after spending 6 paranoid weeks there, my eyes never left my stuff. Most stress i've had in 2 years! See you both soon, xx