Day 16 – La Serena/Coquimbo, Chile

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Today’s entry is a little long (Sorry Matt Knowles), but we think you will enjoy the story. FINALLY…. We hit Coquimbo Port and the ass beating is over! Man, the sea just continued to grow all day yesterday and throughout the night. Not a lot of sleep happening in our cabin, and we heard that from many other passengers as well. Probably more of that tonight when we hit the open sea, so welcome to the Southern Hemisphere and beginning of the lower latitudes. We hope this is not how the remainder of the trip is going to be. Captain came on and apologized for the sea being “a little rough” last night…. If that is his definition of “rough,” we cannot wait for “Heavy” or “Nasty” seas. NOT!

Anyway, we got up and got out early and toured La Serena with our friends from New Zealand, Peter and Jenny. Customs leaving the ship this morning was no joke. They stripped and searched all of our packs, checked photo ID’s very closely, etc.

Did all of the usual tourista stuff, but the highlight of the day (and of the trip so far) was getting there and back. We decided to forego all of the usual “shuttle crap” getting in and out of town from our port of call, so we just hiked a quarter mile down to a local bus stop and snagged a ride from Coquimbo (our port) over to beautiful La Serena, which is about 20 minutes away. This is a local bus that makes about 50 stops along the way, but the price was right (480 CP or $1 US per rider). Zipped right into town with no problems. Beautiful, clean city and the drivers (for a change) always allow pedestrians the right-of-way. We walked all over the central part of the town, did some shopping at the street bazar (everyone is off this week for Christmas here), had coffee, took photos and attempted (our Spanish is still pretty rudimentary) to talk with the locals. This caused us to decide curfew was getting close, so we thought we’d take the shuttle back to ship so we would not be left behind, but when we got to the shuttle stop, it was a TOTAL cluster job…. There were about 200 people waiting in a double line under a blistering Sun waiting for the 25-seat (so we heard) shuttle buses. Drop Dead time for the ship today was 1630, and pretty much can tell you that just ain’t gonna happen based on what we saw…. Mid-Afternoon traffic was just about like it is (both ways) on a weekday afternoon along Highway 80 between San Francisco and Fairfield, but with no commute or car/truck/bus separation lanes.

So, we hoofed back to where the morning bus dumped us off and jumped (literally) onto the local bus back to the port, and this is where the fun began! Just as we left La Serena, the bus became packed to the gunwales with wall-to-wall people (but thank God, no pets, chickens or goats today) – again, think the IRT in New York during rush hour.

Steve tried to ask the bus driver if he would let us know where the stop was for us to get off where we board the ship and they guy pretty much blew him off…so Carol…being Ms. Technology, pulls out her phone, finds the translate app (yes there’s an app for that!) and types in the question in English, she then hands it to the guy in front of us and he says “AHHH” he goes up to the driver and makes sure they guy will drop us off and then gets out his own phone and lets us know that the driver will let us know where to get off… Technology is a wonderful thing…

As we pull into one stop down town, this guy hops on the bus and begins hawking ice cream bars from a chest pack like the vendors at AT & T Park wear. The traffic is brutal, so the driver is trying to maintain his schedule and get the Hell out of Dodge as quickly as possible, but it is hotter than Hades outside and business is brisk. Finally the driver begins yelling at the ice cream vendor and begins driving down the street. The ice cream vendor is forced to jump for his life through the half-closed door, ice cream sales apparatus and all. At the next stop this old man in his 80’s climbs aboard and begins screaming (remember today is 12-21-12 – THE DAY) at the top of his lungs about the end of the World, saying his rosary, swinging his beads all around his head. Now we do not speak fluent Spanish, but we do understand enough to figure out what the Hell is happening here. Most of the other people on the bus are trying to ignore this dude, but the driver is getting a serious red ass about the commotion on his bus, because “Rosary Man” is screaming at the top of his lungs in this jam-packed bus. He and the driver are exchanging words in heated Spanish, and Rosary Man gets off at the next stop.

The driver again barely gives the old man time to clear the half shut door, and it is obvious by now that his schedule has been compromised. No worries Mate….. We are on a four lane road, with traffic bumper-to-bumper, horns blaring and tempers flaring, and our bus suddenly leaves the entire road and begins blowing alongside the right-hand lane at well above the posted speed limit, on this sort of sand and rock mixture that could be loosely called a “shoulder.” We are inches from a drainage ditch off to the right of the road, and we are missing the bottoms and/or sides of the traffic signs by mere inches. All of this time, while we are hanging on for dear life and WE are saying the Rosary, the driver is laying on his horn and mumbling under his breath, up-shifting and down-shifting his manual transmission like a maniac. Gears are grinding, and we’re sure he is gonna lose a tire, blow his clutch, or better yet, roll the bus. He is jerking along the shoulder until we get to the actual highway between the two cities. At the last moment he rapidly veers into a full roundabout and blows out the right side toward Coquimbo. Man, for $2US, this is one of the best “E ticket” rides either of us has had, and we have had our share in the many countries we have visited. We were sort of disappointed when he pulled over at the port, yelled at us to get off, and gave us a BIG smile as we were lugging our stuff off his bus. As we walked along the side of the bus to the cross walk, the passengers were all smiles and waving good bye to the stupid Gringos….. After talking it over with our friends we decided he even cut off of his regular route to take us right to our “front door.” What a guy eh?

Just got the word from the Captain that tonight’s run to Valparaiso as we are leaving at 1730 will be WORSE than last night, so we battening down the hatches and hanging in there with Mr. Patch. With our speed included, there will be 50-knot winds across the deck and 25-foot seas…. Oh Joy, Oh Joy!

We steamed 1131 miles from Callao.

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