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Published: November 28th 2008
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Pichilemu is another of those surfing meccas. Ever heard of Punta De Lobos? No nor me, but anyway after 4 hours on the bus we were there. It was like a ghost town, with tumble weed and everything. Pilchilemu is kind of like a Chilean Barry Island. It has a huge beach, with dubious cleanliness and certainly will never win a blue flag award. It is a small town with penny arcades and fruit machines, straight out of the 1970s. It has about 30 empanda shops and chips shops that sell bags of chips in about 20 different sizes depending on how much you want to spend. There are lots of ramshackled run down holiday properties.
We had booked into a surf hostel. It was right on the beach and newly built and every room had a 'snug' with windows facing the sea to watch the fabulous sunsets. Opposite the hostal was a lovely little cafe/restuarant, also part of the hostel, where we were served magnificent breakfasts on the terrace overlooking the beach. The only complaint we had about the place was that it was freezing, despite the sun being out the entire time, there was a bitingly cold sea
breeze/wind. It is to do with the 'humboldt' currents that also make the water very very cold, but rich in sea life, like penguins and sea lions. Oh and the fact that we were the only ones there. I liked it like that but Stu pined for people to talk at I think!
On the first day of our stay we went for a walk so that Stu could look at the waves. We noted that Pichilemu has a lot of stray dogs, more than Santiago, which is a lot. Anyway, a little golden haired, short legged, cutey ran up to us like we were her long lost owners, jumping up in excitement. She seemd cleaner and friendlier than the average stray and the conclusion I came to, was that she must be owned. So we gave her a few strokes and a bit of love, anyway as the result of this she followed us literally at our feet everywhere we went. If we went into a shop or bank, she would wait outside. She sat at our feet while we ate food and walked all around the town with us. We gave her the odd scrap of food
of course, and water when she needed it. We were definitely bonding. Now it was a shortlegged thing, so when we went on a bike ride we thought it might kill itself trying to follow us, so we had to shout at her, we named her 'perro', so we shouted at Perro to make her go back home (to the town in which she was a stray that is!), but she did she tried to follow. When she couldn't any more for fear of being attacked by the other strays, as they didn't like her much, ( i think she was too good looking) and neither do they like gringos on bikes much, as they chased us trying to bite the wheels or our ankles, she waited in the street uintil we came back. At night she waited outside the hostel door........ Now we had a little problem brewing. What are the quarantine laws for transporting from Chile to the UK, we found ourselves wondering? How we would explain it to Wendy or no 71....... Oh dear.....
Anyway. the problem with Pilchilemu was that there was literally no one there. There were no surfers around at all. The waves
were big and gnarly with spicky rocky reefs and lot of urchins. We watched one lonely old surfer get into the water and get pushed out into the bay about 2 km away. All in all Stu didn't end up getting in. We cycled to Punta de Lobos (reknowned surfing destination) to find enormous waves, and a few days after we left they held a big wave comp there.
So we spent the rest of the time enjoying the peace and walking on the beach enjoying having a pet again - I guess we were being selfish really as we just missed wendy. We really had a soft spot for this dusty old seaside town, and had a chilled few days.
The day came when we had to leave. We hoped that we could kind of lose Perro when we went for a walk, maybe go in the supermarket one way and come out of the other.......but it didnt happen, she would always find us.......so we had to watch her sad little face as we got in the car and drove away in our lift to the bus station. She was a stray, but because of her cuteness
seemed to be managing quite well, and praying on gullible gringos like us. But we did feel really quite sad, Stu had become particularly attached, as I turned to look at him I´m sure I caught a small tear dripping from the corner of his eye.
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