The best-laid plans of mice and me

The night before I was supposed to go to Caldera (about 9 hours before actually) Jorge of the guesthouse came by and asked about my plans, to which he adamantly responded that I wasn't going to Caldera and had to go to San Pedro de Atacama. He took me straight to the station and helped me change my ticket - no objections on my part, what's the point of spontaneity if it's not spontaneous, and I had no strong feelings either way.

 

As we were walking back from the station we stopped into a little hole-in-the-wall to sample some of a local specialty, wine with strawberry stuff mixed in. Wasn't shabby, but the experience couldn't be beat. The place was maybe 10 feet wide by 15 or 20 feet deep if you count the bar & behind, the bar being about the size of a pastry case, and was packed with people sitting at rickety little tables. A few minutes after we sat down a guy in the back started speaking really loud & moved to the front, doing some sketch - an actor. After he passed the hat and left it seemed that things were winding down, till about 6 indigenous musicians from Ecuador came squeezing into the room to play a few tunes. We expected them to pass a hat too but they didn't - as J commented, maybe they were just there for the love of the art. Then after a while a couple of guys came in to play traditional Chilean music (called Cueca, I think?), at which point a few crusty old locals moved up to the front and took over the guitar, stealing the show with their own songs. After a couple of tunes the original guitarist somewhat shyly managed to steal his instrument back, and they continued on with a song about Valparaiso, which just topped the cake in my magical experience of this town.

 

On the walk home our path merged with a pack of dogs who were chasing cars and coming so close to getting hit, I kept having to look away. They stuck with us till we turned off to a steep stairway, at a corner where a lady with a yard full of cats was going off about those dang dogs and seemingly getting mad at us because she thought they were ours. It wasn't easy to convince her that they weren't with us since a couple of them turned up the stairs with us. Silly muts! I think the dogs around here are as integral a part of the community as the people are.

 

Changing my ticket meant a 5pm departure instead of 7am, so I had an extra day to amble along the charismatic streets of Valpo, the ones that sometimes smell like pee and other times like freshly baked cookies and pastries, the ones that have 90's music drifting out of every window and doorway (apparently a couple of years ago it was 80's music). Did I ever mention that they have the best-ever avocados here? Mmmmmm!!! On this walk I found tons more colorful houses and way better murals than in the open-air museum, and wandered along the historical lane of Paseo Yugoeslava (Baba would have been proud).

 

I was sad to leave Valparaiso but excited for new things. When I woke up to the rising sun after a night on the bus, there were rocks and rocks galore out the right window, and ocean out the left. This coastline looked like the definition of desolate, in a good way. About an hour to my first stop of Antofagasta, in the middle of desert nowhere, there appeared strangely a giant stone hand sculpture. Who put it there or why I can't imagine, there was nobody there! But isn't that the kind of randomness you expect in weird desert places?

 

A quick connection and a few more hours took me to San Pedro de Atacama, one of the coolest places ever!! As interesting as Coober Pedy, but with more history than dynamite and more tradition than blatent oddity. I was instantly glad at having been convinced to come here. Watching all the people riding around on bikes I started to get jealous, and decided a bike ride was definitely in order - plus it was the only way to get out to some of the good desert sites - so I rented a bike and pedalled out to Valle de la Luna. No traffic, nobody anywhere for the most part, two-wheeled bliss!! The scenery was amazing and rugged and spectacular and totally unreal, sand dunes and multi-colored dirt and rocks. Pedalling up a dry creek bed, ditching the bike when it started to get too sandy and walking the rest of the way, I ended up at a kind of dead-end bowl where two plants had managed to eek out a living, plus the bluest sky I've ever seen. Did I mention the Atacama is the world's driest desert? I'll let the photos attempt to do the rest of the talking as I have a bus to catch and don't really know what to say anyway. Coming out of the valley and back onto the main highway, I found myself on a seemingly endless uphill stretch. Stopping part-way up for a bite to eat I pulled out some tunes, choosing Temple of the Dog to help get me the rest of the way up the hill. It worked wonders... and then the payoff. Pushin' Forward Back had just come on, and there opened before me a long, smooth, curvy, perfect stretch all the way down to the next valley. Oh my goodness. I had to touch the brakes on a couple of corners, thinking it best not to kill myself on the last 3 weeks of the trip, but the rest of the way was like flying. If anyone was hiding in the nearby rocks they would have heard me whooping and hollering like a lunatic. Yeeeeaaaaaahhhh!!!!

 

What a day, what a place. I was totally tuckered out by the time my bus was ready to go (6 hours on a bike, 12 hours on a bus, brilliant idea by the way). Norht to Arica, to get to the Peru border. Once again in the morning I awoke to see a vast nothing. Sand dunes, lots of sand, things that looked like farms but were also only sand. Expecting to have to spend a day here, I found (by following another traveler) a colectivo to take us across the border. An old Chevy Caprice Classic loaded down with 6 people and luggage, loco driver who was singing at the border and making cowboy sounds as he whipped the car around after customs, who made gestures and kisses at all the roadside shrines as we whizzed past. Nothing around but sand. Latin music on the radio. What a picture.

 

On arrival in the other-side-of-the-border town of Tacna with a few hours to spare, I wound my way through a huge local market complete with fruit, toiletries, skinned and gutted guinea pigs, the usual. I was able to get a bus to Cusco today, which means arriving a day earlier but a heck of a long time in transit. Speaking of which, I think I'm late for that bus. Gotta run!!!