ocean, desert, gringos, and arturo prat

The Pan-American Highway along the coast of northern Chile in the Atacama Desert

Town of Taltal

Chile is long.  About 2,672 miles (4,300 km) long to be exact.  I live in the central part of the country and so it makes it a tiny bit easier to get to places either north or south.  I say tiny because a trip up to the norte grande region of Antofagasta still took me fifteen hours by bus - and that wasn't even really far north to Arica.
May 21st is a Navy holiday in Chile celebrating their victory in the Pacific War against Peru and Bolivia and resulting in Chile taking a good chunk of coastal territory from the two countries, something they are still pretty sour about.  However, this holiday specifically commemorates Arturo Prat, a commander in the navy during the war and the Battle of Iquique.  Long story short, Prat commanded the wooden warship, Esmerelda, which got pummeled by the Peruvian navy.  Prat then climbed aboard an enemy ship and valiantly fought the opposing forces with a just a sword and a revolver against muskets and cannons.  He was shot in the forehead and killed instantly and Chile went on to lose the battle.  His actions spurned a wave of nationalism that was henceforth marked by the date of May 21st.  Leave it up to Chile to celebrate an embarrassing battle lost.

The death of Arturo Prat.

Tragic, but we got a long weekend out of it.  And sword vs. muskets--not the best combat strategy.

And so a group of northern volunteers, all of whom I hadn't seen since training in Santiago, decided to have a little reunion in the little desert coastal fishing town of Taltal where Mike and Vanessa live.  Joining in were three other far north Region Antofagasta volunteers John, Ryan, and Matt, and two norte chico, Region Coquimbo vols, Peter and Alex.  I was the furthest south of the group, coming from Region Valparaíso via the hefty fifteen hour bus trip.  Luckily, it wasn't completely solo because Peter was able to meet me on the bus at hour #5 when it passed through Coquimbo at 4AM.
Eventually, each having trickled in over 24 hours, all eight of us took over the little town together which probably had never seen so many gringos at once ever, as evidenced by the constant stares we got.  But Taltal had a pleasant, quaint feeling and all the locals were friendly, the seafood was fresh, the company was good, and there isn't quite anything like being in a place where desert meets the ocean.

Rather than chronicling everything we did in a long, drawn-out  journal entry, I'll just list some highlights of the weekend.  I apologize that some of these would only be understood by those who were there.

-Seeing "Bienvenidos a Taltal" sign after 15 hours of bus lethargy

-Being fed a plate of fresh abalone for lunch at Mike's house after meals of peanuts, alfajores, juice, and cookies on the bus
-Getting the grand walking tour of Taltal that took all of 30 minutes from one end to the other, including a stop at the plaza fountain
-Peter posing next to the fountain to make it look like the water was spouting from...well, you know

-Mike's host family's family portrait in which the faces of all five members were super-imposed in front of a sunset picture of the now defunct crane at the town beach and in which his host dad, Alejandro, is a spot-on twin of Osama bin Laden, as pointed out by host brother, Nacho

-Vanessa's family's absolutely insane, but very well-dressed poodle
-Walking between dry desert hills and crashing ocean waves
-Being a little late to pick up Matt from the bus stop at 10PM and seeing he had already made a friend with a street dog while waiting for us
-Random drive to the beach at 1AM because that's just what they do
-Watching Mike and his buddies surfing in the morning
-Hearing Vanessa sing a tribute song to Arturo Prat in Spanish in front of the entire town while girls from her school did a choreographed dance

-Mountains of asado meat with Mike's family
-Hearing about the wonders of Calama from John
-Listening to Alejandro's stories of his adventures with South American women while Marta, his wife, made disapproving grunts as she washed the dishes behind him
-The three P's of Chile
-The two lies of Chile
-Sketchy dude Vanessa saved me from in the empty discoteca
-The strip show, bar fight, and sudden closing down of the crowded discoteca the next night
-Drunk dude drooling onto Mike's pants outside the discoteca
-The bathroom at Israel's house
-Peter, Vanessa, and I all passing out while watching Glee on Nacho's twin-sized bed
-Impromptu baseball game with random big Chileno using an exhaust pipe as a bat

-Alex disappearing
-Alex jumping out of a tree
-See-Sawing
-Sunset coastal walk to the western lookout point of Taltal

-Saving Ryan from the birthday girl at the carrete
-Peter being a good wingman and sacrificing his own personal space to save Ryan from the birthday girl while the entire party looked on through the picture window into her room
-Staying out until 8AM two nights in a row
-Being served tuna sandwiches at the end of the party around 7AM
-Alex hanging out with 16 year-old girls at the beach
-Vanessa's amazing massages
-Gringo ambushing both Mike's and Vanessa's classes in school
-7+ people being squeezed into tiny cars circus-clown style more times than I can count
-A solid weekend of gringos trying to be Chilenos and maybe doing pretty well with that

More Gringofest Taltal Pics

the causes of illness

For those of you who know me well...no...have met me ever, you know that I tend to not wear shoes whenever possible.  I hate shoes, socks, or any form of enclosing my feet and only do so to keep from stepping on syringes, getting frostbite, or getting fired.  In an Asian home, that's great, perfectly fine, and actually good manners.  In a Chilean home, it's a health hazard and I will surely catch whatever diseases and sicknesses are lurking on the floors ready to seep into the balls of my feet.  And no, flipflops and socks won't keep them at bay, I need full out soled shoes in order to avoid being enferma.  This was possibly the biggest hurdle for me and I still haven't fully complied with it, partly out of a bit of resistance and partly out of pure forgetfulness.  I'm constantly being scolded by Charo with a stern look at my feet, a tsk tsk wave of her finger, and a motion of rubbing her neck, representing the sore throat I will surely get.  Of course, it's the barefeet that will make me sick and not the open doors and windows until bedtime because the enclosed space will breed more germs.  And just so you know, fall and winter nights in the central regions are on average around a balmy 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

On my second day at the house, Charo gave me these pantuflas made by an artisano from Valdivia to cover up my feet.

los andes to the east, el pacifico to the west

Parque La Campana is a national park just east of my town of Quilpué marked by its main attraction, Cerro La Campana, a 6,168ft (1,880m) peak where from the summit on clear days, you can see the Pacific Ocean as well as Mt. Aconcagua, the tallest point in the western and southern hemispheres.  In 1834, Charles Darwin climbed La Campana and his ascent is commemorated by a plaque near the summit.

Well, a group of us Region V volunteers decided to climb this mountain as well, and while we didn't get a plaque embedded in rock in our honor, we got some pretty incredible pictures and quite a workout during both the climb and descent.  After staying overnight in a hostel in Olmue, the town outside the park, we headed out bright and early for the hike, geared with lots of layers for the changing temperatures of the day and the altitudes, water, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  At first, the trail started out peacefully through the woods and over a winter-dried river but the further we climbed, as did the steepness of the slope and soon, the trail was mostly cutbacks through the trees.  Every so often, a break in the canopy showed a beautiful view of the valley we left behind, and where Annamarie, Brandy, and I live, Limache and Quilpué.  It being fall in the southern hemisphere, the trail was lined with foliage reminiscent of October in New England.

After about three hours of forest hiking, we reached an old mine where there was a campsite and a semi-reliable water source.  We had been told by the park ranger not to fill our bottles in the restrooms at the base because it might not be the cleanest.  There were a few Chilenos up here who we found out, after a quick chat, had climbed to this point overnight, pitched their tents in the dark, and climbed the last two hours at dawn to catch the sunrise from the summit.  We also found out that the trail for these final two hours of the hike was closed after the earthquake as it was mostly climbing over treacherous rock fields that had shifted when the earth moved.  We had actually heard about this beforehand but wanted to scope out the situation for ourselves.  After talking to other hikers along the way who had made it to the top and who confirmed it was safe enough, we decided to go for it.  Why go all this way and not make it to the top?  Then they also told us it was only dangerous if there happened to be a tremblor, or aftershock, while we were on the rocks.  All we could do was hope that the earth would stay still for a few more hours.

And that it did.  After two more hours of almost pure rock climbing, we stepped up onto the relatively small, bald cumbre of Cerro La Campana.  With the air crisp and the sky luckily as clear as it could possibly be, we surveyed the land around us.  The valley towards the west where the blue of the Pacific could be made out, the Aconcagua Valley and snow-capped Andes with Mt Aconcagua towering above the rest visible to the east, and the rest of the coastal range running north to south along the Chilean coast were all worth the five hours of work we put into our thighs and feet.  It was amazingly quiet and just one of those places you could sit for hours which is what we would have done had it not been for the need to beat the sun back down the mountain in a few hours.  After our lunch of sandwiches and plenty of picture taking, we hustled in three hours back down the mountain, running into a few wild tarantulas along the way, and making it back to base just as it was getting difficult to see one foot in front of the other.  After we hitched a ride with a couple of kind Chilenos (all eight of us packed into the bed of their pickup truck) since the wait for the next bus was half an hour or more, we arrived back in Olmue centro ready for a full meal, a hot beverage, and a foot massage.

More pictures of La Campana

no reservations chile: WATCH IT.

Anthony Bourdain did an episode on Chile a little while ago and not only is it a great introduction to the food, but a really interesting and informative depiction of Chilean history and culture.

If you want to watch, here are the links to the episode on YouTube. It's in 5 parts. Enjoy!!!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4 

Part 5