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