Day 58 Wednesday 21st November: Going green(er)

Mike writes:

This part of northern Chile “enjoys” a San Francisco style climate – the desert heat drags cold air in from the Pacific and often leaves towns like La Serena, where we stayed last night, covered in fog.  We were lucky to have seen the town at its best yesterday bathed in sunshine.

Doug made the most of it by diving in to the sea despite the red warning flag flown by the life guards and the fact that there were virtually no other people swimming.  We wondered if he was doing a Reggie Perrin in a bid to escape from us, having found the trip too stressful. We reassured him that he would be allowed to go home soon and he returned to the shore.

The hotel was fine although the “full Chilean” breakfast was a little disappointing.

 

This morning’s dreich weather was more typical. We were about to set off in the drizzle when Hawkeye (aka JP) spotted that the hotel had overcharged us. As usual I’d happily paid whatever they asked for and noticed nothing. As “extranjeros” we should be exempt from tax but the hotel had charged us anyway, no doubt convinced that we were locals by our complete mastery of the Spanish language and our ability to consume large quantities of Pisco Sours.

We were no sooner on our way and clear of the coastal fog when we were forced into an early stop as John had a conference call. Resisting all our efforts to distract him with offers of coffee, John manfully paced around the toll plaza where we’d parked while muttering about pre-emption rights and minority shareholdings much to the bafflement of the local truckers.

After days – weeks, it seems – of desert scenery where the colour green only featured when the rocks contained traces of copper, it was great finally to see signs that we were escaping from the Atacama. The Ruta Desierto has certainly justified its name. 100 km south of La Serena it was still cactus country but there were occasional green patches at long last.

The further south we drove, the greener it became. Not only green, but when the fog lifted at the coast, blue as well.

We had another long drive to face today in our little rented saloon car (+/- 500kms) but again the quality of the Chilean roads – arrow straight, pot hole free and almost devoid of traffic – meant that we made good time. We’ve already awarded Chile first prize in Latin America for its roads but today it proved that it also has the best motorway service stations we’ve seen.

We were beginning to think that Waldo, our road side good Samaritan from Sunday, was right to claim “that everything is possible in Chile” (apart of course from getting Toyota spare parts in Antofagasta – refer Lacey’s Consulting Ltd for advice). We were disabused of this notion though by the absurdly difficult process of getting an airport shuttle back to our hotel after dropping off the hire car.  For reasons best known to the shuttle bus operator it took 45 minutes to leave the airport for the 5 minute drive to the hotel. Chris thinks that they may be being deliberately inefficient so that any Bolivians arriving will feel at home.

We’ve enjoyed our few days’ driving here and have covered almost half the length of the world’s longest and thinnest country.   We fly to Argentina tomorrow but hope to see more of Chile over the next two weeks. However tonight it is another gala dinner at La Mar, Santiago, where we dined in February last year while hatching plans for this trip.