Atacama
This is another tale from Chile.
I barely remember getting there. It was the usual montage of aircraft and travel; worn sleek magazines in South American Spanish, cigarette smoke and stale air. I had been traveling for weeks.
So I was dead exhausted that afternoon when I arrived in the Atacama Desert.
This place is like no other. A week before I was in the lush jungles of Central America, and then the deserty, grassy plains of coastal Ecuador - an unmistakable Wild West analogue if there ever was one.
But this... this was the driest place on earth. It literally does not rain here. Ever.
I stepped out of the thoroughly modern airport into a scene worthy of a coffee table art book. Pale yellow-tan rocky sand, capped by blue sky. The same yellow became gentle rolling hills to the east. To the west, flat sand and little rocks until the sea.
The air was temperate - not hot or cold. Barely a breeze at all; perfect comfort conditions. I looked to the pale yellow hills again - not a bit of grass or shrub on them. Or anywhere in fact.
It was then that I realised that these pale hills were incredibly huge mountains, devoid of all scale without plantlife or habitation to belie their size. The Andes, of course; giant massifs second only to the Himalayas. The Amazon Basin lay just on the other side.
* * * * *
The gleaming white airport was the most alien thing visible, standing completely alone in the desert. A thin, worn road led off to the distance.
A few sputtering taxis were outside. Catching one, I took a ride southward, toward a large cloud of dust marring the pure blue sky. This was Antofagasta, and it took a lot longer to get there than I first suspected it would.
Entering Antofagasta, the taxi trundled down the main road, past the main Plaza, and up a few blocks. Deserted streets. Well, almost. I step over a bum (drunk? sleeping?) to enter the inn where I was booked.
My Spanish is halting and harsh compared to the softly phrased Castillian that the innkeeper speaks. Nobody else around, that quiet afternoon. She is in her mid 40's or so, shapely and quietly confident, dreamy Italian-ish eyes and a slightly bemused smile. I'm all of 25. She looks at my inordinately large pile of luggage, then me.
I make sure to explain my huge boxes of scientific equipment; the boxes constantly aroused suspicion. I am prepared and serious. I take out a photograph of myself back in the laboratory in the USA, surrounded by gas chromatographs, mass spectrometers and cold-traps. Figuring prominently are racks of canisters just like the ones I have with me - the point of having the photograph.
Everyone on an expedition carried such a photograph such as this, for explanation's sake.
She looks at my picture closely and says something softly in Spanish. Quickly she disappears and reappears, to show *me* a picture now. It is her, just barely in lingerie, in comfortable repose on a bed. My eyes widen slightly, and she smiles, getting the key to my room. Had I been a bit more world-wise and a lot less loyal, it would have been a far more comfortable stay.
Exhausted I fall into dreamless sleep in the room.
* * * * *
BANG!
I wake to the sound of explosions and gunfire; something like machine guns and grenades as best as I can tell. Bombs of some sort also.
I dive to the floor.
This was no laughing matter. I had hid between some soda vending machines for several minutes in Guayaquil, Ecuador, until riot police showed up. Bullets were whizzing by until the riot police calmed the street down. That was the preceding week, but that's a story for another time.
My window is on the second floor overlooking the main road. Peering down, I see a pair of Chilean Army BMW motorcycles, followed by a platoon of soldiers each carrying a machine gun.
Oh. My. Gawd. They must have declared war on somebody or something. What was going on!?
As the troops poured in toward the main Plaza, and I could hear more gunfire and grenades. I hear shouting in the street, whoops and hollering.
Then I finally hear something that makes me laugh at myself. Dia de la Independencia. Independence Day. Sure enough, it was September 16th. Time for breakfast, I guess.
* * * * *
After breakfast, I catch a taxi from the inn back to the airport, to rent a car. I was rather naive about travel situations at the time. The airport was closed, and just about everything in it. Stepping back out, I see that the taxi is gone.
I go back inside the deserted airport. Information booth? Phone book? Call a taxi or the rental company? No such luck, it's Independence Day. Closed.
Finally, looking for anybody, I talk a dishwasher into getting me a ride back to Antofagasta, for ten Chilean pesos. Apparently they still have the need to wash dishes, who knows why? I have to wait not only for his shift to end, but all his companions as well. They share the car. I pack the two vacuum canisters I had brought with me into their trunk, and wait.
The dishwasher lights up some marijuana while we wait in the car. Of course, the Policia show up while we are waiting, right on cue in front of the airport.
How wonderful. Please note, this is still Pinochet's Chile at this time. The dishwasher's (girlfriend? sister?) pushes his head down toward the floorboards, and curls of pot smoke fill the car. Despite now being the only car waiting out in front of the airport, we are ignored by the Policia.
After wasting the entire morning, I am back at the now-deserted Plaza in downtown Antofagasta.
* * * * *
The streets are empty; but I notice the offices of Budget Rental just off the Plaza. They were the ones that had a car in my name.
But the offices of Budget Rental are closed. I wander off, looking in shop windows, looking in bar windows that I'll explore that night for food. No normal eateries to be seen. Antofagasta is a port town; home to miners and the sailors that sail off with the stuff from the mines.
I must have looked crazy, wandering around that deserted area alone for hours. But it paid off.
Amazingly, I see two people go over to Budget Rental. Heh, they will see it's closed. Wait! They just went inside! That was it; off I went.
The door is locked again, I bang on it furiously. A young man and his girlfriend, obviously. "Rental? Rental? El Auto? La Carra? Para me?"
The guy obviously worked there, and waved me off. "No bueno. Sucio. No es possible."
I didn't care if they were washed or not. "Pesos? Que Precio?"
That got his attention. He pocketed the cash, and gave me a phone number to call to return the car. It was his uncle's phone number, he said. The girl shifted restlessly.
I had apparently missed the part about the car not working very well.
* * * * *
With two sample canisters, I headed north that afternoon.
This was one of those crazy moments when the odd reality of what I was doing struck me. I was on the road to Iquique, near the Peruvian border hundreds of miles away. The Andes rolled by on my right, and desolation swallowed everything. Shouldn't I be working in an office somewhere, or chasing a career or something? I simply preferred this; travel was still sort of new.
I have heard others say that the Atacama looks like the moon. Well, kind of. I would describe it as more of a limbo, or purgatory; a desert of the soul. Sensory deprivation along with sensory saturation. A perfect 72 degrees and a few extremely high, tenuous cirrus clouds. The vehicle in this expanse was a crawling bug; my own flesh was the oddest, most out-of-place thing here.
I finally pass a Chilean military base. "No Tomar Photographia." Okay, no taking pictures. Right. I keep driving. It vanishes in the far distance.
Finally, I am satisfied that the dust of Antofagasta is a distant memory. I pull over, off the road, and then walk the canister far away and upwind of the car. The desert crunches below my feet. No rain to erase my steps. Ever.
Air sample taken, I enjoy the surreal solitude, becoming one with it. I must have sat there about half an hour; I figured I wouldn't pass this way ever again.
* * * * *
Crunching back to the car, I get in and prepare to leave. I turn the key, it turns over... but refuses to start.
I was two or three hours out of Antofagasta, on a barely traveled road, and had not seen a single vehicle come either way the entire time. The Chilean military base was... sixty kilometers distant? More?
I try again. I feel the battery weakening; I've only got a few tries left.
Now my peaceful solitude turned to pure stress. I would be found, eventually, I wasn't that far from the road. I open the hood and study the problem... what was wrong? Nothing but a subcompact mid-80's Japanese hatchback... what could it be.
I gambled, and luck was a lady. Carbureted engine. Engine starved for air perhaps; how high was I? The sea was miles distant. I take off the air filter and wedge the butterfly valve of the throttle open with a pen. The engine starts on the first try. I guess I had gained quite a bit of altitude. I remembered my dad fondly, who taught me the trick. He had been up and down this coast in the late 30's, in the merchant marine before World War Two.
I probably wasn't in any real danger, hitch-hiking is a national obsession and perfectly normal in Chile. Someone would have eventually come by the next day. But at the time, I was scared out of my wits. It was only slightly less ridiculous than my fear of the 'invasion' that morning.
* * * * *
"Que Barco?"
The Apoquindo Bar was near my inn, and the waitresses were cheeky and interested in anything new. "No barco. No marinero, yo trabajando para universidad. En Estados Unidos, California." It was the best I could say at the time, without resorting to the lyrics of "La Bamba", which probably nobody had ever heard of down here.
So I wasn't a sailor, but the smalltalk was just to warm me up so I'd give a good "propina" anyway. These gals were accustomed to sailors, miners, and locals... I was too complicated a story to bother about.
An accordion-like instrument kept the place going, and it was quite popular at about midnight. Nobody ate at 6 or 7 in this country, and the night was quite young for a bar.
It was a clean place; in Pinochet's Chile there wasn't any brazenly open prostitution or brawling. In fact, in its own strange way, it was safer than California in general. Unless, of course, you went afoul of the law. I staggered off to sleep, but the music was little quieter at the inn where I fell asleep.
* * * * *
A couple days pass; I get my air samples and call the rental guy's uncle, who arrives to pick up the car. I had never shut off the engine again in the desert, after the first incident.
Getting back to the airport, I am calmly waiting for my jet when who do I see?
It's the potsmoking dishwasher!
He was in conspicuously new jeans, tee shirt, shoes, and had a wicked hangover. "Que Paso!?"
The best I could piece together, was that he had blown every cent I gave him for the ride a few days prior. He thanked me profusely, and disappeared back into the airport.
The jet eventually left the Atacama far behind, and though I flew over it at night six months ago I never saw a thing. I can't help but wonder if she still runs the inn.
...your Invisible Pal
I barely remember getting there. It was the usual montage of aircraft and travel; worn sleek magazines in South American Spanish, cigarette smoke and stale air. I had been traveling for weeks.
So I was dead exhausted that afternoon when I arrived in the Atacama Desert.
This place is like no other. A week before I was in the lush jungles of Central America, and then the deserty, grassy plains of coastal Ecuador - an unmistakable Wild West analogue if there ever was one.
But this... this was the driest place on earth. It literally does not rain here. Ever.
I stepped out of the thoroughly modern airport into a scene worthy of a coffee table art book. Pale yellow-tan rocky sand, capped by blue sky. The same yellow became gentle rolling hills to the east. To the west, flat sand and little rocks until the sea.
The air was temperate - not hot or cold. Barely a breeze at all; perfect comfort conditions. I looked to the pale yellow hills again - not a bit of grass or shrub on them. Or anywhere in fact.
It was then that I realised that these pale hills were incredibly huge mountains, devoid of all scale without plantlife or habitation to belie their size. The Andes, of course; giant massifs second only to the Himalayas. The Amazon Basin lay just on the other side.
* * * * *
The gleaming white airport was the most alien thing visible, standing completely alone in the desert. A thin, worn road led off to the distance.
A few sputtering taxis were outside. Catching one, I took a ride southward, toward a large cloud of dust marring the pure blue sky. This was Antofagasta, and it took a lot longer to get there than I first suspected it would.
Entering Antofagasta, the taxi trundled down the main road, past the main Plaza, and up a few blocks. Deserted streets. Well, almost. I step over a bum (drunk? sleeping?) to enter the inn where I was booked.
My Spanish is halting and harsh compared to the softly phrased Castillian that the innkeeper speaks. Nobody else around, that quiet afternoon. She is in her mid 40's or so, shapely and quietly confident, dreamy Italian-ish eyes and a slightly bemused smile. I'm all of 25. She looks at my inordinately large pile of luggage, then me.
I make sure to explain my huge boxes of scientific equipment; the boxes constantly aroused suspicion. I am prepared and serious. I take out a photograph of myself back in the laboratory in the USA, surrounded by gas chromatographs, mass spectrometers and cold-traps. Figuring prominently are racks of canisters just like the ones I have with me - the point of having the photograph.
Everyone on an expedition carried such a photograph such as this, for explanation's sake.
She looks at my picture closely and says something softly in Spanish. Quickly she disappears and reappears, to show *me* a picture now. It is her, just barely in lingerie, in comfortable repose on a bed. My eyes widen slightly, and she smiles, getting the key to my room. Had I been a bit more world-wise and a lot less loyal, it would have been a far more comfortable stay.
Exhausted I fall into dreamless sleep in the room.
* * * * *
BANG!
I wake to the sound of explosions and gunfire; something like machine guns and grenades as best as I can tell. Bombs of some sort also.
I dive to the floor.
This was no laughing matter. I had hid between some soda vending machines for several minutes in Guayaquil, Ecuador, until riot police showed up. Bullets were whizzing by until the riot police calmed the street down. That was the preceding week, but that's a story for another time.
My window is on the second floor overlooking the main road. Peering down, I see a pair of Chilean Army BMW motorcycles, followed by a platoon of soldiers each carrying a machine gun.
Oh. My. Gawd. They must have declared war on somebody or something. What was going on!?
As the troops poured in toward the main Plaza, and I could hear more gunfire and grenades. I hear shouting in the street, whoops and hollering.
Then I finally hear something that makes me laugh at myself. Dia de la Independencia. Independence Day. Sure enough, it was September 16th. Time for breakfast, I guess.
* * * * *
After breakfast, I catch a taxi from the inn back to the airport, to rent a car. I was rather naive about travel situations at the time. The airport was closed, and just about everything in it. Stepping back out, I see that the taxi is gone.
I go back inside the deserted airport. Information booth? Phone book? Call a taxi or the rental company? No such luck, it's Independence Day. Closed.
Finally, looking for anybody, I talk a dishwasher into getting me a ride back to Antofagasta, for ten Chilean pesos. Apparently they still have the need to wash dishes, who knows why? I have to wait not only for his shift to end, but all his companions as well. They share the car. I pack the two vacuum canisters I had brought with me into their trunk, and wait.
The dishwasher lights up some marijuana while we wait in the car. Of course, the Policia show up while we are waiting, right on cue in front of the airport.
How wonderful. Please note, this is still Pinochet's Chile at this time. The dishwasher's (girlfriend? sister?) pushes his head down toward the floorboards, and curls of pot smoke fill the car. Despite now being the only car waiting out in front of the airport, we are ignored by the Policia.
After wasting the entire morning, I am back at the now-deserted Plaza in downtown Antofagasta.
* * * * *
The streets are empty; but I notice the offices of Budget Rental just off the Plaza. They were the ones that had a car in my name.
But the offices of Budget Rental are closed. I wander off, looking in shop windows, looking in bar windows that I'll explore that night for food. No normal eateries to be seen. Antofagasta is a port town; home to miners and the sailors that sail off with the stuff from the mines.
I must have looked crazy, wandering around that deserted area alone for hours. But it paid off.
Amazingly, I see two people go over to Budget Rental. Heh, they will see it's closed. Wait! They just went inside! That was it; off I went.
The door is locked again, I bang on it furiously. A young man and his girlfriend, obviously. "Rental? Rental? El Auto? La Carra? Para me?"
The guy obviously worked there, and waved me off. "No bueno. Sucio. No es possible."
I didn't care if they were washed or not. "Pesos? Que Precio?"
That got his attention. He pocketed the cash, and gave me a phone number to call to return the car. It was his uncle's phone number, he said. The girl shifted restlessly.
I had apparently missed the part about the car not working very well.
* * * * *
With two sample canisters, I headed north that afternoon.
This was one of those crazy moments when the odd reality of what I was doing struck me. I was on the road to Iquique, near the Peruvian border hundreds of miles away. The Andes rolled by on my right, and desolation swallowed everything. Shouldn't I be working in an office somewhere, or chasing a career or something? I simply preferred this; travel was still sort of new.
I have heard others say that the Atacama looks like the moon. Well, kind of. I would describe it as more of a limbo, or purgatory; a desert of the soul. Sensory deprivation along with sensory saturation. A perfect 72 degrees and a few extremely high, tenuous cirrus clouds. The vehicle in this expanse was a crawling bug; my own flesh was the oddest, most out-of-place thing here.
I finally pass a Chilean military base. "No Tomar Photographia." Okay, no taking pictures. Right. I keep driving. It vanishes in the far distance.
Finally, I am satisfied that the dust of Antofagasta is a distant memory. I pull over, off the road, and then walk the canister far away and upwind of the car. The desert crunches below my feet. No rain to erase my steps. Ever.
Air sample taken, I enjoy the surreal solitude, becoming one with it. I must have sat there about half an hour; I figured I wouldn't pass this way ever again.
* * * * *
Crunching back to the car, I get in and prepare to leave. I turn the key, it turns over... but refuses to start.
I was two or three hours out of Antofagasta, on a barely traveled road, and had not seen a single vehicle come either way the entire time. The Chilean military base was... sixty kilometers distant? More?
I try again. I feel the battery weakening; I've only got a few tries left.
Now my peaceful solitude turned to pure stress. I would be found, eventually, I wasn't that far from the road. I open the hood and study the problem... what was wrong? Nothing but a subcompact mid-80's Japanese hatchback... what could it be.
I gambled, and luck was a lady. Carbureted engine. Engine starved for air perhaps; how high was I? The sea was miles distant. I take off the air filter and wedge the butterfly valve of the throttle open with a pen. The engine starts on the first try. I guess I had gained quite a bit of altitude. I remembered my dad fondly, who taught me the trick. He had been up and down this coast in the late 30's, in the merchant marine before World War Two.
I probably wasn't in any real danger, hitch-hiking is a national obsession and perfectly normal in Chile. Someone would have eventually come by the next day. But at the time, I was scared out of my wits. It was only slightly less ridiculous than my fear of the 'invasion' that morning.
* * * * *
"Que Barco?"
The Apoquindo Bar was near my inn, and the waitresses were cheeky and interested in anything new. "No barco. No marinero, yo trabajando para universidad. En Estados Unidos, California." It was the best I could say at the time, without resorting to the lyrics of "La Bamba", which probably nobody had ever heard of down here.
So I wasn't a sailor, but the smalltalk was just to warm me up so I'd give a good "propina" anyway. These gals were accustomed to sailors, miners, and locals... I was too complicated a story to bother about.
An accordion-like instrument kept the place going, and it was quite popular at about midnight. Nobody ate at 6 or 7 in this country, and the night was quite young for a bar.
It was a clean place; in Pinochet's Chile there wasn't any brazenly open prostitution or brawling. In fact, in its own strange way, it was safer than California in general. Unless, of course, you went afoul of the law. I staggered off to sleep, but the music was little quieter at the inn where I fell asleep.
* * * * *
A couple days pass; I get my air samples and call the rental guy's uncle, who arrives to pick up the car. I had never shut off the engine again in the desert, after the first incident.
Getting back to the airport, I am calmly waiting for my jet when who do I see?
It's the potsmoking dishwasher!
He was in conspicuously new jeans, tee shirt, shoes, and had a wicked hangover. "Que Paso!?"
The best I could piece together, was that he had blown every cent I gave him for the ride a few days prior. He thanked me profusely, and disappeared back into the airport.
The jet eventually left the Atacama far behind, and though I flew over it at night six months ago I never saw a thing. I can't help but wonder if she still runs the inn.
...your Invisible Pal