The desolation of the Atacama desert continues to the coast and for hundreds of kilometers south

28 hours on a bus…

There were a few occasions during the trip when I regretted my procrastination, and the following day was one of those days. I had, prior to the start of the trip to Uyuni, searched for flights from San Pedro de Atacama to Santiago, Chile. I had found several, and the prices were actually quite good; around US$60 – US$80 for a one-way fare. I held off on purchasing any of them as I was not quite sure of my schedule; and so it was that when I finally had the time to sit and try to arrange a flight to Santiago, the prices had skyrocket to more than US$200 for a one-way trip. I searched for prices from other nearby airports (nearest 100kms away) but found that those too were expensive. And so it was that I finally had to accept the reality: I would have to take another bus along the coast of Chile, from San Pedro to Santiago, and although it was not the longest continuous bus journey I took on the trip, at 28 hours, it certainly was near the top.

Plenty of books in the market…

I enjoyed my breakfast at the same restaurant I had first found, then went in search of the bus that was to take me on my way. Northern Chile really is a desolate place, and safe for a few large towns, there really is nothing there except for what appear to be huge copper, silver and nitrate mines. We drove for hours through this dry landscape, with the occasional glimpse of huge trucks trundling across the surface with large loads of dark coloured soil. Large piles of this brownish-black soil lined certain sections of the road, and I wasn’t sure if these were man-made piles or simply windblown sand dunes. We passed through the odd town, existing only because of the nearby mines. On and on we went, until eventually we arrived in Antofagasta, a coastal city. There were trees here, and they looked oddly out of place after having seen no living plants for hours on end. The journey continued, and the night crept up on us. Chanaral, Caldera, Copiapo, La Serena, etc. It was not until the following morning that I felt that we had left the mining areas behind and that there was some semblance of normal and natural growth again. And still we continued, until finally we reached Vina Del Mar, where I had found accommodation.

A quiet Sunday afternoon at the market

The power of earth quakes

The comfortable bed and the even more comfortable shower felt like paradise after such a long trip, and I luxuriated for a while. My host was preparing for an event to be held later in October, yet at six we set off for dinner and an exploratory walk around the downtown area of Vina Del Mar. It’s not right to say that this is a suburb of Santiago, yet in a way it is, as is its bigger sister, Valparaiso only a short distance further south. The town has a great market street with plenty of things on offer, and a great assortment of restaurants to choose from – although Thai food is missing. We returned home, chatted for a brief moment, but I begged to be allowed to go to sleep, as the previous night had been one of fits and starts, with little real sleep. It was Sunday when I woke up, and a day of rest. After a leisurely breakfast, we set off for the local Sunday market. As with all flea markets, the wide variety of goods on offer was astonishing, and as the saying goes, one man’s junk is another man’s treasure, and so we explored, picked through many boxes of goods, but returned empty handed. There were a number of things that caught my attention, not simply goods, but also the fact that a church was sealed off to people, as it had been damaged in an earthquake, and I could clearly see the huge crack that ran down the side of the building – why did that attract my attention? I had never been in a country where earthquakes are something to be feared, yet here I was in a place where there have been some very devastating quakes over the centuries.

The market street in Valparaiso, Chile

A weekend market

The market was full of bric a brac, but also plenty of stalls selling books, and I leafed through several of them to see their contents, even though I could not read them as they were in Spanish. There were spurs and other horse riding paraphernalia; puzzles and colouring books, household items, and some local snacks. We browsed for a little while longer, then made our way back to the bus stop where we would catch a bus back to Vina. Dinner consisted of take out from a huge Chinese buffet restaurant. The entire restaurant was full, not a single seat was available, and the buffet tables were huge, covered with all kinds of dishes. We scooped and picked what we wanted, and placed it all in boxes. There was supposed to be a scientific manner of weighing the boxes, but with a huge crowd in the place, and numerous people shouting for their bills, the owner simply took each box in his hand, and pronounced the weight and price accordingly. My host seemed to take this in stride and pronounced that it was actually cheap. We chatted over dinner, then prepared a bunch of photographs for an exhibition before I felt the need for another long night of sleep. The morning would come soon enough, and I would be on the move once again, this time by plane, a little more than 1,000 kilometers south of Santiago, to Puerto Montt and Puerto Varas, as it was from here that I intended to cross the border into Argentina.

Lazy Sunday afternoon in the market