Norte Chico

Ok, so we have had some random experiences since we said goodbye to Iquique...we headed down south on a night bus to a middle of nowhere port town of Chañaral to acces a national park called Pan de Azucar - just as much in the middle of nowhere. The idea that this park was lush was a complete dilusion as we still found ourselves very much surrounded by sand. The size of the desert is just unbeleivable, we have travelled more than 17 hours by bus and the desert still keeps on going, there is nothing but sand, rocks and a few sad looking bushes every now and again, which is explained by the fact that it really never rains - the last rain here was 5 years ago.



Well, back to Pan de Azucar - we had to take a taxi there which was the only way to access the park if you don´t have your own transport (which by the way we don´t as we let go of the dream of buying a car after we counted the cost and the kilometers we´d have to drive), we got dropped off to a bay which was inhabited by a handfull of fishermen who live in tents or in very modest wee shacks - where there was sand, a beach, camping facilities and rocky hills (with which we had an encounter I´d rather forget..) - oh plus a pack of pelikans waiting for easy treats from the returning fishermen.

The second day we decided, although feeling very lazy and really just wanting to lie on the beach and read, to head for a hike to a lookout on top of the hills. We had been told that the hike was 9km one way, but you could return by following the ridge line much quicker. So the walk to the actual lookout was not that bad, if a little boring with the scenery being, you guessed it: sand, rocks and more sand, and as we got there we were greeted with a beautiful view of the bays and the pacific ocean - and a few desert foxes who surrounded us in hopes for snacks.

Sitting at the top of the hill was very ´tranquilo´ as they like to say here, but then we banged our stupid heads together and decided to climb down the hill to cut our walk back just about in half. Well, what looked like an easy climb turned into pretty much a life threatning decent of a vertical hill where each rock was just waiting for your weight to start rolling down to the valley...I don´t know how we managed to scramble our way down without slipping and turning into mush on the way down - Brett´s scout skills came in handy ;) - but after 1,5hours of skipped heartbeats we were on safe ground. Whose idea was it again to do what we did? Oh well, you live and you learn...there will definately be no more scaling mountains on this trip...

So we lived to see another day, which was quite appreciated...;) and we headed for the next adventure of Portofino - yet another middle of nowhere town - well ghost town to put it right - where the only attraction was good surf. Well, this place was something not far from a horror movie, and yet again just to dramatise our experience, we can be happy to have nothing happen to us. So where to begin...

We rented a bach of our taxi driver, who very helpully took us to this deserted beach settlement, which supposedly is packed with people during the summer, but with the winter only behind the corner all the houses had their windows nailed shut with planks of wood and the only one inhabitant of this eerie settlement was a legendary surfer Chico Christian, who lives a very bohemian lifestyle in Portofino with his pack of dogs. We had been told about this charater, and the fact that he was ´un poco loco´ had been mentioned as well, but as we went to talk to him about renting a board for Brett he seemed quite normal.

Well, with the money he got for the board rental he had headed to town and got back with tons of beers, with which he was waiting to meet us when Brett got out of the water. We were offered a few beers, and then invited for luch at his wee shack - ok so we won´t say no to a free feed - mistake. Well, not really, the food was delicious - even if I was a bit suspicious of the fact that he didnt eat, but watched us eat - turned out though that the food must of been fine ie not poisoned...as we were fine. But what we did get to witness was the reason why Chico is called ´un poco loco´, I don´t think he stopped to breathe between the words as he was talking to us about his visions of the world, demonstrating it all to Brett with imaculate body language, as he didnt quite trust my translation skills...it was a sight indesrcibable by words, and to keep track of all he said was quite impossible. But we did accomplish to understand that he lives in paradise, and god lives in the ocean as just the few topics of his rantings...

After a few hours we escaped back to the batch, where we hid for the rest of the night away from the sight of Chico...;) But something quite disturbing happened that night. In the pitch black middle of the night I woke up to a sound as if someone was knocking on the window - only to wake Brett up to say ´it´s a person, i can feel feet´- which kind of freaked me out a bit, untill I realised he´s talking in his sleep...after a few somewhat hard nodges I got him up, and there was the knock again, well actually a bang, this time sounding like it was coming from the back door. Not a very pleasant situation when you know you´re in the middle of nowhere...we were too scared to open the door and find out who was there and what they wanted, but just waited a bit after finding a bat and a hammer to hold on to - after which there was nothing but dogs barking like crazy, and car lights circling around the settlement...well, whoever it was, and whatever they were after never came back, and we got a few more hours of sleep after our hearts strated beating at a normal rate again. In the morning we were thinking it was possibly just some poor person whose car had broken down or something, and there we were waiting with weapons... Chico told us he had heard nothing all...maybe it was him wanting some company at night...hmm...

So yes, we decided that perhaps we have seen enough of these deserted places for a wee bit and headed down to Bahia Inglesa where we camped a couple of nights - a beautiful place of white sandy beaches and cristal clear water - if only the sun would´ve come out for a bit to warm the bitterly cold days we spent there. From Bahia we hopped on to a bus to the city of La Serena, where we are staying at the moment in a friendly family run hostel, which is a very welcomed athmosphere after our somewhat lonely, though interesting experiences...