Hmm Chile... What to say... Been here for a week and been having a great time. I met a couple of guys from Canada on the bus down from Cusco, and have been traveling with them for the past week.
The week started off in Arica, nice city next to the beach. Being the first day/night of my holiday myself and one of the Canadian lads set out to find some night life and party with the locals. Easy said than done. It was a Tuesday night and the crappy guide book doesn't list discos or places to party. So we started out wandering around looking for bars and beer, which was easy enough. Even found a place serving beer in a Rocket. A Rocket is a giant beer dispensing thingy they fill with beer and put on your table, serve yourself, perfecto. A bit of asking around found us the name of a good place to go and so we were off. Or so we thought. Turns out the place was closed on, not to be discouraged we asked out taxi driver to take us to a disco that wasn't closed. And she thought about it for a second then drove down to the bus station to ask someone else. Now I should have know something wasn't quite right when the this second person took a look at the pair of gringos sitting in the back and laughed. But at the time I thought nothing much of it, I wanted to party, and we were on our way, again. After a good 10 minutes or so in the taxi, my companion noticed that we had left the city, this was confirmed by the appearance of small farms. Just as I was about to ask the driver where the hell we were she pulled up at a disco. And guess what, it too was closed. But it was set to open in about half an hour or so we were assured. So we decided to get out and wait around to see if it picked up. Which it did, slowly. By this time it was around 1.30am and I was starting to get a little tired. The taxi driver had assured us that the place got going around 2am, but I wasn't going to wait around that long. So we found another taxi and headed back into town, figured we'd get another beer then go back to the hostel. On the way back our new taxi driver suggested a place for us to go, so in we went to what I assumed was a bar. Well I should have know when I saw a dancing Nun that it wasn't a normal bar, but the flashing lights were a little distracting. Anyway the nun kept dancing and slowly started getting her gear off, and I started to slowly get the idea that this wasn't a normal bar. So we hung around for a little while longer just to be sure, then gave up for the night and headed on home. All this on just my first day in Chile.
Day 2. The Canadian lads and I had hired a car for 5 days, and planned to drive up into some of the national parks around Arica, arriving in 5 days time in Iquique. Sounds like fun, no? Well I recently had my wallet stolen (two weeks ago in Peru) and no longer have a drivers license, the 2 Canadians had licenses but no experience driving a manual. So I got the job of driving us out of town and giving driving lessons. The first day was great, saw some amazing looking dessert and made it to Putre in good time. So with time to spare we decided to check out the local hot springs and mud baths. Great decision, we were the only ones there and spent a good couple of hours smearing mud all over ourselves and generally relaxing in the hot springs. Sooooo relaxing.
Day 2 saw us off to check out some lava flows. This was meant to be a 3 hour round trip hike. Only problem was we didn't find any lava flows. Found some nice lakes, but no lava flows. In hind sight we should have found the Spanish word for lava flows and check that out a bit more. But the lake was nice and the walk was good. Though I wouldn't want to be up there after dark. The park is at least 4000m about sea level and when the sun goes down, it gets real cold real fast.
On the third day we set off to check out the highest lake in the world (I think). Our trusty map showed a nice little track that ran round the back of the lake, so having a 4wd we decided to check it out. The map had the road/track marked as "good". Well I am not sure what scale that is on, but it was more of a track than a road. I missed the turn off and only realized we had gone to far when the sign said Welcome to Bolivia and beware of the land minds. So we headed back into Chile found the track and set off cross country to check out the back of the lake. I am pretty sure the track is only used by people trying to smuggle things into the country and avoid the boarder post, because it hadn't been used in a long while. Anyway we wasted a good half day tearing around cross country, then we set of for Colchane supposedly 200kms south along another "good" track/road, with one section marked as 4wd only. We were heading along this track late in the afternoon in a bit of a hurry as we wanted to make it to Colchane before dark (wasn't much chance of that), and one of the Canadians was at the wheel when the car got a little sideways and I am pretty sure we were on 2 wheels for a bit. Well after that I took over the driving again... Know my driving skills? Wondering why I was the driver of choice? Well I learnt to drive on dirt, if it was ice I would have deferred to the Canadians. Any way I was doing good, making good time no problems. Then we cam across a little bit of water, no problem. Then there was the second bit of water... Well after the first had proved shallow I didn't think much of it and hit it a bit faster than I should have. End result I stalled the car in the middle of a stream with water coming in at the bottom of the doors. Cold water, sun gone down, middle of no where, very very cold night if the car doesn't start again. Which it didn't, well not at first. After a heart panicking few minutes it got going and we got the hell out of there. Made it into Colchane well after dark.
4th day we headed down to Iquique (where I still am now), strange place. But went out last night and good and drunk, spent the 5th day looking around the beaches here. And now we are on our way to hand the car back to some guy at the bus station. Figure while I am there I will catch a bus somewhere. Not sure where yet, but south is the general direction.
Anyway gotta run.
Zac
Oh and if you are wondering about the title. Well I saw this slogan on a jumper in Arica and have kind of taken it for a motto. Not sure what it means, or is meant to mean. But as they say, if you don't rock and roll, don't rockin come...
Sunday, July 10, 2005
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