Last night we walked along the Promenade among the locals, it was like Durban, in the old days, there were Market Stalls and lots of people walking among the stalls, others were cycling, or returning from the beach and others walking their dogs and lovers walked intertwined like koeksusters (holding more than just hands.) Others were dancing to music and doing moves with their hips in ways a Chiropractor have never thought possible, Latin American Dancing I am told.
Rocky was looking for a thick Gold Chain for his dog to wear, he found one which he bought, and we quickly turned him into Rocky the Rapper and changed his LOOK ;
We stopped at a pub that advertised Happy Hour, but something went missing in the translation as the only Happiness was that of the owner who instead of charging half price charged double and instead of getting 2 drinks during Happy hour we just got one, so I don’t think the concept of Happy Hour is understood in Chile, but the owner who also served us was made even more happy when we paid with Dollars and she sommer added herself a 10% Tip onto the bill. So we got woes and went to support a Food Truck where we ate burgers and loaded fries and drank Coca Cola:
This morning we once again had a Proper Breakfast, but some overslept as they don’t set alarm clocks as “they wake up from the sun,” but the sun only rises here 7h30, we were suppose to meet for Breakfast at 7h00. It might also be because the Marketing Manager of the Hotel was so impressed having us there that he told the Barman to “look after them” and sign their drinks onto the Promotion Account, so they endured the Duf Duf for a while only and did not make full use of the free drinks I suspect.
We then set off to the Car Wash to spray off all the mud from our bikes with the High Pressure Washer. Pie told me that he was not happy with my Blog as it did not contain any Technical Information and he felt that you all would like such information. I argued that this information will be as helpful to the readers as a bicycle is for a fish, but, let me slip you a little technical info. The reason we went to wash the bikes, especially the front Forks (the two shock absorbers between the handlebars and the front wheel,) was because there is a Dust Seal that moves up and down as the forks compress and decompress, this seal must remove any dust on the metal it moves over so that when the shock absorber gets to the main seal it is dust free and clean, if not any sand, and in our case dry mud, that could not be removed by the dust seal will get between the metal part and the rubber of the main seal, and then the oil that is inside the fork will start weeping out as the rubber can’t seal 100% around the metal part moving up and down, and then oil comes out and that is a problem. So we went to wash the bikes.
There was a plumber who helped us wash the bikes, but his pants kept on falling down, and as this is a Family Friendly Blog I can’t show you the close-up of said Plumber:
We set off along the beach and rode next to the promenade for a very long way, passing joggers and cyclists and several groups doing Yoga along the beach.
We chose the Coastal road that hugged the shoreline. At 1st it was exactly the same as that road between Swakop Mund and Walfish Bay in Namibia, straight, with the dunes on your left and the sea on your right, but then it started changing and the road started turning as it followed all the bays of the shoreline. And then got better as we had to climb and drop to get over large dunes running into the sea, making the road twisty with long sweeping corners, Lekker. And then Coldplay completed the package and life was VERY Good.
We started seeing people gathering kelp and sea-grass and arranging it into little piles on the beach. At other places we saw people loading the piles into cars and little Bakkies (trucks in the USA and Vans in the rest of the world.) We then started passing many little fishing villages (I thought) but when we turned into one of then we discovered the people stay there in very temporary accommodation, lots of wood and plastic and planks and plastic roof sheets. And the people we discovered there when we found a little shop, were ……..different, almost like we had stumbled onto the Old Age Home for ex surfer-type people, where they go one-day when they can’t surf any more and need a little money but like the Beach Bum Culture.
One of the Party Goers of last night did not eat an ice cream, he found the owner of the shop’s couch and had to have a nap, but sadly the couch was actually on her porch and it was not part of the shop. But she probably thought it is just the arrival of a new resident in the village.
Next to the little shop stood two cars, they were rusted and I thought they had been abandoned and were not able to be driven, (that was how bad their state was.) And the next minute the one closest to us started and the guy drove off, after buying beer, at 10h00 in the morning, to load some Kelp in the back of his Pajero. Here are some pictures of the 2nd vehicle, also a Pajero turned into a Bakkie:
Above you will see that the body is so rusted that the windscreen can’t be held into place, so it is taped onto the body with cello tape.
They use the rope and the Hook that you see below and throw the hook into the waves and then hook the kelp and seaweed floating there and haul it to shore.
This is what the little piles look like;
And yes, the “car” in the background is delivering more Kelp;
Why have a door if you have to open and close it all day, remove it we say, remove it!!!!!
There were no trucks on the road, only a few tourist busses and these Kelp Mobiles. Later we passed a few sedans all with fishing rods sticking up into the air from the back window, the fishing looks good Peens said, he stopped at a spot where a few guys were fishing and they spoke some Fish.
The successful Kelp Catchers stayed in better accommodation and each had a little boat and they could go and drag the kelp to shore, see them moored in the bay below, (yes, boats might be the wrong word, but it does float, so lets call it a boat.)
After about 250km along the shore heading South, at a very comfortable 20 degrees, we stopped in a little town to have a meal and re-fuel. We had fish and chips and it was one of the best I have ever had.
Diana our waitress wanted to “run away” with us, but her boss, (her mother) insisted she stays and work at the family business.
We then turned East and headed into the Atacama Dessert, the 2nd driest place on earth. Well, let me re-phrase, the place on earth with the 2nd lowest rainfall per year. And wait for it, at number 1 is the Polar Desert, which is basically ice, but it hardly rains there, so it is cold and icy but has no rain, so that makes it number 1 Desert in the world according to Rainfall.
The temperature climbed to 31 degrees and then we started climbing from Sea level to 3000m, a long 100km slow climb, and I watched the temperature drop as we climbed, all the way down to 19 degrees.
We rode through the desert and the road was mostly straight, and we encountered so may Double Cab Bakkies, painted red and with numbers painted on them and long aerials with flags on, lots of fire extinguishers and Traffic Cones on the back, and it was obvious we were riding through a mine area, but did not know what they mined. We later discovered that we were sleeping in the town next to the largest open pit copper mine, ( when we were at the highest city it was open pit Gold mining, now copper.) We also passed a Salt mine with loading facilities onto large ships moored in the port.
Here is some facts for the few very clever people reading my blog (who reads and not just scroll through the photos, sies,) and my cousin, a mine expert who would probably have visited this mine in his career.
I had one job to do, book accommodation (and obviously Booking.com has your credit card so you can’t cancel,) and I thought if you say 3 rooms and 6 people they will allocate Twin Rooms, but the app did not ask what rooms we wanted and as a result we got this at a very modern Budget Hotel, with according to the Proff translate to Matrimonial Beds and a Bunk Bed.
Peens and I will be playing Ching Chong Cha (rock paper scissors) for the bunk bed later.
You can’t swing a cat in here, but it has aircon and a smoke detector and a toilet in a cupboard and an entire little shower-room-closet-thingy, and as we “went big” in the lap of luxury for the past two days, we needed to go back to our Oros roots and go cheap, but not nasty as we have done so often.
And the Wi-Fi is good and there is secure parking, just what the Doctor ordered.
Tomorrow we continue East and once again cross over the Andes Mountains and then into Argentina. We don’t expect any problems with our TIPS as we were given 90 days in Chile for our bikes and we only used 4 days, not like the issue last time when we left the bikes for 6 months and needed the TIPS suspended. But we are not finished with Chile yet, on our next leg we will again cross over the Andes and then do the wetter green section of Chile (their Patagonia region,) heading South before once again crossing the mountains into Argentina to store at town near the Glazier Park at El Calafate. Leg 22 is going to be EPIC !!
So as I am writing this Blog some of the guys are doing laundry, some are shopping for goor Chilean wine to buy and take with us to Argentina, and some are hoping for adaptors, and then I now read on our WhatsApp Group, has stumbled onto a few Authentic Chilean Restaurants.
This is my 1st time to stay in a Mining Town, but it is big and even has a Mac Donalds. But it is not a pretty town, its dusty and almost disappear into the surrounding Deseret as some paint company must have been giving away Khaki Colored Paint as most things in town has been painted Khaki.
And with that useless information I leave you now.
Chow
Flesh
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