¡Muchas gracias, Chile!
September 6, 2024
Our five days in Chile was a wild adventure. It started with everything but a strip search at the border in Arica, just over the line from Perú. ¡No se permiten productos lácteos! Our block of cheese confiscated. We boarded LAN Chile for a two-hopper down the Pacific Coast, first Iquique, then Antofagasta. I sat on the left to look at the Atacama and the Andes.
Antofagasta was a one-nighter before the real trip into the desert. We gorged on perfectly grilled beef filets and drank copious amounts of Chilean red. “Let’s have one more drink,” he said as we headed to our hotel. We closed the bar.
Into our rental and up, up, up Route 25 into the desert. From sea level to just over a mile up in elevation, a quick stop near Sierra Gorda to stand on the Tropic of Capricorn. Almuerzo in Calama, then down Route 23 to San Pedro de Atacama, our destination for three days, where scant precipitation has fallen in 400 years. From 9000 feet up, we looked west to see the Pacific, and east to Licancabur, a stratovolcano, 10,000 feet higher, straddling the Bolivian-Chilean border.
We both experienced altitude sickness, him worse than me. We biked into the Valley of the Moon where there was absolute silence. Sandboarding the dunes, which was a one-time experience. A night-time hike into the desert, a billion stars and the Milky Way above us. It’s true what Crosby, Stills, and Nash said about seeing the Southern Cross for the first time:
You understand now why you came this way
’Cause the truth you might be running from is so small
But it’s as big as the promise
The promise of a coming day
On the desolate two-lane road, two hours between sunset and moonrise, and two hours until our flight 90 minutes away, a blowout.
We crept along for five minutes until we spied a semi-paved road to the right leading nowhere. Speed was the M.O.: find level ground, pop the trunk, haul out the bags, find the spelunking headlamp, grab the jack and the spare, and jack up the rear. High beams on, blinkers flashing.
Headlights from a semi crested the horizon. The truck turned, neared, slowed, then stopped. A short Chilean bounded from his cab, running towards us.
In my imperfect Spanish, I exclaimed, ¡Llanta ka-boom! He grinned crookedly, one golden tooth glimmering in the dim, artificial light. He seized the lug-nut wrench from me, squatted by the flat, and with the speed of Superman, unscrewed five lug nuts, popped off the flat, put on the spare, lug nuts back on. Six quick hand turns later, all four tires were on the ground. We three repacked the trunk in seven seconds.
I tried to thank him, but he ran towards his truck. ¡Muchas gracias, señor! ¡Muchas gracias! He waved as he ran. He never said one word.
We probably both felt a little unmanly. But we made our flight. Muchas gracias, Chile. Sí, verdad.
