First moves
I was just crazy about going to Chile. An amazing country… and you know what I was imagining about it? A paradise with a very long coastline, and you can ride a motorcycle along the Pacific coast almost endlessly… On another one side, you will have the Pacific Ocean, on another – the Andes, and if you want to surf or to go to the mountains with your snowboard, you can just stop and do it! How great it would be: you catch a wave and look at snow-capped mountain peaks… and from the mountains, you can see the ocean while snowboarding. Chile was my crystal dream, and it doesn’t matter how things are in reality.
We arrived in Iquique when there were just two hours left to the beginning of 2019. Quick unpacking, quick shower, which was necessary after six (!) connection flights, a bit of rum for the New Year and we fell asleep with the sounds of the ocean. But I am actually lying about six connection flights, it wasn’t that terrible: we had a longer stopover in Amsterdam, which lasted almost two days, and we spent that time with Isaac, my old mate, whom I met in Ireland during my Fazer trip in 2016. Our motorcycles were supposed to arrive in San Antonio for almost one month later, and we had to go there from Iquique – almost two thousand kilometers. However, we had time for that. We have spent about a week in Iquique, and during that time, we managed to notice the strong stratification of Chilean society. There can be a ghetto under your feet and a glamorous neighborhood in front of your eyes at the same moment. Sand, dirty ocean and nothing else. Nothing else at all! And yes, you can feel weed and piss smelling everywhere. It can rain here just once in ten years and the air temperature is always stable, 20-22 Celsius degrees.
They have swimming pools in front of “better” houses, and at the same time, some houses in the ghetto don’t even have a roof…
In Iquique, we also have been to the market square, and were pleasantly surprised: it was a clear fruit paradise! It was difficult to get potatoes at some moments and completely impossible to get sour cream, but we had everything except them. The wine turned out to be excellent and there was no difference between the real Chilean wine and Chilean wine sold in Russia, where I have given my preference exclusively to Chilean winemakers for the last three years.
After Iquique, there was Antofagasta. We went there by day bus, and before that we sent our warm clothes from Iquique to San Antonio by mail, just because we didn’t want to carry that stuff with us. Actually, there will be a whole story with our clothes, but later 😉 Our expectations for Antofagasta did not come true at all: it turned out to be a mining town with a dirty ocean, dirty streets and the lack of acceptable places to sleep. The only thing we were impressed with was the road that goes along the coast and along which there was absolutely nothing, just rocks and sand. In the same city, we met a huge cockroach on the embankment, an incredibly smelly hostel room and one person who speaks English.
Landscape like this all the way…
The next day, we were already going by night bus to the wonderful city of La Serena, where we were greeted by our very friendly host from Airbnb. We moved to his house, which is close to the ocean. And what great weather it was! Eighteen degrees in the daytime and a little less at night, the sun, the ocean, the sandy beach, retreating to the field with prickles through the pebbled strip… And the host turned out to be an agronomist. Physalis growing in the back yard, a lot of literature in the house, and no English. We learned a few Spanish words and tasted Chilean pies called empanadas. Yummy!
At that time I was already actively communicating with a motorcyclist from the capital region; he promised to host us in Santiago, in the house of his parents, and in San Antonio, in the so-called summer cottage, where he usually spends almost all his time. We left La Serena after five days, feeling pretty well rested in that cool place, and arrived in Valparaíso, a student city with six universities. We spent a couple of days there, went to Viña del Mar, met a nice Chilean couple there, tried sandboards, and finally headed to Santiago: we could not wait to be closer to the port and find out everything about our motorcycles delivery. And in Santiago… but first things first 😉
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