31st March
Dear all, here's the next and last instalment from the land of very good but cheap wine. And what a story!
Last time I'd seen the stars and some dolphins and was about to depart for the North. So I did - 18 hours on a bus with seats that were supposed to recline into beds. They did, but were designed for 4'6" Chileans, not 6'4" English people. There I was peacefully reclined, gently drifting into a peaceful slumber, when WHAM! The young lady in front of me reclined her seat to the max, pinning my legs and cutting off all circulation. Needless to say I moved. Other than that, the only other event was having my glasses nicked. Who would want to steal my bins? Welcome to Chile.
Then the story really begins. We arrived in Iquique, found a hotel for about GBP6 a night (standard for the whole holiday!), organised the 4x4 vehicle (Toyota HiLux), sorted insurance (at the last minute we discovered that standard car insurance does NOT cover other cars you might re-model - bought extra insurance), planned the route, and hunted for a map better than the average tourist nonsense drawn by a four-year-old with a felt-tip pen. On this last, we failed.
The car was gutless, but just put that down to us being fat and because we were climbing steeply to 3,200 metres (10,500ft). Night drew in and we soon realised the lights were powered by the more traditional method of candles. At the same time the road lost its tarmac and turned into pot holes connected by dirt. Also, the drop on my right got a bit vertical and the clouds we'd driven into made pretty yellow circles in front of the candle-powered headlights where the road should have been.
Finally, we arrived near Chuzmiza and had to flag down a truck to find out how to get into the valley. We asked for directions to the Hotel Chuzmiza and were told to go to the water bottling plant and ask for the keys. Odd, we thought.
Johnny Needham (his grandfather was English) jumped in the car and took us up to the "hotel". No electricity, one room with two beds, a bathroom with a huge bath big enough for four people to be filled by volcanic hot spring water, and another room with mattresses. Excellent, we said, just the thing.
Back to the car to take Johnny back - it started but didn't have enough power to move. As we fiddled about, we unpacked the vehicle... sniff sniff... petrol. One of the jerry cans had burst, pissing petrol all over our food and rucksacks. As I unloaded... cigarette smoke - WHAAAAAAAAAAAA! Johnny had lit a fag no more than 10 feet away! I 'encouraged' Johnny to move away whilst having visions of everything disappearing in a BIG puff of smoke. The car died and Johnny walked home.
That's all for now - I have to get on a plane home. The next instalment follows when I get home. And it gets better so stay tuned!
See ya, Dan