R And R

We spent the weekend here plugged into shorepower, Starlink and with a full water tank. We have our own bathroom with a key, a very hot shower, a toilet with a seat and campground provided toilet paper. $32 a night and no one bothers us. 

You could rent an apartment and with that you get swimming pool privileges but we are mere campers.  However we do have a beach just across the street.

Sunday morning is rowing day. 

These three guys hang around the campground and beach but Rusty does not like being surrounded. He’s a grumpy old man just like me and he bares his teeth and snarls and then acts surprised when they don’t want to play on his terms. 

The thing is he started out scared in Mexico and on seeing street dogs he ran for the van.  He’s figured them out though and he’s learned to stand his ground and he knows they are mostly cowards. The ones he senses are too much for him he walks away from and I let him.  I’ve learned to respect his judgement about dogs and people and sketchy places. 

And off he goes, happy by himself. He has no desire to let any other animals into his life which is just as well or we would be rescuing dogs all day. In Chile happily there are very few street dogs, real strays and none of them look desiccated like Mexican strays, the most piteous of all. 

He found a bone and I wanted it so we fought over it for a while. I lost. 

To the victor go the spoils. 

The campground marked by the apartments is called El Huerto -the orchard- and you can see them behind Rusty. The hills in the background are where we drive from to reach the town of La Serena.  

It’s Autumn and the beach is starting to think about closing down for the winter. I could live on Chile’s central coast if we decide to stop traveling. 

It’s more relaxed here than the US especially for a visiting foreigner. Services work, the country is clean and that cool pacific air and the rocky wave filled coastline reminds me of California, but a place that maybe existed before people had the means to crowd the places they loved. 

There are plenty of high rises here but if you drive south the coastal highway passes through villages and long stretches of cypress trees and ice plants and rocky beaches that are visited mostly in January and February. I’m just sorry we have to hurry north right now to meet our friends, I could meander down the coast doing nothing very much till it gets properly cold. 

Places to go, people to see, things to get done. 

Home sweet home for the weekend. We want to change the transmission fluid this week as a piece of early maintenance to make sure all is well before we visit the mechanical desert that is Bolivia. And after that, the plan is to cross the Amazon basin of Brazil which is a lot of miles of nothing very much. Chile is a good place to inspect, repair and  replace if necessary. 

Meanwhile we wait for our new tires to be delivered to the shop, and the replacement transmission filter to be shipped to the Jeep/Ram/Fiat dealer in town. Then we see what’s what.