Tarquin

They told him there was an American couple in the campground when he rode in. Then he met us. He had a bottle of whisky though so all was not lost. 

31 years old and he gave up a life in finance in London, sold everything he had and took off for South America. His family had a foot in Spain and he spent several years there so he speaks the local language here. In Santiago he bought a motorcycle and is riding to Colombia on his Honda 250.  

He went to a school in England not unlike the school I went to to so we had that in common, the old boy network.  Encountered here in Chile and on his way as we wait for our radiator. 

Konstantin and Julia in Santiago are trying to get their Sprinter van onto a ship for Seattle and may have a date in the last week in May. 

We may be out of here before then. Apparently our new radiator is in Chile and is on its way north from Santiago. I’m trying not to get my hopes up.  

Meanwhile we walk and read and watch stories on our iPad which we use for a television. Time passes but not as slowly as you might think. 

Another Day

Just a note on Friday morning:  no earthquake in northern Chile. The first we heard was someone asking if we were okay. We’re great: the new radiator is being shipped from Santiago to Caldera today according to the mechanic. No idea when it might arrive yet. But earthquakes? Nothing. 

Another sunny day at Camp Lost. 

Rusty was having none of it. No walk to the beach today. He sat just outside the campground gate and stared at me. Disapprovingly. 

May Day is a national holiday in Chile so we were not alone, a family gathering, some hard core tent campers in the cold sand and us. 

Rusty wanted to walk the campground. So we walked the campground. 

I sat in the sun and read a book recommended by Webb. LAWRENCE IN ARABIA. It’s a history of the fall of the Ottoman Enpire and the creation of the Middle East mess. Everyone has heard of TE Lawrence, the one of Arabia but this book also looks at three contemporaries busy sticking their fingers in the pie dividing up Palestine. 

There’s the German with a speech impediment, the Jewish agronomist bringing back farming to the desert and the man from Yale, an American seeking petroleum for Standard Oil. 

The various elements have my curiosity perked up so that should help pass the time as we wait for our new radiator. 

Rusty found something to pique his interest in the sand. 

It was probably disgusting but I kept my distance. A discarded picnic bone maybe or left over fish. Whatever it was he had his usual full dinner with his usual full appetite. 

He only likes to eat once a day in the evening. I give him a few cookies in the mornings and if he doesn’t finish his dinner we leave it out for him overnight in case he wants a midnight snack. Rusty knows what he wants and this is how he tells us he’s hungry: 

Tomorrow we meet Tarquin. A new face. 

Bahia Inglesa

The sun came out yesterday and blew away the marine inversion layer of gray cloud over Bahia Inglesa. We liked that. 

I walked into town twenty minutes along the waterfront to buy essential supplies like bananas, toilet paper and most critically milk for my tea and I got an eyeful of the Bahia in its sun speckled glory. Why it’s called “English Bay” I will need to look up but there’s not much to write about as we sit still waiting for our new radiator so I need to pace myself.

The village is not particularly architecturally attractive but the setting is pretty and public works have built a waterfront worthy of the community’s fame as a beach resort. 

It’s a predictable mixture of lodgings eateries and souvenir stalls most of which are closed as Fall is closing in. My target was Jana supermarket which is tiny but quite comprehensive. 

The clerk had the personality of a cigar store Indian and when I asked if I could use the loo he looked shocked and shook his head muttering there are public toilets on the waterfront.  Which are closed I informed him. Oh well I said, I’m old I don’t suppose the town will mind if I piss in the street.

Twenty five bucks later I took a seat to ponder my options and order some empanadas for dinner. I wish I could say they were brilliant but they weren’t; they were fried and rather lacking in flavor which was a surprise. One was vegetarian with corn which I’d not had before, and the other was shrimp and cheese, a seaside staple  and as they cost four bucks each I had led myself to believe they might be dreamy. On such slender threads do we hang our hopes for excitement these days. 

Sitting relieved pressure on my bladder which if you’ve ever found yourself in that position you know becomes obsessively annoying. I more than ever enjoy driving a car with my own personal loo inside. Now I found myself the hapless pedestrian and it was a drag. 

My backpack was as full as my bladder but I stuffed our hopefully great empanadas into a corner of the bag and set off for home wondering where I might find an accommodating wall. 

In January and February this place would be overrun but as it is we have it to ourselves.  The beach is splendid, the perfect soft sugary sand dreams are made of and fortunes too. “I only think of you, my heart is empty.” Spanglish poetry on the very locked toilet block. 

Across the street was a fence with some scraggly desert bushes that looked like they could use some watering so I did. It’s the absurdity of culture that I felt guilty while I did it making up excuses in my head for my anti-social behavior should someone happen by and berate me. Here I am 5,000 miles away from prudish no peeing in public land still bound by that convention. No one happened by in this culture where needing to pee is a recognized public act of necessity. All was well and I walked home with a light heart and a heavy load on my back. 

Someone was waiting for me and we had a joyful reunion an hour and fifteen minutes after I’d left him in the van with Layne. He’s not easy to walk when you have a mission to accomplish and he has a mind of his own. 

The rest of the day was a mish mash of hot showers and cold breezes, dish washing, air frying the cardboard empanadas, giving Rusty his glucosamine pill and stuff like that. I finished a detective novel set in Venice by Donna Leon suggested by a friend and started a history of middle eastern imperialism enjoyed by Webb and Bruce had mentioned a TV comedy about a murder in the White House of all places which is worth watching.

And Layne got a message from the mechanic reporting the new radiator has been shipped. What a day, what a day. I hope yours was more exciting.

Ordering Parts

Our mechanic has been in touch with his parts supplier and it appears we can have a new radiator delivered in ten days. That includes customs and delivery to the mechanics shop in Caldera. $300 plus delivery and three gallons of Mopar radiator fluid. $450 plus labor. We can handle that.

I am far from certain the radiator will arrive in ten days but we have permission to be in Chile until July 15th, deep into winter. I hope it doesn’t take that long as we’ll be deep into rainy season before we get to Brazil from here but I hope we’ll be fixed in a month. 

Julia and Konstantin were the best of friends and took care of us and got us settled with a ride to drop off our laundry in town and complete a massive shop at the Unimarc supermarket. 

It was a sad moment but they had done right by us and had a container to catch in Port San Antonio. Partings suck.

We hope Jerry and his girlfriend Teeara who is Desert Garage’s office manager, keep it all on track. Fingers crossed and thanks for the good wishes. We too were very glad to see the leak right where we were, close to town and near a full service campground. 

Bahia Club has hot showers, clean toilets, electrical outlets and a beach just outside the gates. For $18 a night. And Konstantin and Julia got us towed right into our spot. We are snug. 

Breakdown

We were about to part company with Julia and Konstantin when a large cloud of white steam issued from under the hood. 

We struggled to figure out where the fluid was coming from but in the end we called a tow truck with Gabriel’s help, the custodian of the beach. 

GANNET2 it turned out was too big for the bed of the truck, so after that scary interlude trying to load onto the truck we settled on…

…on a tow. 

With front wheel drive you can’t tie far or fast so at a sedate 15 mph we trundled the ten miles down the PanAmerican to Caldera.

What a great Sunday afternoon. The mechanic took out the radiator and on Monday Konstantin and I will go to the radiator shop in Copiapò and see what we can do. 

If it can’t be repaired we will have to order a replacement from the States or Mexico. The radiator is a Promaster specific part and when I broke it in Belize we had to order a new one so we may be here for a couple of weeks.

It could be worse. It could be better too. We’d have a new radiator for $139 in two days if we were in the United States. On the other hand no one would have torn down our radiator on a Sunday in the US. 

I’m not feeling lucky but you never know. We shall see. And we have our friends with us so that feels good. 

Beached

Sunday is splitsville. Konstantin and Julia go south to prepare to ship home to Seattle. We like traveling South America so we are only going as far north as will take us to Brazil. Then we want to circle round and go south to eventually head north this time next year to Colombia. 

So for our last day Layne did a bunch of cooking. I kept her company for a while but I needed to get out into a cool gray day. Rusty was reluctant but he dragged himself after me and we walked. 

He climbed the cliff and ducked out of sight while I walked the beach. He’s the extra lump on top. 

Somehow we ended up on opposite sides of the cliff and he walked one way and I followed on the opposite level. We chased each other like a bedroom farce constantly at the wrong level. Then he turned around and I stumped along behind on the cliffs me trying to catch up. I got the feeling he was showing me who was boss as he slid down the cliff and left me peering over the edge. 

Then I descended to his level and he walked alongside but well away from me. I think he figured I was mad because when I caught up to him he shied away but I  grabbed him anyway and we had a make out session in the sand. My dog is a pain in the ass but I love him. 

Konstantin came by and I thanked him again for using his multimeter to check in my bizarre front winch problem. The last time I rolled it out I short circuited the whole van. Konstantin discovered the source of that problem this time and though we couldn’t fix it I now know how to bypass the short circuit and use the winch to pull the van though I have to pull the rope out and unspool it by hand. Konstantin said he was worried about us going into and Amazonia without  our Hail Mary device. He’s a good man.

The pain in the ass enjoyed the sand rug. Konstantin isn’t fond of dogs but Rusty has won him over. He really is an unusual animal with a mind of his own. 

Pacific overcast skies, cold and dank and still. The day before was sunny and windy which I preferred. 

The PanAmerican Highway in the distance. 

Gabriel the watchman lives there (below) with his two Bassett hounds and his lifesaving white truck. 

He took us aside and gave us a quick tour of the odd rock formation that makes this place a municipal park.

These black circles in the dock were formed 180 million years ago when magma came boiling to the surface and encountered salt water the crystallized into the spots seen in the rock.   

The rocks sit on the beach with their leopard spots and five years ago Gabriel convinced the mayor of Caldera this abandoned spot was worth cleaning up.  They gave him the job and he cleaned up the house on the beach and made this remarkable spot his own. 

The black lump is an intact spot while the bottom black circle is an empty spot where the white crystallized ring has fallen out. 

I hoped for sunshine but it did not break through. 

Up next, Santiago got roadside picnic and the laundry and hot showers of Taltal to the north for us. In a month I might be going to see Machu Picchu. Something normal and touristy for a change.