I stopped there because I wanted to break up the 24-hour journey to Valparaiso and that was exactly in the middle. Many people told me that there is nothing there and that’s sort of true; what is there is far out (several National Parks) and not quite easy to get to, especially not in the low season. I arrived brutally early, before 7 am; I wished I could sleep more, when the conductor woke me up.
The hotel was an angel, they let me check in immediately (whoever spent a night on a bus – or on a plane for that matter) knows the ultimate need for a shower. Then they offered a good American breakfast (eggs!!!) for about 6 dollars.
It was Sunday and I took the public bus to Caldera, a small and neglected looking port town, then a collectivo (fixed-route, fixed price taxi) to Bahia Inglese. The latter is supposedly the most photographed coastline of Chile. It’s again relativity; must look very scenic to those who haven’t seen e.g. the California Coast. It was interesting in the sense that the desert reached down all the way to the water; there was no green in-between. There were small sandy beaches separated by black rocks. It’s a nice place because it kept the small village look, no high-rise hotels, no golf courses.
I found a bike trail and walked back to Caldera; about halfway a car stopped and insisted that I go with him. I insisted on walking and he finally gave up.
I bought dinner at a gigantic supermarket in Copiapo, and hold up the cashier line, because I didn’t know that rolls are also sold by weight and had to go back to let them weighed. They were not mad though, more like amused at the stupid foreigner, who assumed that rolls are priced by piece.
By coincidence, these were the best rolls I had in entire Argentina and Chile. Whole-wheat and no sugar. I had a feast with avocado sandwiches and fruits (oranges and apples.)
After the two short nights I went to bed at before nine and woke up after nine the next day. My plan was to walk up to the “Mirador” (Viewpoint), a bald mountain with a cross on top. The personnel in the hotel encouraged the plan, and explained the directions more or less. But when I reached the foot of the mountain and didn’t see the stairs anywhere, thus I asked to corporate types who just emerged from a car. They sadly shook their head and said that it wasn’t advisable to go there alone. I asked why. Steep, rocky? I can handle that. “No,” said the man, “it’s the people.” I looked up and saw picturesque crumbling houses along the foot of the mountain. It was the same ambiance as La Boca in Buenos Aires, where the bus driver didn’t let me out. So much about the mirador. I opted for the Mineral Museum. According to the guidebook, it’s “poorly presented,” but that isn’t strictly true. It’s not popularly presented. They designed it probably with mineralogy students in mind, because it’s organized along crystalline systems and compositions, some compounds thus appearing twice. The stones aren’t cut and polished; they are in their natural state. Some among them were very big, with large crystallites; and the same compound (e.g. quartz) appeared several times, with fine or really large crystallites and different colors.
I ate grilled salmon for lunch at a restaurant named Bavaria – they had no really vegetarian option. I opted for sauerkraut as side dish that must’ve been a very usual combination, because the waiter looked shocked and I had to confirm twice that I really meant it. In the end they were a good match. The salmon wasn’t the best fish of my life though, albeit among the more expensive ones. It seems that San Pedro wasn’t a true representative of Chilean food. The great vegetarian empanada doesn’t exist here; the cheese filled is overcheesed. I bought a cheese empanada in Caldera just before I got into the collectivo. Unfortunately, I was holding it in vertical position. By the time I arrived to Bahia Inglese, all the molten cheese collected on the bottom. The top tasted a lot better.
The food on the bus is totally random. From San Pedro to Copiapo, a large, albeit stone-hard chocolate-chip cookie was offered, plus a small bag of nuts, and there were soft drinks for purchase. On the Copiapo – Valparaiso bus there was a good salami sandwich + nuts and fruit salad at night in the evening and an n apple-oatmeal cookie and fruit salad in the morning. You always have to keep water and some food at hand, because the offerings on the bus cannot be taken for granted. The fruit salad wasn’t the most compatible meal for bus travel; I saved it for later, to be eaten on static ground, after I watched as my fellow travelers spilled the content of the small plastic container all over the place. It gave a good addition to dinner the next day!
No comments:
Post a Comment