That night again found 10 of us crammed into a stranger’s car, this time however we were driving to an apparently secret location for a fire-side party. We arrived to find a strange hippy collective of jugglers, Rastafarian-wannabes and bongo players all dancing to a strange mix of Reggae and Europop. Despite the soundtrack the night was amazing, not only for the perfect view of the unpolluted star-strewn night sky, but also for the hair-raising ride to the hotel at 6am in the back of a speeding pick-up truck with 16 other people. A brilliant night to say goodbye to Chile before making the hallucination-inducing crossing of the world‘s largest salt flats to Bolivia.
Thankfully Antofagasta was no more than a stopover for us as we journeyed north to the frontier pueblo of San Pedro. San Pedro looks like the set for a Spaghetti Western. It’s a two street town where people still ride horses and (probably) carry six-shooters. Deciding to fit in we purchased some suitably cowboy-like hats, strapped on some leather chaps and took to the saddle for a horse ride across the Atacama desert. This was a bit different to previous pony rides across Capstone Country Park, especially when our so called tranquil steeds decided they wanted to be race horses and galloped in the direction of some prickly looking cacti. Thankfully the experience only left us a little saddle sore, allowing us to partake in San Pedro’s other speciality, illegal midnight desert raves.
Antofagasta used to be part of Bolivia until Chile, aided by Britain, captured the mineral rich desert port and landlocked Bolivia, something the Bolivians are still a bit peeved about. This former industrial town used to be bustling with sailors and traders, it was of naval importance and attracted global attention, now however its docks have fallen quiet and its streets are lined with bookies and the Chilean equivalent of pound shops. Remind you of anywhere closer to home?
Our arrival in La Serena happily enough coincided with Kate’s birthday so we decided to start the drinking early. Half a dozen bottles of wine and some extra strong cocktails later found the six of us, and four other random locals crammed into a small beaten up old Peugeot on our way to a dodgy out-of-town Chilean club. If that wasn’t strange enough a few hours (5am) later saw us skinny-dipping in the Pacific. The poor confused Chileans who accompanied us remained on the beach and very kindly folded our clothes, which we had left strewn across the sand in something akin to a Gills goal celebration as we had made a mad nude dash for the water. We were still hungover two days later when we headed north for the mining town of Antofagasta, which if you were wondering, is as dire as it sounds.
As always when meeting a new group of people the question “Where are you from?” came up, leading to the usual charade of “…it’s not one town but a collection of towns, it’s famous for the Chav, the Historic Dockyard and Dickens, it has a League Two football side, any guesses?” This, as per usual, drew a blank. Even the council’s Medway 2012 spiel about being 40 minutes from London on the train and having an unbuilt Olympic training facility didn’t work. Instead we settled for coming from Kent.
On paper our group seemed pretty glamorous, two writers (us), a designer, Nick, and his actress wife George, photographer Kate and brilliantly camp tour guide and professional party animal Todd. Of course in reality Todd was the only one employed, the rest of us had all made the same decision to give up our jobs and shelter from the credit crunch and doom-and-gloom ridden England on foreign shores.
We didn’t stay in Santiago long, instead we travelled to the beautiful small coastal town La Serena and met up with a tour going north to make the off-road crossing into Bolivia.
Arriving in the Chilean capital Santiago you would be forgiven for wondering where South America has gone. Tall sky scrapers meet with eight-lane highways, burger and chips is the favoured meal and the bar lined streets are more like Rochester High Street on a Friday night. Well, a Rochester High Street populated only by short men with slicked-back hair and moustaches who all want to show you a good time in their club.