Chile: "Hey, Youze Look at Me"

The scenery change is instant , as if in a stage set change in a grand theatre, from brown desert to green hills, from arid nothingness to trees, bushes and lushiousness. We wind our way back down to 400 metres altitude, watch snowy peaks in the distance and then tunnel through them, handing our lucky coin to the lady in the booth, aiming for a Lonquimay, the first biggish town 100 kms from the border. We also need a supermarket because the Bike Inspection man at the border crossing took all our lovely fresh fruit and veg away. We had been told by another man at the Border crossing, in perfect English, “that there is no need for campsites in Chile as All camping is Free! You can camp anywhere,” he said, repeating “All Free”. We find the Tourist Information Office in the high street and ask about camping. Puzzled headshaking and many maps and phone calls later they find one 15kms away back towards Argentina.  It’s been a long day, B’s first post-crash Riding Day and we’ve done 353kms. That’s fine. We shop, we go, we book in, and relax. It’s a fabulous site, next to a clear rushing river with fishies jumping and birds and ducks. Idyllic, in fact. Just what we need for 6000 pesos, which is really only £8!

There’s a couple lying on a picnic blanket on the river bank near us, clearly in love, by the way they were intertwined and two cars parked on the hill with a few other people gathered around a BBQ spit arrangement. We politely nodded as we set about the business of selecting a site, disgorging everything from the bike into a big pile on the grass before sorting it into tent, shopping, bedding etc and making our little patch for the night.

A short heavy set bloke wanders over “Animal” he says.

“Hola” we say.

A short dumpy lady wanders over “Animal” she says.

“Hola” we say.

They point to their mouths saying something like “Hate? Eight? Ate?”

Ahh, we deduce “Eat”

“ Yes, we eat animals”, we say.

And so we are invited to join this boisterous family of 4 generations of Chileans to a Sheep-on-the -Spit BBQ. We were given a welcoming promotional baseball cap and neck scarf each. The table was decked with yummy potato salad and rice salad and leafy salad. The wine and beer was never-ending. And the entertainment was a laugh a minute. The music from the car was turned up, Mama stuck a flower in her hair and the dancing began. Wielding a carving knife in her hand, between dance steps she dished up platefuls of tender meat. Who needs fruit and veg, anyway, Mr Bike Inspector?

Grandpa sat and watched silently. Brother knelt on the ground and raised his arms skywards exalting with index fingers pointing up “Dias, Dias”, then drinking a bit more and doing it again. Father just sat silently. Son and wife continued groping, eating and drinking. And then he found his English tongue “Hey, Youze Look at Me”, he called louder and louder as the evening went on. It got dark very quickly, the remaining sheep was divvied out in a container to us, and they all piled into the cars.

“Where are you going?” we called.

“Santiago, 3 horas” they replied and with screaming, shouting and waving out of the windows, were gone. We heard calls of “Hey, Youze Look at me” far into the night as they disappeared down the road.

The silence was deafening.

We crept into our tent and realised the temperature away from the fire was near freezing. Out came all the thermals, the jackets, the bike gear. Everything we could pile on top of ourselves to keep warm was used. We shivered our way through the first couple of hours then the inner cocoon itself plus the insulating tarpaulin took over and saw us through the rest of the night.

The grassy ground was not quite soft enough and B took some painkillers to help those ribs stop throbbing. I was on chamberpot duty with the disposable urinal from the hospital and the five camp dogs lay in a circle around the tent, keeping bears, lions and tigers away. Well we didn’t see any so they did a good job. Their reward was some left over gristle from the BBQ at the sunniest prettiest first Chilean breakfast where like idiotic children we started each sentence with “Hey, Youze Look at Me” before laughing all over again.

We discovered that Santiago was over 720kms away, so who knows where that crazy mad family went and what time they got to where they were going.