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.
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