--Benjamin Disraeli
It is an amazing phenomenon that life can be perceived as moving at different speeds. Days in Calama drag, and the infinite emptiness of the desert with it's set climate and lack of seasons make it seem as though time is stuck. However, as soon as I leave for other parts of the world, time seems to contract, as though space is folding over and in the very moment I am leaving Calama, I am actually returning. I call this the Calameñan Paradox.
This paradox was last experienced as Ryan and I traveled south to the Norte Chico region to visit the last bits of Chile north of Santiago that we had yet to come to know. Thus, though I have a week of events to recount, it doesn't even feel like I've been gone. However, knowing that as soon as my hands begin to translate my thoughts into words, the tale will inevitably lengthen, I am breaking up the week into installments. Beginning--wait for it--now:
After indulging our North American sensibilities by setting up three computers and streaming three NFL games (twas fine indeed, except Ryan's Steelers barely beat my Falcons) we boarded a bus bound overnight for the tiny seaside hamlet of Caldera. Our actual destination was the famous beaches at Bahía Inglesa, located a short taxi ride south of Caldera. I had been hearing about the beach there since my first arrival in Santiago, and Ryan's teacher had graciously offered us his seaside condominium to use while there. We arrived in Caldera before the sun was up, around six o'clock in the morning, to find empty streets that echoed with the all too familiar sound of distant packs of dogs wailing. The two guidebooks that Ryan and brought both indicated that we should make for the plaza to catch a colectivo. Thankfully Caldera is about as big across as a Super Walmart, and there was little trouble had in locating the plaza, where probably the only colectivo driver awake happened to show up. He shuttled to the even tinier town of Bahía Inglesa, where we found the condo and I proceeded to nap until the sun decided to show.
We spent the day at the beach, which lived up to its reputation in beauty. The water was cold, but not frigid, and I decided to take a swim. This proved a problem when exiting the ocean due to strong winds that picked up by late afternoon and drove everyone--including us--from the beach. Since Bahía Inglesa in the off season is virtually uninhabited, we decided to walk the five kilometers or so back into Caldera for an evening meal of seafood. That night actually began about four days solid of seafood consumption that only ended because it was taken over by asado--but I'm getting ahead of myself. That night in Bahía Inglesa, after walking back in the darkness, we explored the little town and found that there was absolutely nothing to do. There were no people, the wind had made it chilly, and we had no fire making materials due to the terrain still being desert-like (for a beach bonfire would certainly have taken place otherwise, as secluded as everything was.) Thus we diverted ourselves like children do, as I proved to Ryan I could climb a light pole to the top free-hand. After he failed to scale the pole, his ire was up and we proceeded to challenge eat other to climbing everything else in town to include trees and rooftops. After we used a high rock wall for him to demonstrate some professional free-climbing techniques to me, we decided to go home. On the way we passed a restaurant with lights on that had two girls sitting by themselves out front. We attempted to talk to them but they wanted nothing to do with us (which, honestly, is very surprising.) We did at least learn from them that there was a good pizza place around the corner that made one killer seafood pizza. There is also the issue of "party cat", but the world is not yet ready for that experience.
The next morning as we were packing up, Ryan discovered that he had lost his cellphone, but we had no time to go looking for it. Presuming it lost, we returning to Caldera and sat down to lunch. While eating, his phone called mine and the helpful person on the other line explained she had found the phone on the beach and would wait there for him to come retrieve it. Thus Ryan rushed back by colectivo, picked up the phone, and returned in time for us to catch the bus down to Coquimbo.
beautiful picture of the ocean!
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