JOEL GRIFFETT

Pre-order ‘Long Road to Nowhere: The Lost Years of Richard Trevithick (Part One)’ now, HERE.

My Chilean adventure met an abrupt end. After a week in San Pedro de Atacama, a town almost entirely populated by tourists, I still hadn’t planned my next move. I had two more stops in the north of Chile, Tocopilla and Iquique but frankly, they were out of the way and Chile had already burnt a sizable hole in my budget. Everyone in San Pedro was either about to go to Uyuni, Bolivia or had just arrived from there and I still hadn’t made a decision by Wednesday night.
One spontaneous Thursday morning, in true Trevithick style, I woke up and decided to go to Bolivia for yet another zigzag. Another place that Trevithick never went, but plenty of other far less interesting Cornishmen did I’m sure. One notorious deviant bucked that trend: John Penberthy, captain of the Huanchaca mine near Pulacayo, east of Uyuni during the 1870s (the same Huanchaca company as the ruins in Antofagasta, a reminder than Bolivia once had access to the coast before their disastrous performance in the War of the Pacific).

All I’ll say right now is that Senor Juan was not particularly popular with the local miners. More on that soon. Right now, I have 16 hours to wait between check out and the absurd 4am bus to Bolivia – the first border crossing of my trip and my first ever land border crossing. I have already been warned to shake off the comforts of Chile as I enter into a country so drastically different. Those luxury salon cama buses are long gone; I’d be lucky if the bus had windows now, let alone reclining seats. I could finish off the Chilean leg of my journey in two or three days, but Chile is not cheap, even if I hitchhike to Iquique from Calama. San Pedro is inordinately expensive, even by Chilean standards and I spent an eyewatering amount of money in just 9 days. If I am to stay on the road for as long as possible, I must leave Chile.

Most of the day passed swaying in a hammock, with a few periods of verticality as I went to buy food sustain me during the 10 hour journey to Uyuni. I drank a great deal of Sangria after eating, talking shit with other travellers but the hostel was silent by midnight, leaving me alone with my thoughts for four hours. My last proper Chilean interaction continues to plague me.
A mismatched group of Chilean men were drinking in the hostel kitchen as I sat in the corner sorting out my belongings. I overheard one of the volunteers asking them to turn off the light when they went to bed. As I was still up when they sauntered off, one of them asked me instead,
‘Are you a volunteer here?’ the youngest one began, ‘the girl told us to switch all the lights of when we left but you’re still awake.’
I looked up, ‘No I’m not a volunteer, I have to wait until 4am to catch a bus to Bolivia, so I’ll turn the lights off’
He looked at me, puzzled, and then switched to English, ‘Oh so you don’t speak Spanish?’ he asked, slightly condescendingly.
WHAT LANGUAGE DID I JUST REPLY IN?
‘No,’ I said sarcastically, unable to conceal my confusion.
‘So you’re just gonna wait here all night?’ he asked, even more confused.
‘Yes?’ Now I was unsure of myself. Should I crawl back into my bed even though it was presumably taken by someone else? Should I go and wait in the cold, dark bus station?
All night long this interaction baffled me. I understood more or less what he said to me. I replied accordingly. In those short few seconds his brain must have switched off. If I had misunderstood him that would’ve been apparent. It’s happened enough during my 2 months in Chile. This was something else. I was still baffled when I got onto the dusty coach just after 3:30am. I was relieved to see only two other passengers aboard and I was praying that it would stay empty. In those luxury salon cama seats I could sleep relatively twitch free but in these seats I wasn’t so sure and no law-abiding citizen deserved to be sat next to this speedfreak. I sprawled out across both seats and when the rest of the passengers got on at Calama I was asleep.

About three quarters of the way along the road from Calama to the border, the road ceases to be smooth and instead gives the weary traveller his first taste of the chaos that lays ahead. Even the bus itself is a warning. There is a toilet, but the door handle is snapped off, making it nigh on impossible to actually relieve yourself. I tried every method imaginable to no avail. The second driver was sat right at the back, drooling peacefully into his collar. I didn’t want to wake him so I slumped back in my seat and told myself repeatedly I didn’t need a piss. I fell asleep briefly but dreamt that the very same man at the back told me to piss out of the window – that would require an impressive feat of contortion. As we approached the border he handed out immigration forms to all passengers and I had to retranslate the English translation because it didn’t make sense to me in either language, presumably because I hadn’t been to bed.

Once we crossed the border the driver began an interminable slalom all the way to Uyuni. The road to the border had been a warm up for this but now the main event was in full flow. Stretches of tarmac were few and far between and the meaning of the word ‘road’ or ‘highway’ was now an incredibly optimistic one. The driver sped along the bumpy dirt tracks at the same speed as the tarmac and as the bus bounced on towards oblivion, I was convinced it was going to fall apart. Every bump brought up masses of dust from below and bits of upholstery and plastic from the ceiling. The overhead compartments were hanging by a thread and the chassis must be anaemic after doing this every day, but nevertheless we arrived in one piece. I brushed half the bus off me as I disembarked and squinted, bleary eyed into the dusty desert sunshine of Bolivia.

I was immediately reminded once more that in South America, I am a freak. In Chile women were pushing 4 feet tall but here they were barely pushing 3. Every umbrella and gazebo on the street was so low I had to squat beneath them. Weaving my way through the chaos to the bargain basement hotel, I noticed also that teeth were but an optional extra to the human template here, much like growth spurts after the age of 12.

Sweaty and sleep deprived was my natural state by this point so after a quick shower and half an hour stretched out on the bed I ventured out for another dose of my new favourite activity: trainspotting.  

Please like, share, comment and follow so you never miss another post. I am very far behind with posts; I’ve been in Bolivia for nearly four weeks now and next week I will finally reach Peru.