All the way south

Culture shock.  That is was my first opinion of Chile.  I’ve been traveling for 5 months and I’ve not experienced this much culture shock between two countries.

I thought that it was pretty crazy going from Nicaragua to Costa Rica, but trust me… From Bolivia to Chile was basically like returning home.  From the second we crossed the imaginary line (well, fence that we just drove around) between Bolivia and Chile things changed.

This was also one of my least typical border crossing experiences.  But now that I think about it, I’m surprised it didn’t happen earlier.

The immigration guy was reading my entry permit form and started scrutinizing it.  Uh oh I thought.. I’m in trouble.  I had heard that you need to pay US $75 to enter chile and I can just hear the cash register dinging in his head.

He looked up from the form, made eye contact and said in spanish, “Are you a programmer?”

I responded, “Si.”

He then started looking me over slowly and said, “You know about computers then for your job?”.

“Si.”

Next the border guard reached and turned the keyboard and monitor that was facing him to my direction.

Without smiling, he says, “I’m having problems with the internet.  My web pages aren’t loading right.”

I about die.  On the monitor isn’t some important government work but a page with soccer news with a screwed up font.  He wants me to fix his fonts.

Of course I ask  a few questions of what it is supposed to look like, click a few times… and bam.. back to normal.  He stamps my passport without looking through it and I’m now legally entered into Chile.  No $75.

You never know when computer skills will come in handy.

The Chile border was very easy.  First migration then followed by customs.  My one piece of advice for Chile is DO NOT BRING FOOD.  I made friends with the younger guy who was the customs inspector and he did a quick open/shut bags search of my stuff.  With Theo, he made him take out all his stuff and was running his hands all over the place.  They’re searching for any type of food, fruit, meat, and especially coca.  In Bolivia, it is legal to have coca (the plant that cocaine comes from) in leaf form.  People chew it or make tea from it.  I tried it and didn’t really feel anything.  The taste was pretty good though.

After the border we started the difficult 8 more hours of sand/washboard roads to Calama.  Once in Calama, I felt like I was right back home.

Everything was modern, clean, and expensive.  We went from spending under $10 a night for a room to $30-50 for a double.  Every hotel has internet and a breakfast that feels more like Europe than Latin America.

The people are olive skinned with black hair wearing new clothes.  Everything is different.  There aren’t one legged people sitting on the curbs begging.  The women are beautiful with fancy hair cuts and are no longer wearing conservative bowler hats and long skirts.  Road construction is no longer marked with a pile of rocks and cut down trees, but with proper cones, guards with signs, and get this.. FLASHING TRAFFIC BEACONS!!

Chile is nice, but not interesting.

Theo is happy to be back on paved roads.

One of my favorite aspects of Chile are the snacks.  This place knows how to do it.  They have hundreds of varieties of snacks in the convenience store.  Everytime I visited one, I’d pick up a new flavor.  This was my favorite flavor of Lays– Ham flavored!  I don’t know if it is vegetarian or not.

Here are some of the pics from Chile.

We met two Germans who were traveling together on a KTM LC4.  It was having some electrical problems and we tried to help get them back on the road.  After realizing that we were stuck beyond a roadside repair, I towed them 5 miles to the campsite.  This was the first time I’ve towed a motorcycle with my motorcycle.  We were climbing a few small mountians and I barely even noticed him.  I’m still glad we didn’t die though =].

At the campsite we met two Canadians.  Their website is Adventure Quest.  They are the first people I’ve ever met who visited the Guyanas.

They were very cool and are unfortunately heading the wrong way.  They had TONS of camping gear!

This is what a REAL German looks like.  She’s Bavarian.  I keep telling Theo that I wish he was a real german.. One from Bavaria with all the giant beer stiens and lederhosen.

There was tons of rocky coast in Chile.

Just like at home, actually even more developed than Texas– You just can’t chuck a piece of garbage on the road like people do in the rest of the Americas I’ve been in for the last 5 months.  You have to throw it away in seperate bins!

One more thing to note:  ALL THE GAS STATIONS HAVE WIFI!!!!!!!!!  How cool is that?

Wind power

This is example of a photo which most fits the “If only I could have captured the real beauty”.  This was one of the most scenic driving moments of my trip.  It looks very unimpressive in this photo.

My new best friend in Chile.

Chile was annoying because there was grafiti everywhere.  In other countires I’ve visited, there was grafiti, but only political grafiti.  Here it is just vanity grafiti.

Theo thinks he likes the Chilean lifestyle.