Chapter 9 Chile....
For the next two days have I did the whole Santiago thing. I met my cousin Eileen (if right now you’re breaking into a round of c’mon Eileen by Dexy’s Midnight Runners, might I suggest a brandy?) the previous morning and she took me round lots of good spots in the city. So how come I have a cousin in Chile? Well my uncle Vincent met a Spanish lady here in 1973 and the rest is history. I never met my uncle Vincent, he died in 2003 and I had never met any of the Chilean branch of the Hughes household, so really the reason I came here in the first place was to say hello.
We went for a great sea food lunch to the central market in Santiago; in your mind’s eye picture every manner of fish from mermaids to squid for sale and then being cooked in restaurants right in the centre of the market, with lots of lads walking around playing the guitar and singing, a great way to spend an afternoon!
We then went out to a place near San Tiago on the coast called Valparaiso and met two friends of hers there who have an apartment with the most spectacular view of the bay you could possibly imagine. Eileen missed her calling, she should have been driving formula 1 cars, the one litre vroom vroom we drove out in seldom dropped below 100mph the whole way, and the rosary beads never left my fingers till we stopped.
We sat in the apartment talking till about midnight and outside the moon seemed to be larger than I’ve noticed before as it cast a yellow highway across the bay. The lights from the buildings arced around the bay to the right; the scene was definitely filed under “Top moon moment” apart from when yer one showed her bum in the film "Clash of the titans".
That evening I headed out and around San Tiago and went to see James Bond and I got a total boner because it was set in Bolivia, Bond was in Bolivia, I was too, that makes me Bond, follow my logic?
On the way back to the hotel a guy walked up to me and introduced himself. This guy was about sixty I guess and was missing every second tooth, with the rest clinging on for dear life to dodgy looking gums. He had a Bee Gees hair do, except it was black and grey, and had a serious moustache. He wore a grey pin stripe suit (Oxfam vintage), with a blue tie, and a shirt which looked yellow, but no doubt had at one stage been white, and a pair of black shoes with more mileage on them than Sam Gamgee.
He walked straight up to me and said hello in a very gentlemanly way, I said hello back he smiled which is when I caught a glimpse of the choppers, or a mixture of his choppers and the dumbbell at the back of his throat through the gaps in his teeth. I thought to myself “weirdo”. It’s not that I attract them I don’t think, I think it’s that they just see a foreigner and walk straight up to them, most people are better at telling them to fuck off than me, I think.
Anyway, he said to me straight up, "you’re from Ireland", blown away I said to him “well spotted”(You got that from a hello!) and then he said to me that I was an engineer (which I used to be). Then he said to me that he knew my face. I was quite taken aback, but not stunned it wasn’t like he'd given me a slip with that night’s lotto numbers yet.
He then went on to tell me that he was schizophrenic and that he was trying to get to a town called Antofagasta which is north of San Tiago and that he didn’t have any money and could I give him the fare. He showed me his wrists as if to prove he was sick, both had huge amounts of scar tissue on them where it was obvious he'd tried many times to commit suicide.
Now this guy was a very gentle mannerly man, so I asked him why he needed to get to Antofagasta. He said that he would be admitted to a "unit" there, but that he had slept of the streets of Santiago for the last eight nights while he tried to get into a place in Santiago or beg for the fare back to Antofagasta.
I asked him how much he was looking for and he said 40,000 pesos, which is about $80. I told him “listen buddy, no chance I’m giving you that much money”. He then said to me “its ok I understand”, he shook my hand and went to say goodbye and then I asked him was he hungry?
He said he was so I told him to wait. I popped into burger king and got him a double whopper with Cheese meal and as I stood there tucking into one myself chatting to him, this old man dressed as Santa was playing a haunting tune on a tin whistle funnelled through a megaphone. I thought I was in Roman Polanski movie.
I popped over and dropped the change from the burgers into his mug at which point he stopped playing and came over and started talking to me and Mr. Wilkinson sword. I offered him my fries, which he gratefully accepted. There I was chowing down on fast-food with quite probably the two craziest guys in Santiago, like I was saying, something mental happens every day.
I put Sam Gamgee into the BMW dealers to get his final service before taking on the Ruta 40, with the usual story; I told them anything that looks even close to marginal swop it out. There was no point skimping now and then being stuck out in the middle of Patagonia broken down for the want of a couple of hundred dollars.
As I was sitting on a park bench writing up some post cards a huge ruckus broke out behind me. I turned around to see a bunch of police on motorbikes swarming onto a guy and hand cuffing him. As they were leading him off he kept kicking out at some dude in a suit, although he was only wearing flip flops so was probably hurting himself more than the other dude.
That afternoon I found the best internet cafe ever. Why I hear you ask? Was it because it had new PC's with rip-roaring bandwidth, flat screen monitors, ergo keyboards, comfortable seats, air conditioning, nice aromatic plants sporadically placed around the building or just the right lighting?
No, it’s none of these things! It’s because it was built next door to a strip club and although I’m not one to visit such dens of iniquity, there was a window right beside my screen and every now and then women clad in nought but a G string would walk by waving.
Obviously I'd be reporting this to the police and the Catholic Church, after a couple of hours. I also thought it was a good time to reread every email I’d ever received. Someone needed to stand guard at this window lest a child walk by and be forever damaged by such wanton debauchery. The Chilean people could sleep safe in their bed knowing Oisin was manning the wall tonight and maybe for a good portion of the next day.
I spent the rest of the day walking around Santiago people watching. There is more VPL in San Tiago than there are arses. On my road where I grew up when I was young; a woman complained that the tinkers were robbing her knickers off the line. I now know these types of jocks to be called roll-ons, and I can testify that the entire "stolen or lost" roll-on underpants have all made it to Santiago where they are being sported by women between the ages of thirty and forty. At least the Chilean army is sure to never run out of tents. When does a pair of knickers become a roll on?, when it takes three pegs to hang them up on the line. Now how would I know about this VPL if I wasn’t staring? Well I was staring, and as we lone travellers of the lonely planes say, staring is caring!
Large portions of Santiago spend the whole day kissing, I never saw anything like it. I was going to get a t-shift which said "Get a room already!" It wouldn’t have been so bad I guess If I wasn’t on the biggest barren patch since Robinson Crusoe got left on the Island, I was dying for a bit of woman Friday.
Benny socialists had a couple of the parks and visitor attractions shut down with protests so there were limited enough places to go and see. I can just see Che Guevara now rolling in his grave "Nice one ya pack of bennies, you shut down parks! “Ze favourite hangout of ze capitalist dogs!...... NOT"
I was starting to get a bit lonely in Santiago. If you want to talk to people in cities there’s a lot of mistrust knocking around with good reason I suppose. The only people you can be guaranteed a chinwag with, are fellow bikers, nothing like something in common or Irish people who are always up for a chat.
On top of that, I'd spent so much time on the road on my own and had talked to so few people that when I did meet someone, I was like a fire hydrant and didn’t stop talking, so people ran to the hills pretty quickly. However, maybe I bring it on myself. It’s not like when you go up talking to people that you pick out that mad bitch from Misery, no doubt that mob would talk and talk and talk.
It’s always people who kind of look like you might have something in common with, fellow tourists, who if they're early into their travels are so full of urban legends about them having to be “so careful in South America or they'll have their kidneys cut out” that they get their skates on pretty quickly.
Similarly, many folks travel in their own groups with three or four pals and likewise aren’t receptive to a fifth beetle. Woe is me! Fuck em, I'll be Yoko Ono and start telling them that the other one robbed her roll-on and sold it to a Chilean girl.
There it was, Hughes, once counted amongst the mightiest of conversationalists in Christendom reduced to chatting politics with Mr Fluffykins (my toy rabbit); I really wanted Sam Gamgee to get well soon and bare me to the wilds!
I went off to some vineyards. It was the usual story lots of tasting all the different types, no spitting back with the big fella and I ended up having about three bottles of wine. They offered a lunch and all the wine you can drink for thirty-five dollars and as always when you bring the big fella to a buffet, they made no money.
I’d beef for lunch and was drinking white wine with it. This French bollix says to me "white wine with meat?" I gulped the glass of wine down in one, turned, looked at him, and said "Wines wine, it’s all the same oul shite". He looked at me like I was taking a piss on the Arc de triumph.
Sam Gamgee was returned none the worse for wear and Merrie and Pippen arrived from Ireland. They were two college buddies and were great friends so it was pretty much wall to wall gargle for a couple of day, flying is thirsty work apparently. The next day I headed out to Valparaiso again to meet the lads, who because they were on the first days of their holidays were simply mad to go sightseeing.
After kicking it for a day I said goodbye to Merrie and Pippen, we were meeting again in Chiloe. I trekked off south to a town called Chillan, about seven hours south of Valparaiso. There was no real reason for me to go there other than it was about half way between where I was and the island of Chiloe. The road is called the Ruta 5 and it carves a path through the Chilean wine growing region. In the distance, you can see the snow capped Andes, not a bad way to spend an afternoon.
However it made for a pretty boring ride, the road was too easy, too straight, and too predictable and the only battle you have to fight is against falling asleep, I can hear you now “you can’t keep that bollix happy, it’s too hard, it’s too easy, I wish someone would cut his throat in six places!"
I crossed the 30000-mile barrier just as I got to the ferry to the island of Chiloe. The first impression I got of Chiloe was "wow this could be Ireland". It was springtime there so the roads were awash with colour and a wonderful spring freshness was in the air, it was a real tonic. The place was full of “mad as fuck” dogs, easy to get the impression that no dog on the island has ever seen a motorbike; every single one went Hezbollah as I passed them.
The bikes oil leak was back, BMW in Santiago just succeeded in moving the leak, and making it worse. I noticed today when I looked down at my boots and pants they were covered in oil. I pulled over and started checking where the leak was coming from and how bad was it. All told I reckoned I was losing about a litre of oil for every six hundred miles, so not a disaster yet but there were definitely clouds on the horizon.
In Chiloe, it rains a lot, "so what" I hear you say? It rains everywhere.” Well in Chiloe it really really really rains a lot, and that’s three really’s.
This place took rain to all new levels, it comes down in sheets, and it was as if an elephant was pissing right into your face at times. However the locals are used to it and no one seems to mind. Outside the hostel window that night, there were people outside talking until 4am, and it pissed rain the whole time, they weren’t even bothering to shelter. No doubt, whiskey played some small role.
I hooked back up with Merrie and Pippen and we headed off on a mixture of sightseeing and hiking, which chiefly involved being involved in a human experiment for how much rain water can you take getting fired at you before you turn into a fish. The lads were mad to do stuff which suited me grand and we'd a good chat about whether or not doing nothing counts as doing something from a holiday perspective, know what I mean?
At this stage hiking up a Volcano for sixteen hours was about as appealing as a couple of hours in the scratcher with a skunk so I left the lads off and had a late morning.
At breakfast I talked to a nice American couple who told me to make sure to go to the penguin colony, Merrie and Pippen were taking the bus to Puerto Varas so wouldn’t be able to see it, but me and Sam Gamgee with no such constraints decided to head off in search of the wee cuties.
The road takes you north and then west looping around the north end of the island. This part of the world is battered by the pacific and looked just like the west coast of Ireland with the notable difference that today it was sunny. Once you get about twenty miles west of Ancud, the most northerly town in Chiloe the asphalt stops abruptly and it was back to gravel, muck and shite but I’d had a good break from it so I was lapping it up.
Along the way there were plenty of cows (4 legged ones) and general farm animals and I asked a couple of farmers for directions to the penguin colony, let’s just say there was much pumping of the right hand in the direction of where I was going "Guess it’s this way huh?"
Every time I’d come to what looked like a beach I'd get off the bike and go for a quick walk in search of the elusive colony. I wondered if it was not that big or maybe it had moved. I stood there listening half expecting to hear the sound of millions of the little fellas roaring for nose bag, but nope, all that was to heard was the sound of the waves.
I gave up and headed off the Island in the direction of Puerta Varas. On the ferry I had my photo taken with about twenty kids who were on a school tour. They all wanted to get on the bike and put on the helmet which I hadn’t washed the inside of for five months, no doubt their mothers would be delousing their heads when they got home.
I got to Puerto Varas, which is an old German Colony built on a gorgeous lake, and right at the end of the lake sit two Volcanoes. We were now officially in Patagonia and whatever you've heard, its better. Snow capped peaks, gorgeous blue lakes, wonderful plant life; it’s hard to imagine any place nicer.
We hired a car and headed off exploring the Volcanoes. When you head to an area that has had "recent" volcanic activity, it’s a strange experience. First, you can see where the activity just cleaved a path through the mountains and the vegetation. It’s like someone just spilled a bucket of light black paint on the landscape. Little by little, you can see where plants are starting to grow again. It starts with lichen turning the mountainside red, and then weeds can get a foothold and from there the trees come back. It’s magic to be able to see all the phases of recovery happening at the same time in different parts of the mountain.
We hiked up several hills and kept working our way up the mountain. The view above kept changing as the wind either blew new clouds in, or the ones that were there away. It was like the top of the mountain was playing hide and seek, one minute it was there, the next it was hidden.
On the way back the exhaust fell off the car, Peugeot, say no more. A bigger bag of shite has never been built and we ended up having to tie it up with shoe laces. By the time we were done, all three of us were burnt alive, our faces glowing like a two bar electric heater.
It was nearly time for the Ruta 40. The road has several names. In Europe, we call it "The Ruta 40", In the USA they call it "the 40", in Yemen, they call it "Ruta Fuck story", and in Poland, they call it "Ruta Wherethefuck?"The following passage was found in the pocket of a biker who was found in the middle of a hysterical fit lying by his bike on the Ruta 40:
Woe to You O Earth and Sea;
For the Devil Sends his Road with Wrath
Because He knows that the big fellas Time is short
Let Him Who Hath Understanding ReckonThe Number of the Road
For it is a Human Number Its Number is 40
I said goodbye to Merrie and Pippen the next morning. The original plan was to take a four day ferry south but I couldn’t for two reasons, firstly the thoughts of being cooked up in a boat for that length of time was getting to me and secondly it would short circuit about three hundred miles off the Ruta 40.
So what’s bad about that I hear you say? Well first of all if you’re a girl you won’t understand, it’s a guy thing. It goes something like this. When I’m asked "So Oisin, did you do the whole thing on a motorbike?" I can’t say yes because of the ferry. Yeah yeah I know, no one cares about that but secretly every guy in the world knows exactly what I’m talking about. You either did or did not go the whole way on the bike and are therefore "a big girls blouse or not a big girls blouse"
Moreover, there’s a sublevel to that which is if I’m ever invited to the hard-core bikers Christmas ball, the question will come "So Oisin, Did you do all of the Ruta 40?" again I can’t say yes. I will have to answer "well except for the bit..." and I'll get all those derisory “Harrumphs!” and let’s face it nobody needs that. At this moment I didn’t realise that the Ruta 40 actually starts at the border with Bolivia, and not at Bariloche so riding all of the Ruta 40 would have to wait for another trip.
For my last night in Chile I was treated to a terrible dream. I was in college and I got a paper back from a lecturer with the assessment written on it “You are dumb, dumb, dumb”. In the dream I reacted terribly.
It was one of those dreams that long after you wake you just can’t get it out of your head. When you’re driving a motorcycle there’s nowhere to hide from your thoughts.Your head is stuck inside the helmet without a radio to turn on to drown it all out. I figured out a bit about myself while thinking about it over the hundreds of miles that passed.
It was important to me that people respected me and that I was thought highly of. I started to wonder if the only reason I came on the trip was so people would think I was cool. Even while I’m writing this I’m doing it I guess, I could put some shit down here that I’m doing it to inspire others, to show people what’s possible; the reality is that I’m doing it to tell everyone how cool I was by doing the trip. It’s one thing being a prick, but when you know your one too; now that is hard!
The other point I realised was that I talked too much, especially about the journey. I realised that I wanted to talk about it more than people wanted to hear about it. I couldn’t believe that people didn’t want to know every detail and that there wasn’t a queue of hot birds lined up around the corner waiting to give me a blo job. Stuck with that realisation, I headed off on my own for Argentina, not happy with the people I was with, not happy on my own wondering if I’d ever find peace.
I was pretty sure this was one of those moments where you find yourself only to find that you weren’t really worth finding in the first place.
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Ride on!
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