A Shift in Worlds
We sped downhill on smooth blacktop towards San Pedro. Within 45 minutes of leaving Bolivia, we'd descended 5,000 feet and gone from 30 degrees to 75. It's so much warmer here that even immigration won't set up at the border - our minivan drove us directly to the inspection point at the edge of town. We got off, filled in some forms, got our luggage x-rayed, passports stamped and got back in the minivan for a five minute drive into the center of town.
It's a pleasant, dusty tourist trap. There was free wifi in the park and tourists from all over the world were milling about in shorts and tank tops. Every storefront catered to them, offering trips out into the desert or to Uyuni, where we'd just been.
We decamped at a restaurant and waited for our menus. They didn't seem to be in any rush to deliver them. The prices were as high as the service was slow. We were drowned in annoying house music and I felt myself getting really annoyed. I thought about it. We'd just left Andean South America and were now in European South America. I wasn't ready for it - I wasn't ready to re-enter the machine of the modern world.
After a lackluster meal we met our AirBnB landlord in the middle of town. He picked us up in a beat up pickup truck and didn't get out to help with the luggage. He was a lanky, scraggly Czech with heavy-lidded eyes and a dead-pan delivery.
As he drove us, he pointed to his house but kept on driving, up a dusty hill. "I will show you something, we have many wonderful marvelous things here in Atacama." We parked near a cross, looking out at the driest place on earth. "Wonderful" I said, ready to get in bed and take a nap. We'd just been in the desert for three days and even if Jesus had been up on that cross I doubt I would've gotten excited.
Atacama is so dry and lifeless that NASA scientists brought their Mars rover here to practice. They tried out their life-detection instruments and found less life here than they ultimately did on Mars.
Finally, the Czech drove us down a narrow rock road.
He parked his pickup truck outside a gate and led us to a small house. "Your room is here. Outside are two French cyclists, living in their tent. I met them in town and invited them to stay in our yard - they just rode their bikes from Uyuni." I looked out to the small tent and imagined two lifeless people, burned to a crisp from their ride. We met his Chilean wife, Sole, who gripped me on the shoulders and gave me a big kiss on the cheek. A few hours later she'd be in tears - their pickup truck was stolen right out of the driveway the same afternoon we arrived.
In the late afternoon we walked towards town. The volcano in the distance divides Bolivia from Chile, we'd been freezing there just this morning. It was so odd to now be sweating under a broiling sun.
I was not too open-minded, after a few hours I was ready to leave. Tomorrow we'd be taking a bus to the airport to fly to Santiago and it couldn't come soon enough.
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