Day 15: 24 June 2002 - "You have to visit all my b**ches."
After going to sleep late, we slept in. I woke up around 8am with my sore throat worse, went back to sleep, and it was much better by the time I reawoke and ate Chocapic.
Today was the day for a big driving trip. We borrowed a car from a friend of the family, picked up Pato's maternal grandmother, and took her with us on our adventure. The trip from our house to Pato's grandma's was the most exciting leg, because it was Pato's first driving experience in 9 months. That's always exciting... lots of engine revving and sudden bursts forward. :)
We drove north along Route 5. One of our first stops was Piedra Colgata, Hanging Rock. It is a big chunk of rock hanging very perilously above the road. You would think that with all of the seismic activity around, it would have fallen on somebody by now. We got out and took pictures, then drove by it. I ducked.
Piedra Colgata reminds me of a story that Pato's dad told a few days ago. He joked that he'd told Pato's nanny to "buy Pepsodent toothpaste at the store and if they don't have that, then Colgate", then he came home and found her dangling from the ceiling. Colgate in Spanish means "hang yourself". It reminds me of all of those stories about product names meaning obscene things in other languages, or the Gerber company having to change the picture of the smiling baby on their products because in some countries where large portions of the population are illiterate, products are identified by what is pictured on the outside. So mashed carrots ended up being mistaken for mashed baby. Heh heh.
After passing Piedra Colgata, there were a lot of vineyards and green areas. We passed into an area that was green on either side of the road but had sandy mountains in the background. I leaned over onto Pato's shoulder and when I lifted my head again a few minutes later, the green was gone and there were only occasional bushes. A while farther down the road, even those had disappeared.
We passed the future home of the Atacama international airport. So far, it's only a fenced-off area but in a few years will be Chile's second international airport, only about 30 minutes from Pato's house instead of 10 hours.
Our destination was the Caldera area, with visits to the beaches of Bahía Cisne (Swan Bay), a quiet little place, and Bahía Inglesa (English Bay), a popular tourist destination in the summer. We went down and touched the sea at Bahía Cisne and Pato got scared by a big wave coming after him. We got out of the car to take pictures at Bahía Inglesa and a dog started following us around. He followed us back to the car and we think he would have driven us home if we'd let him.
We put in a John Williams CD at one point, which only made the journey more interesting. As we arrived at Bahía Inglesa, the theme from Star Wars was playing, making it feel like a bigger adventure. As we drove near the sea at Rodillo Beach, we were listening to the theme from Jaws. Later we drove through Caldera to Darth Vader's theme and felt evil and strong. Because it's winter, we were in a race against the sunset to get pictures of the bays. But later, after we'd visited them and taken pictures, the moon came out and shone very brightly over us, to the tune of the theme from E.T.
At one point, we drove past a sign saying Ruta 5 (Route 5) was 14 miles away. Someone had painted over part of the sign so that instead, it said Puta 5 (Whore 5) was 14 miles away. Well, I giggled. Shut up.
We drove past the church of Padre Negro (The Black Priest) in Caldera. Legend has it that if the church bells ring three times, there will be an enormous earthquake. For this reason, there are no bells in the church. But before the big earthquake in Copiapó earlier this year, many people reported hearing the bells ring twice.
Pato says that Copiapó's own superstition is that there will someday be a tidal wave that will fill the valley that Copiapó is in, until all that is visible is the cross on top of one of the mountains. I told him that if I were Copiapó, I'd move the cross to the town's lowest point. He said that unfortunately, Copiapó is not a person. Hmph.
srah - Monday, 24 June 2002 - 9:46 PM
Tags: chile, travel
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