There was a time when you didn´t know what was happening with us. That´s because we went off radar for five days. When we left La Serena on Monday morning, 10th March, we had lined up a paradise retreat, somewhere it would be just the two of us, to celebrate things we hadn´t really celebrated along the way, like our four year anniversary and my birthday, a mere 24 hours apart. After the misfortunes in Chile (if only we had known! We would have bolted for Peru) we needed to get our heads showered. Sarah´s father had provided us with a photograph of a beach. A white sand beach with crystal clear waters. Seven hours north of La Serena, the bus drew into the town of Caldera, and we were a short colectivo (like a black taxi but only runs on specific routes) ride away from Bahia Inglesa.
The photographs didn´t lie. From our cabin we could look out, through a chain link fence, at a golden stretch of sand that ran in a crescent, far to the left, and stopped dead of an ominous rock lurking like a beast across the bay. The Caja18 resort was a mish-mash of small cabins, pointy roofed cabins, and campsites. The season had ended two weeks before. To call Bahia Inglesa 'sleepy' might imply that it would sometime wake up over the next nine months. Nothing could be less likely. If you wanted anything, you had to return to Caldera.
This wasn't a huge problem. It was a 2km walk through the desert, one we undertook the following day, and it was quite thrilling to actually be walking in a desert, even if that did mean a paved road that ran on as far as the eye could see. To the left were various little holiday-home resorts where a few fishermen lived all year, and a fair few people probably came to stay and die, under the heavy grey skies of the morning, which only evaporated as we finished our late lunch. Still, it was a quid in a colectivo, and Caldera wasn't an offensive place to spend a few hours, neither rough nor tough nor expensive.
The real attraction, however, was the impeccable beach that rests in front of the half-dozen restaurants. It was as beautiful as we were lead to believe. It was a lot smaller than we expected too. Good job that, mid-March, you share the beach with a dozen locals and virtually no one else. The water was as icy cold as it was clean, and I desisted from my first swim in the Pacific Ocean. I watched a fair few folk try and, seconds later, charge back to the shore, invigorated but better informed.
Not much sunbathed would take place here. On our first evening we went to the local supermarket and stocked up for our four days there. Lots of spaghetti would be eaten (no home-made bolognese sauce however. Sarah gets through it too quickly), plus a steak or two for the barbecue. I half regretted choosing to grill meat on an open flame, as it turned out Bahia Inglesa suffered the weather you would expect of a coastal desert stop; scorching heat and powerful UV during the day, and when the sun went down at 8pm on the dot, the heat vanished and a scathing wind rolled around you instead. My big green jumper is saturated with the smell of charcoal burning and fat.
We got what we wanted though. Four nights of no one else but ourselves. I worked on my holiday musical project, a collection of ugly electronic tracks named 'The Vulgar Album'. Any tracks written in BH were lost as we didn't have an internet connection and I couldn't back them up. Admittedly it should't be too difficult to write another half dozen tracks of bleepy-bloopy filth, but some of them were fun goddamnit! I also attempted to learn how to take better pictures with my new Canon G15 camera. Once again, futile. Still, an excellent camera, I shall be buying a new one when I get home.Well, maybe. It's galling to know it was cheaper to buy that camera in Chile than on Amazon UK.
We drank some cheap and excellent Chilean wine. On our last night we celebrated with a few bottles of fake champagne. Not much compares to the evening we, in a spontaneous and rather unlike ourselves moment, called into a beachfront restaurant called El Plateao for a beer, ended up having a huge plate of fried seafood and swilling back Argentina's delicious Mumm sparkling wine. Sarah had her first taste of octopus, loved it (not that she has been persuaded to have it since) and we relaxed.
Naturally there were a few difficult moments. No internet meant Sarah assumed that everyone back home had been vaporised / run away with gypsies / dog had become giant bear terrorising the mid-Antrim countryside / etc. We scratched out a quick email to everyone from the office computer at Caja18, but that was it. Isolation for a week. Bahia Inglesa also suffers that malady of South American towns all over, a huge number of wild dogs roaming around the town and being a bit annoying. One afternoon, enjoying a pizza, we had a white coloured thing that refused to leave the terrace, no matter how much imploring and pushing and shoving occured. More annoyingly, sometimes the dogs would just standing the middle of the road, utterly devil-may-care.
That's all well and good, except that the Caja18 resort is a little out of the village centre, requiring a beachfront walk back during the day, or a round trip on the road at night. Both offer an opportunity for stray dogs to come bounding over and see what you're up to. Fine if you aren't worried about them attacking you. Awful if you're petrified that they will. Sarah's nerves were tested on occasion. Not to mention the time I went for a short walk around the Caja18 campsite alone on the first night, only to have a dog-bear bound over to me. Without even a moment to steady my nerve in case it all went wrong, luckily the dog was only a bit curious, paws up on my torso and barking happily, whatever that may sound like.
We walked the yellow beach one day, as far as we could go, before we encountered a lot of territorial sea-gulls who got very upset at my photography and swooped around overhead, laughing and squawking out a load of meaningless threats. The sun beat down on us that day, the same day we enjoyed the platter of deep fried fish. We discovered some hideous ingrate had stolen the dregs of our bag of charcoal from underneath our barbecue. Sarah was livid.
I killed a lot of small black flies in my daily morning / evening rampage around the cabin. Mostly they weren't annoying, but there is always one who divebombs your head and buzzes like crazy, and that's the one that makes me jolt my neck and gives me cramp. I got my revenge.
It was nearly a paradise. The big yellow beach was pretty crappy actually, miles of dead seagulls and piles of shells. Sarah still has a quare collection of pretty shells from that day. Lots of rocks and broken bottles too. South America requires a few litter patrols to sort out its deserts. Dumping is de rigeur. I guess everyone is waiting for the beer bottles to break down to beautiful sand. When the wind blows in at low time, its a heady mix of seaweed, dead fish things, and the sulphur from the rock across the bay. It does not stimulate the appetite. The weather really is the killer though. The Chilean coastline, from Valparaiso upwards, is all in the desert or on the periphery. The sky lives above a shroud, and you have to wait patiently for the sun to pierce through and give you a few hours to enjoy your surroundings, blisteringly white and blue.
The final day was a headache. A bus from Caldera to San Pedro only ran overnight for 12hours, leaving at 10pm. We checked out at 11am, played on the swings, wandered into town with our rucksacks and sat on the white beach. It was beautiful. Coffee, lunch, reading, staring out to sea, it was a long wait for something. It can be really difficult putting in a day like that, especially with so many places still to go. At 7pm we took our last colectivo to Caldera, and threw our gear down at the bus terminal. Over poor empanadas we discussed our Latin America restaurant we're going to open back in Norn Iron, The sun plummeted and the night got cold. Our bus took its time coming from Santiago, a full two hours late. A long day, but at least we were nearly out of Chile. San Pedro would get 4 nights of starwatching, but maybe that would wear thin a little earlier, and we could head straight from there to Arica and out into Peru... We rolled out of Caldera and into the Atacama desert once more. Just one stop in the town of Calama on our way...
The photographs didn´t lie. From our cabin we could look out, through a chain link fence, at a golden stretch of sand that ran in a crescent, far to the left, and stopped dead of an ominous rock lurking like a beast across the bay. The Caja18 resort was a mish-mash of small cabins, pointy roofed cabins, and campsites. The season had ended two weeks before. To call Bahia Inglesa 'sleepy' might imply that it would sometime wake up over the next nine months. Nothing could be less likely. If you wanted anything, you had to return to Caldera.
This wasn't a huge problem. It was a 2km walk through the desert, one we undertook the following day, and it was quite thrilling to actually be walking in a desert, even if that did mean a paved road that ran on as far as the eye could see. To the left were various little holiday-home resorts where a few fishermen lived all year, and a fair few people probably came to stay and die, under the heavy grey skies of the morning, which only evaporated as we finished our late lunch. Still, it was a quid in a colectivo, and Caldera wasn't an offensive place to spend a few hours, neither rough nor tough nor expensive.
The real attraction, however, was the impeccable beach that rests in front of the half-dozen restaurants. It was as beautiful as we were lead to believe. It was a lot smaller than we expected too. Good job that, mid-March, you share the beach with a dozen locals and virtually no one else. The water was as icy cold as it was clean, and I desisted from my first swim in the Pacific Ocean. I watched a fair few folk try and, seconds later, charge back to the shore, invigorated but better informed.
Not much sunbathed would take place here. On our first evening we went to the local supermarket and stocked up for our four days there. Lots of spaghetti would be eaten (no home-made bolognese sauce however. Sarah gets through it too quickly), plus a steak or two for the barbecue. I half regretted choosing to grill meat on an open flame, as it turned out Bahia Inglesa suffered the weather you would expect of a coastal desert stop; scorching heat and powerful UV during the day, and when the sun went down at 8pm on the dot, the heat vanished and a scathing wind rolled around you instead. My big green jumper is saturated with the smell of charcoal burning and fat.
We got what we wanted though. Four nights of no one else but ourselves. I worked on my holiday musical project, a collection of ugly electronic tracks named 'The Vulgar Album'. Any tracks written in BH were lost as we didn't have an internet connection and I couldn't back them up. Admittedly it should't be too difficult to write another half dozen tracks of bleepy-bloopy filth, but some of them were fun goddamnit! I also attempted to learn how to take better pictures with my new Canon G15 camera. Once again, futile. Still, an excellent camera, I shall be buying a new one when I get home.Well, maybe. It's galling to know it was cheaper to buy that camera in Chile than on Amazon UK.
We drank some cheap and excellent Chilean wine. On our last night we celebrated with a few bottles of fake champagne. Not much compares to the evening we, in a spontaneous and rather unlike ourselves moment, called into a beachfront restaurant called El Plateao for a beer, ended up having a huge plate of fried seafood and swilling back Argentina's delicious Mumm sparkling wine. Sarah had her first taste of octopus, loved it (not that she has been persuaded to have it since) and we relaxed.
Naturally there were a few difficult moments. No internet meant Sarah assumed that everyone back home had been vaporised / run away with gypsies / dog had become giant bear terrorising the mid-Antrim countryside / etc. We scratched out a quick email to everyone from the office computer at Caja18, but that was it. Isolation for a week. Bahia Inglesa also suffers that malady of South American towns all over, a huge number of wild dogs roaming around the town and being a bit annoying. One afternoon, enjoying a pizza, we had a white coloured thing that refused to leave the terrace, no matter how much imploring and pushing and shoving occured. More annoyingly, sometimes the dogs would just standing the middle of the road, utterly devil-may-care.
That's all well and good, except that the Caja18 resort is a little out of the village centre, requiring a beachfront walk back during the day, or a round trip on the road at night. Both offer an opportunity for stray dogs to come bounding over and see what you're up to. Fine if you aren't worried about them attacking you. Awful if you're petrified that they will. Sarah's nerves were tested on occasion. Not to mention the time I went for a short walk around the Caja18 campsite alone on the first night, only to have a dog-bear bound over to me. Without even a moment to steady my nerve in case it all went wrong, luckily the dog was only a bit curious, paws up on my torso and barking happily, whatever that may sound like.
We walked the yellow beach one day, as far as we could go, before we encountered a lot of territorial sea-gulls who got very upset at my photography and swooped around overhead, laughing and squawking out a load of meaningless threats. The sun beat down on us that day, the same day we enjoyed the platter of deep fried fish. We discovered some hideous ingrate had stolen the dregs of our bag of charcoal from underneath our barbecue. Sarah was livid.
I killed a lot of small black flies in my daily morning / evening rampage around the cabin. Mostly they weren't annoying, but there is always one who divebombs your head and buzzes like crazy, and that's the one that makes me jolt my neck and gives me cramp. I got my revenge.
It was nearly a paradise. The big yellow beach was pretty crappy actually, miles of dead seagulls and piles of shells. Sarah still has a quare collection of pretty shells from that day. Lots of rocks and broken bottles too. South America requires a few litter patrols to sort out its deserts. Dumping is de rigeur. I guess everyone is waiting for the beer bottles to break down to beautiful sand. When the wind blows in at low time, its a heady mix of seaweed, dead fish things, and the sulphur from the rock across the bay. It does not stimulate the appetite. The weather really is the killer though. The Chilean coastline, from Valparaiso upwards, is all in the desert or on the periphery. The sky lives above a shroud, and you have to wait patiently for the sun to pierce through and give you a few hours to enjoy your surroundings, blisteringly white and blue.
The final day was a headache. A bus from Caldera to San Pedro only ran overnight for 12hours, leaving at 10pm. We checked out at 11am, played on the swings, wandered into town with our rucksacks and sat on the white beach. It was beautiful. Coffee, lunch, reading, staring out to sea, it was a long wait for something. It can be really difficult putting in a day like that, especially with so many places still to go. At 7pm we took our last colectivo to Caldera, and threw our gear down at the bus terminal. Over poor empanadas we discussed our Latin America restaurant we're going to open back in Norn Iron, The sun plummeted and the night got cold. Our bus took its time coming from Santiago, a full two hours late. A long day, but at least we were nearly out of Chile. San Pedro would get 4 nights of starwatching, but maybe that would wear thin a little earlier, and we could head straight from there to Arica and out into Peru... We rolled out of Caldera and into the Atacama desert once more. Just one stop in the town of Calama on our way...
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