A Mixed Bag

Emita Padre Hurtado – La Ballena – Llallay, Chile

As far as we can tell, pretty much all of Latin America has these religious or quasi-religious seeming shrines along the road. I’m still not sure we completely understand them, but the shrines in Chile seem like they are on a whole different level than the shrines in, say, Mexico or Colombia. They’re bigger. They often include big pictures or even life size photos. Some of them are shaped like semis. And it seems like they are more well tended.

After doing a little research, I discovered that the Chilean shrines really are different. They are known as Animitas. They mark the spot where the body and soul separated – which I think translates to where the dude died . . . They are not sanctioned by the Catholic Church – but I guess it’s pretty much 100% Catholics who build and maintain them, which isn’t surprising because these countries are 100% Catholic.

The concept is kind of like in the movie Ghost – where Patrick Swayze’s character dies unjustly and prematurely – so his ghost sticks around for a while to make things right. I guess the general idea is that the Animitas people died too early, and usually unjustly – most of the time in traffic accidents – and the souls stick around this spot for a while to help those who are left – just like Patrick Swayze stuck around to help Demi Moore.

Many of the shrines have Catholic symbols, but some are completely secular. Some have big pictures of the dead. Many have candles burning around the clock. And I guess eventually the Animitas are abandoned when the living feel like the lost soul is no longer helping them – because the soul has moved on. (Presumably to Heaven?)

Hopefully no one is erecting Animitas to Diana and me anytime soon . . . After all, we’re not dead yet. Still kicking. Still pedaling. 

Yesterday was (mostly) an amazing day. Quite a contrast to two days ago. Way less hilly. Wind at our back. And some amazing coastline. 

We were feeling so good we decided that we might go a little farther than we had been planning and stay at a campground on the beach: Camping Chivada. Sounds nice, right?

We arrived in the town located just before the beach and stopped at a fruit and vegetable market, a meat market, and a grocery store. We were pretty excited. Ribs. Grilled vegetables – one of our favorites. And baked potatoes. 

The fruit and vegetable people were fun. Marcelo and his wife, Margarita. 

Afterwards we headed to Chivada, which was, of course, located down a big sand/gravel hill that led to a nice spot on the coast. 

When we finally arrived we were greeted with a cheery place – with nice grills and plenty of wood lying around for making fires. The place looked busy – with a bunch of girls in uniforms running around – like maybe Chilean Girl Scouts – and camp counselor types yelling instructions. Kind of fun. 

Kind of fun until the proprietor told us that the Girl Scout type people had rented out the whole campground. No room for us. 

“Not even a little out-of-the-way corner . . .?” Diana pleaded.

”No.”

(Let me pause here for a moment. I’ve been bike touring since I was like fifteen or so. At least in the States there’s kind of an unwritten rule that there is ALWAYS some spot for a tent for people on bikes. Because it just isn’t that easy to zip down the road to the next place – or a hotel – if it’s the end of the day and you’re on a bike . . . Apparently that rule hasn’t found it’s way to this Chavada place.)

But he did tell us there was another camp ground. 

“No luego.” (Not far.) And he talked about some bridge – puente – a word that we know because in Latin America every bridge is named: “Puente Alberto,” “Puente Argentina,” etc. We’ve crossed lots of puentes – so we’ve seen the word lots of times . . .

”Quantos kilometers?” I asked. “Dos o tres?” Two or three? I asked, hopefully. 

”No luego,” he repeated. There was no more information coming from this guy . . .

So, sadly, we lugged our bikes back up the steep sand path and back to the main road.

And now the real fun begin. 

We’re looking at our phones for signs of another campground. I have one 12 miles away. Not happening! Way too late in the day for that . . .

Diana finds some faint idea of camping on the beach outside of the next town – La Ballena. But the directions to this “camping” spot involve a dotted line. In Google Maps parlance, dotted lines pretty much mean bushwhacking. 

Let’s review. It’s the end of a long day. Our packs are full of food we just purchased to make dinner on a grill. We have no grill and no place to camp – outside of the potential for what is probably just a spot on the beach – a spot that looks like it’s going to be a challenge to get to . . . We won’t spend a lot of time on the details of the next half hour or so; suffice to say that stressful situations like this are a good test of a relationship’s resilience. 

Let’s just skip ahead. There’s no hotel in this town, or any other town coming up soon, but Diana finds some type of Airbnb and we book a place for the night. After biking on the sand roads that are, apparently, all that this town can afford – which, by the way, are not super fun to bike on with narrow tires and loaded bikes – for a few miles we finally arrive, and Diana cooks up the vegetables on the stovetop, but I order a pizza (the airbnb proprietor also runs a pizza place) and then collapse into bed. 

Not the storybook Pacific sunset ending to the day we were hoping for. 

But we lived to bike another day . . .

When we arrived at that other day – this morning – we woke up in our airbnb, looked out the window . . . and it was drizzling. 

As Diana pointed out, there are silver linings to everything. Had we camped we would have had to pack up with everything wet. And our KMart tent is not exactly rain proof. 

I guess the rain is the price you pay for trees. Did I mention that we now have trees around? Thank Goodness! Goodbye desert! 

Love trees. The more I travel, the more I realize that, at least for me, the act of traveling is often an exercise in finding the familiar. We love finding trees – at least partially because we grew up with trees. We love fresh water lakes – at least partially because we grew up with lakes. I mean, the foreign is great and all – but when you find the familiar amongst all the differences, those are always good moments . . .

We stopped at a stand run by a kindly older woman. She showed us a bunch of different pastry type items in a basket. We bought a few of them – but when we asked her if she made them herself she said no, she just bought them. Looking around, all the stands had the same basket and, my sense is that all the stands are just re-sellers. In other words, there’s no distinction between one and the next. 

Today. Well, definitely a dismal start to the day. And we were still a little down after the campground fiasco. But the sun eventually came out, we cheered up, we found a gas station convenience store, and we went over a pass and into a fertile valley surrounded by Andes foothills. Oh, and the wind was at our back. All good.

My one last question. Today we went past about a hundred Dulce de la Ligua stands. Seemed like a big deal. Dulce is “sweet” – so some kind of local candy or something. We had to try that. 

Just like all the other stuff like this in Latin America. Two days ago we went through the goat cheese area. Stand after stand of goat cheese. All the same. 

That’s how it was with mezcal as well. I could go on . . .

Okay, my question is: what is with these stands? I could totally understand if each stand had their own unique thing. “Oh, I really like Matilda’s Stand because she makes the best dulces.” Or, “Love Milda’s Mezcal – her Mezcal has a great bite to it . . .”

But when they’re all selling the same thing I just don’t get it. Seems like a giant waste of everyone’s time and resources. Maybe readers can weigh in with some thoughts here. Pretty sure there’s something I’m not understanding. 

And, by the way, I was not too impressed with the dulces. Kind of dry . . .

Tomorrow? On to Santiago. 

Still dealing with a little drama with our camping stuff and DHL. Crossing our fingers that the stuff will be released from Chile customs tomorrow and we’ll have it soon – but it’s been stuck for over a month so we’ll see . . . (Did I mention that we HATE DHL Chile. Terrible company . . .)

Santiago suggestions?