Back In the High Life Again

Los Angeles, Chile

Praise be to Samsonite! The bike was still where I left it, though - as expected - my sandals were moved to a new location. While on the topic of stink, I´m going to go ahead and reset the stench meter to low, as I got a new pair of boots while back in the US.

Sweet, succulent, Santiago. I ended up staying longer than I planned, as The Bear allowed me to sleep at his apartment and I met a bunch of his friends. A few days after I got there, a teacher from the US bound for some whale research project in southern Chile arrived from Chicago and joined the crew. In general, it was a lot of exploring the town, dancing, frisbee, and tipping it back. That´s not to say it wasn´t pricey. In addition to being the most Americanized and modern city I have seen on the trip, it was also the most expensive, with prices on par with - if not higher than - the US.

I finally wrested myself from the web of good times in Santiago and started to make my way south. That day I spent my first night sleeping in South America in a tent. It was only $2 for the site, but then again I would say that I got approximately $2 worth of sleep. It was a Saturday night, I got there late, and seemingly everyone at the campground was drunk. The security guard reeked of booze, and he did laps around me in the sand on his bicycle while I set up my tent (thank you, Neubz) in the dark while talking gibberish about a motorcycle he used to have. Somehow he never went down, but I´d be lying if I said I wasn´t hoping for it. But other people did. There was a large group of lively high schoolers about 150 feet away, and I unknowingly set up camp directly in the route between their camp and the water supply and bathrooms. A number of them tripped over the tarp cords as they stumbled towards the john using their cell phones as flashlights, even in spite of the heavy logs and a picnic table that I nearly herniated myself moving into a perimeter around the tent to keep them away.

From there I continued to head south through beautiful rolling green hills punctuated by valleys overflowing with picturesque vineyards and fields of olive trees. I wanted to get to Concepcion, and about five hours out I was befriended by a motorcycle gang that called themselves ¨The Falcons¨. They were headed in the same direction, so I joined their posse, and we motored along at high speeds towards the Pacific coast. Good people. They even gave me one of their Falcons bandannas.

In Concepcion, I was finally was able to find a new helmet. Since the visor broke off of mine in the gust of wind (taking the complicated plastic mounting hardware with it), I was unable to find a reasonable helmet in Argentina, and my Ebay efforts in the US came up short. While the Chinese helmets I found in recent days were by all means high on style and rich in interesting attempts at English in their accompanying literature, I had doubts as to their capability to protect my melon. But I struck gold in Concepcion. I like the helmet, though it would look more at home in the XGames or some extreme motocross competition. Oh, well. I´ve got no one to impress.

In all of Latin America, it is common knowledge to travellers like myself that you do not stay in motels. Hotels are fine, as are hostels, residenciales, pensiones, and the like. But motels, no. Motels are not so much places to sleep as they are places rented by the hour for young, unmarried couples that want to...watch old Westerns and eat sourdough bread...and do so discreetly. Never in our trip south did Neubz and I want so badly for cheap accomodation to stoop to such degenerate standards, and I think I can say that we prided ourselves on that.

Times change.

Over the past week, I have stayed at two such shady establishments - the Hotel Victoria and the Hotel Fish. ¨Wait a minute¨, you´re saying, ¨didn´t you just say that hotels were okay?¨ Yes, I did. Which was why I was more than confused by the menu posted on the wall at the Hotel Victoria that listed prophyactics for room delivery - right after the $1.50 cheese sandwich. And then there was the collage of penciled hearts with names in them all over the walls of my room at The Hotel Fish (Chico and Chica Crespa had marked their names three times). And the six foot by eight foot mirror next to the bed. That creeped me out pretty bad, so much so that I unfurled my sleeping pad and bag and slept on the floor.

I tried to protest to the management.

Me: ¨In my experience in South America, hotels are usually a place to sleep, whereas motels are a place where people go to...do other things.¨

Chain-smoking lady with leathery skin: (smiling) ¨That´s right¨.

Me: ¨Well, I think this is more of a motel.¨

Chain-smoking lady with leathery skin: ¨It is.¨

Me: ¨But the sign out front says it´s a hotel¨.

Chain-smoking lady with leathery skin: (her eyes strangely closing half-way) ¨That´s right.¨

Me: ¨So in Chile you just don´t know.¨

(Phone rings. She answers. Nods head. ¨OK. So two cheese sandwiches and a Coke to room seven.¨)

Me: (In English) ¨Sweet.¨

At the second place (where I left from early this morning when my 12 hours were up), I was accosted in the parking structure by a maid whose teeth were on average each composed at least partly of gold.

Theresa: ¨You know, the Señora is very interested in your story.¨ (I had spent about two hours the night before talking to all the maids so as to minimize the amount of time spent in my room and all of them knew the motorcycle story. And they were constantly asking if someone was meeting me, offering me a second towel on several occasions ¨just in case¨.)

Me: ¨Oh?¨

Theresa: ¨Follow me. You need to see the Señora.¨

I followed, feeling as if I was to be introduced to a Head of State or a religious leader. The experience, as it were, wasn´t far off from the latter. We wound through a kitchen, a few dark halls, and finally emerged through a curtain into a sort of living room. There, seated in front of me, was the Señora - looking more like some sort of oracle than a human. She was seated in a medical device chair, the feet on her propped up, edemic, sausage-like legs adorned in bright yellow socks that splayed out in front of me. Her fingers were heavy with gawdy jewelry, her hair was done up high, and the room was flush with incense and very large photographs of her and her husband posing in front of famous buildings throughout South America.

We talked for a half-hour. She was one of the kindest people that I have ever met. Never in my wildest dreams would I have suspected this 82 year-old woman to be the proprietor of a place like that, but it just goes to show that you never know.

Today I stopped in the coastal town of Lota to go on a tour of a carbon mine, though the experience was sadly far less authentic than our adventure in Bolivia. I´m confident that the highlight for the Chileans in my group was watching the tall gringo bash his head on big, wooden beams throughout the dimly lit descent into the mine and hearing him curse in a language they didn´t understand.

From here I will be heading briefly east for a hike into the Parque Nacional de las Lajas before heading south for some longer treks into the parks in the south near Pucón with my newly acquired camping gear. All the pictures I have ever seen are unbelievable, and I am very excited. And rumor has it that legitimate hotels are no longer $60 and up like they were in Concepcion the further you head south, so hopefully my experience with Shady Alley is past me.

Stay classy,

- Tom

Quote: ¨I was born to love you. I was born to lick your face.¨

Manifest - 1/23/07

¨You Wish to Depart Hostile Alien Environment?¨ ¨Yes.¨ ¨Compliance.¨

Santiago, Chile

I thought it impossible to find a place with more mullets than Argentina. Then again, I had never been to Chile. Here the mullet has assumed forms with which I was previously familiar - my favorite being the ¨Fractional Mullet¨ that I saw in the central plaza this morning. Not finding the traditional mullet adequately laughable, one fine lad today sheared off two thirds of his Kentucky Waterfall to leave but a small wispy portion wavering from his rear right quarterpanel. I bet he´s an ace with the ladies.

I have little to write about this last week. Aside from some hiking up in the Valley of the Moon, nearly all my time was spent touring wineries. The Valley of the Moon was like being on the moon, or so they say. While on a guided tour through one part of the park, the khaki-clad guide quipped that ¨Your Neil Armstrong might have actually been walking here, hey?¨. He had probably told this pseudo-joke 500 times, and he took note of the ¨I got it¨ nods from the other visitors - mostly Japanese and Germans. I was the only American, and since I didn´t laugh he approached me and nudged me in the belly, ¨You know, your astronaut...who walked on the moon?¨ Hee. Hee.

In contrast to Napa Valley, only a handful of wineries in the gorgeous valleys around Mendoza charge a tasting fee. And since the harvest season here is not until March, I was often the only person at each vineyard. The majority wanted prior reservations, but the security guard at each winery´s respective gate found the pleadings of a stammering foreign moron sitting on an extremely dirty motorcycle sufficient for entry. Ohhhh, and the wine flowed...like wine.

The flagship of the Argentinian wine industry is the Malbec grape, and it is a tasty varietal indeed. My teeth were stained purple all week. And despite the fact that it was clearly a bad idea, I started to buy a few bottles. I scarcely had room on the bike for anything else. So why did I buy 60 bottles of wine? Because it was delicious and because it was cheap. 48 bottles are now on a boat bound for the States, 10 I somehow lashed to the motorcycle, and two I drank the night before I left with Antonio, the night clerk at my ratty hotel, and his friend Armando with the broken foot.

The drive to Chile was without the greatest border crossing of my life, as it winds and whirls through the Andes at dizzying heights. Had the wind not nearly blown me over on several occasions and thrown sand into my eyes (the visor on my helmet was lashed off my helmet by a monstrous gust provided by a semi that zipped by in the other direction), it would have been even more enjoyable. Near the road´s apex it passed just south of Aconcagua, which at 22,831 feet did not seem real. Then it was an incredibly long tunnel through a mountain and into Chile.

Chile is all business when it comes to customs. It took about two hours to complete the border formalities. Thankfully I asked if there would be a problem if I left the motorcycle in Santiago for a few weeks while I went home for the holidays. ¨Yes, it is a problem!¨

I needed to find someone to ¨take responsibility for the motorcycle¨ while I was out of the country. This invariably involved lots of stamps and ate up the better part of an afternoon. My savior was a man known as ¨The Bear¨, a friend of my brother-in-law who worked in the embassy here in Chile for two years. The Bear now has my bike and stinky sandals at his apartment, and I won´t be surprised to find the sandals outside with the motorcycle when I return on account of the foul stench.

Other than that, I´m just waiting for my plane. I´ve got two cheap Chinese suitcases (one of them pink) full of motorcycle parts, clothes, and wine that I want to get rid of. I haven´t seen my family, my friends, or my girlfriend since July, so this will be a welcome break.

Merry Christmas and Yuletide Cheer to you all.

- Tom

Bonus quote: ¨Stansfield?¨ ¨At your service.¨ ¨This is from...Mathilda.¨