Movin' Right Along

It's Thursday the 26th, a lazy afternoon in San Pedro. Pat's been here for four days now, I believe, and things are great. We met a great new friend named Andreas who is also camping on the outskirts of town. We all fell in swimmingly together and hit it off, so we all camp together now. It's just outside of town down the riverbed, nice and isolated. The stars at night are incomprehensibly beautiful. I never realized how many stars fall in a given night until I had perfect clarity during night time. It's SO dark out there where we sleep that I can see satellites cruise overhead in space! He put our minds at ease greatly by explaining that many people here practice an ancient Quechua pagan form of animal sacrifice called Candomblé (which is also practiced in Brazil where I became familiar with it [only there they call it Makumba]). That bizarre story I told earlier about the weird bloody guy sounded totally ordinary to Andreas, who has lived here for about a month and is all plugged into the local people and the pulse of the city. Apparently while our experience was weird, it wasn't a close call for our lives. Whew. Andreas speaks fanTAStic English and is, of course, fluent in Spanish. He somehow knows all the video games and TV shows that we know, so we always have plenty to rap about. He's 22 and ran away from his home in Santiago to find something that interested him more than the substandard college in which he was enrolled. We four have a solid routine going where we wake up around 9:00 and do some work in the camp like improving the campsite and building tables and such with a ton of adobe we found nearby. Then we go into town and eat lunch and jump on the net, then hunker down in the shade to read in the plaza during the hottest times of the day. The town completely closes during ciesta. At around sundown, we always have the epic task of finding enough firewood for the campfire. At night, we usually buy dinner ingredients and booze, then retire back to camp to cook our meals and carry on until bedtime.
I've met many excellent people here so far: an enchanting and almost aristocratic woman named Miriam from Holland who already left for another city, some local guys named Emanuel and Abraham, two really great artesans named Jano and Lorena from Santiago, the owner of the horse tours, named Farolo, to whom we were recommended by Loreto in Antofagasta, and these beautiful performing twins from Quebec named Momo and Francesca. They juggle and dance in plazas and are only 19. Very cool people, all in all.
Because of the wild thunderstorms that I mentioned from last week, there was apparently an excess of water in the mountains. One night while we were goofing off at camp, I heard the sound of running water. In the Atacama. Nobody else heard it, but I switched on my headlamp and turned toward the riverbed. A bona fide river was being forged RIGHT in front of us! Unbelievable. Only in National Geographic have I ever seen a river being born before that night. The next day, we had ample water in which to splash around, wash ourselves, wash pots and dishes, and store for later use. Of course, it's dried up now, but those two days were excellent. One night a few days later, two wild llamas, one HUGE male and one smaller female, found us to be very interesting and got a little too close for comfort. Not that they would eat us or anything, but a 600-pound llama could easily charge and trample us. We had to stay leery and alert while we built a fire. At one point, he came within 15 or 20 feet from us and we all made sure to have either something to swing or something to make a lot of noise if he decided to come after us. Anyway, it all turned out fine, but the adrenaline levels spiked a little bit that hour. There are roughly forty stray dogs running around San Pedro and we've named a whole bunch of them. There's Baron, Sebastian, Ojo, Delilah, Stokey, Cujo, Mangy, Archie, and our favorite, Sparkles. She's a small black lab puppy, one of the only females in town, and she's incredibly well behaved. She even showed up asleep at our camp this morning. She doubles well as a pillow and loves our company, so I decided to buy her a big lunch of turkey today. "Hey, Brad, what'd you do in Chile? Oh, I got a dog."
There's plenty more to tell of course, but I grow tired of yammering for the moment.
Today, tomorrow, or the next day, we will take an overnight bus trip to Arica, Chile, which is the northernmost city. Once I know the timing, I'll be sure to put it on here. There are too many tourists in this city, so we're looking forward to hitting the next one.
Adieu, avid fans. More to come, of course.

Pat's Arrival, and WEIRD Event

It's around 1:00 in San Pedro now, and it's suuuuper hot. Pat's due to arrive within the next six hours or so by bus. The rumor is that Marcelo's coming with him, but we don't know yet for sure. Andy and I are still rocking this city pretty well. I got rid of some excess crap I wasn't using, which cleared up space and weight to help Andy carry around the "kitchen." I'm an expert bag packer by now. This morning we had a weird and temporarily frightening experience: after waking up early and packing our stuff, we walked a short way to a nearby hangout spot away from town that we're familiar with. It's got a ton of empty bottles and wine boxes stacked up, so it's obviously a popular spot. We decided to chop up some veggies and make a pasta, cheese and veggie soup. While cooking, a guy walked up from the nearest hacienda across a little river bed and introduced himself as the owner. He seemed like an alright guy at first, so we chatted while stirring our breakfast. Then, another guy came up from behind us on another river bed and introduced himself as a friend to the hacienda owner. When I asked him his name, he hesitated for a while, then said Hernan. "Hernan" had red stuff all over his hands, which I thought was wine since they were both obviously kind of drunk, but I shook his hand anyway. This guy was aggressively trying to get information out of us for a little while and just staaaaring with this weird look on his face. Watching us cook. Freakin' weirdo. At some point, he made a joke about being a vampire. His friend left back to the hacienda briefly, but was replaced by a scary looking old guy who didn't say a word. He also just started to watch us cooking. By this time, Andy and I used some subtle gestures between ourselves to say "if anything goes down, be ready, because these guys might be trying to rob us or something." The hacienda owner came back with a jug of water just as the old guy left. We then realized that Hernan was washing a whole bunch of blood off his hands, not wine! Oh crap. Then, the climax of the tension came out of his pocket in the form of a long, bloody knife. At this point, Andy and I mentally searched for something nearby with which to crush the skulls of these maniacs if they tried to rush us. Pretty nervous, we both continued to entertain our "guests." After getting his hands and knife clean, Hernan got up and moved around the both of us, then bade us farewell with a smile and a handshake. The two guys walked away up the street, leaving us alone. We were far enough away from the town (since we prefer to camp in privacy and for free) that nobody would have heard a scuffle, and only once person knew where we were camped. Feeling quite paranoid, we both packed our bags, constantly looking over our shoulders of course, and took an alternate route back into town.
I feel that our speaking Spanish to them saved our skins on some level. They knew they couldn't say anything that we wouldn't understand (like "hey, let's rob these Americans, guys. On three...") and I think it helped to affirm that we were savvy enough to put up a fight. It was weird... Nothing REALLY happened, they didn't hit us or approach us, but it was obvious that it wasn't just a friendly chat. Everybody else in this town has been really nice and very genuine.
Anyway, we kept our heads about us and harnessed all the reptilian instincts to escape with no issues or injuries. All I know is, if they'd come upon us while we slept even an hour prior to our encounter, we would have been discombobulated and defenseless, and they very well may have robbed or stomped us. If I see those $@#%! again, I'll make every effort to avoid them or make my contempt obvious. We'll definitely be camping on the OTHER side of town this evening!
However, despite those weirdos and these three penniless Chilean guys that have tried to sell us everything from sandboard tours to weed to bracelets, this town is charming, clean, honest, and fun. We'll probably leave in two or three days to go to Arica. Right when we know or when we go, you, my dedicated readers, will know too.
Con amor y con gusto,
Brad