Big Desert=Long Bus Ride

So, I got on the bus last night at 7:30 p.m. It was already dark. Although I was not looking forward to the 16 hour ride, I must say that the buses here are pretty nice. The seats recline very far back and there is plenty of legroom. They also pass out pillows and blankets like on an airplane and this trip featured snack boxes. So, the first hour of the trip was from charming yet touristy San Pedro to Calama. Calama is the big center of the copper mining industry. The guide book describes it as a pretty rough place with hard working, hard drinking, hard gambling copper miners. I had made a point of making sure I had bus connections there so I would not have to stay there overnight. So, while we were just 6 on the bus from San Pedro, when we got to Calama, I got out to walk around (we had about half an hour) and noticed all of the people waiting to get on the bus were the apparent hard drinking copper miners who were all smoking, all talking to each other, and several carrying bottles that appeared to be liquor. I´ve nothing against copper miners and I¨m sure they are great folks but I wasn´t sure that I wanted to be wedged in next to one the entire ride. I scanned the crowd and saw pretty much aforementioned miners but there was one woman, tiny, about 40 who was very neatly dressed and I hoped she would have the ticket with the seat next to mine. As luck would have it, she did. The miners spread throughout the bus and laughed and carried on a bit but for the most part settled down and there was not raucous drinking and carrying on. They showed the movie...I don´t know if I have been under a rock or if they are just crap movies, but I have seen several movies on these buses that I´ve not only never seen before but have never heard of. One featured Reese Witherspoon as a doctor who was dead. One featured Tim Robbins, Rachael McAdams and some other guy driving to vegas after returning to the U.S. from Iraq. Last night´s featured Renee Zelwegger going to Minnesota to run a tapioca factory and to inadvertantly shoot Harry Connick , Jr. in the ass while out shooting crows. IN any case, they are not great seletions but better than not having entertainment. You can put in your headphones to the bus soundsystem. So, after the movie at around 11, they turned off the movies and the lights and I thought I would die as one of the miners had is laptop out and at full volume was watching video clips of exotic dancers (they might have just been performing Chile´s national dance but I doubt it as there were no handkerchiefs). I put in my earplugs and wrapped the blanket about my head but I could still hear it. I was livid. Nobody else seemed really concerned. I didn´t want to be the foreigner who told the porter to tell the guy to turn it down as I feared it would result in the same way as the incident in Spain on the train. I believe it was with my friend, Jodi, years ago...we were in the nonsmoking car and the only other passengers at the other end of the car were smoking. Jodi, as I remember it, asked the porter if he could do something about it and he did. He walked over to them pointed to us and said, ¨Those people don´t want you to smoke in here". After a bit though, he turned it off. I guess I slept off and on. After about 11 hours it was morning and light out and shocker...we were still in the desert. Soon thereafter, however, it started to look more like a regular desert with some cactus, dead looking shrubs, etc. and the closer we got to La Serena, there were even patches of what looked like dead grass. I went to a place to stay but they didn´t have any rooms so they walked me across the street to the neighbor´s who occasionally rents out rooms. It´s a pretty good set up. I immediately showered and noted that my feet were terribly swollen...I imagine from sitting for 15 hours. It´s gone down some.
This town is very nice looking. It has lots of lovely architecture...colonial, I imagine. It´s a good sized place but I´m right near the center. I have taken it easy today. I managed to have a pretty good lunch at one of the city buildings that was an old mansion with a really nice interior patio. Tomorrow I will visit some of the small villages in the Elqui valley region where they grow grapes to make pisco...the liquor that Chile and Peru fight over as their national drink. Then the day after tomorrow I will head to Valparaiso. Still looking for a computer where I can download some photos to post.