Crazy Desert Dweller

Today I took a 4 1/2 hour bus trip through the desert from Arica, in the North, to Iquique, still in the North. This desert is really something. Just as far as you can see, it is either flat sand or dirt or hills of sand or dirt or mountains of sand and dirt, or valleys of sand and dirt, or ravines of sand and dirt. I guess for people who have spent time in deserts it is normal but for me it is something that I have never seen. Years ago when I lived in the Spanish village of Ciudad Rodrigo I would often take the bus from there to the bigger city of Salamanca. It was about a one hour´s ride on the El Pilar bus. The bus drivers tried to accomodate people and although illegal to pick up passengers who would not have a seat, they would do so anyway. When the driver spotted a police car, he would yell for the passengers standing in the aisle to crouch down so the police wouldn´t see them. I was always amazed where some of the people would get off the bus. They would alert the driver that it was their ¨stop¨and the driver would pull over and drop them in front of a field. There would be no house or town in sight...just a field. I always wondered where the went, how far they had to walk, etc. Well all that just seems so normal compared to today´s events. We left the bus station in the rather modern, comfortable, and upscale bus and about 5 miles out, on the outskirts of town, an older woman flagged him down. He pulled over and picked her up. In the oncoming lane was a bus from the same bus company whose driver smiled yet wagged his finger at our driver--I got the impression that picking up passengers enroute might be frowned upon. In any case, this smiling woman who appeared to be an indigenous person, sat behind me. We drove along through this intriguing desert. At times I felt a bit frightened as I would look out the window and could not see the side of the road but just the deep ravine below. I imagined the bus veering off the road and dropping hundreds of feet into the ravine. It was at one of these ravines that this woman went and alerted the driver that we´d reached her stop. He pulled to a stop and let her off. I am mystified as to where this woman would have gone. There was not a shrub in sight for miles. It was amazing. I kept trying to take pictures out of the bus window but they didn´t seem to show any depth.
So, today is the first day that I´ve done any real sort of sight seeing. Large dirt desert mountains rise up just behind the city of Iquique, where I now am, and the sea is just a few blocks away. It was a big boom town in the 1800s due to the nitrate mines. THe main street is quite beautiful with a nice pedestrian walkway, wooden sidewalks, and really pretty Georgian architecture. It is quite nice. Tomorrow morning I will go to one of the ghost towns in the area. They were the mining towns that sprung up in the 40s )or earlier, I´m not sure) and housed the miners,houses, stores, a hospital, etc. A young British guy who I met at last night´s guesthouse had been there and said it was quite fascinating and rather ¨spooky.¨ I guess I´ve never been to a ghost town. The Brady´s have of course.
The other thing of note here is this. In the admitedly small number of Spanish speaking countries that I have visited (Spain, Peru, Mexico and Puerto Rico) I´ve generally been able to understand the Spanish and communicate fairly well. Chile is a different ballgame. I´m baffled. I have no idea what people are saying. I have to ask people to repeat everything. The bus attendant explained something to me twice and when he left I asked the guy next to me to exlain one more time. Newscasters, the be all end all of clear speaking, also cannot get through to me. I watched the news last night and got maybe a third of what they were talking about. I got more out of the little scrolling bits of info. at the bottom of the screen. IT is a little bit frustrating but also kind of funny as I had not anticipated not understanding anything. Okay, this seems rather long, and rambling, and I´m tired so I can´t really be bothered to proofread this. I´m off to the wharf area now.