Antofagasta, Chile (Norte Grande)

Having had my fill of Santiago, it was time for me to move on.  I had previously decided to venture northward, instead of southward, because the region north of Santiago was smaller than the region south of Santiago.  So, having given myself the option of adding another month to my Chile trip, making it a total of two months, I could do Santiago and the regions of north of Chile (Norte Grande and Norte Chico) into the first month, and the vast regions south of Santiago (South Lake District and Patagonia) into the second month, basically splitting the Chile into two equal regions--a logical choice.  I had also wanted to save the best for last (Patagonia), although I have a sneaking suspicion that Norte Grande may give Patagonia a run for its money.  One region that I will not go to is Easter Island, which is a few thousand kilometers off the west coast of Chile.  It is just too far out of the way, and honestly, too expensive to go there.

I booked an 8am flight out of Santiago to Antofagasta (it took me 10 tries to say it right) on the coast of Norte Grande.  But I made three strategic errors in doing so.  First, I made the flight at 8am, which means that I would have to wake up at 5am.  I could have taken a much later flight, since I couldn't check-in to my hostel in Antofagasta at 2pm.  Second, I made it as a roundtrip ticket out of habit, which is just inefficient, since I will be traveling from south of Norte Grande (Antofagasta) and ending up in the north of Norte Grande (Arica), and do not want to travel southward from Arica on a bus to Antofagasta just to catch an airplane.  Third, I allotted 10 days of traveling for Norte Grande, as it has become clear that I will need more than 10 days to see everything I wanted to see, including a 3- or 4-day four wheeling excursion to Uyuni (salt flats) in Bolivia. So I will eventually need to change my flight arrangements to a string of one-way tickets, booked on-the-fly, along my path of travel through Norte Grande.

So, given the choice of having to wake up at 5am, and just staying up until 5am, I opted for the latter.  This was not easy to do as I had only had 2 hours of sleep the previous night (I just couldn't sleep as I was being overwhelmed by travel plans).  But I knew I could sleep for a couple hours on the plane, and that I did from takeoff to landing.  

I arrived at 10am, and took a van from the airport outside of Antofagasta to my hostel.  Immediately, I was struck with the unique geography, basically moon-shaped land abutting up against a vivid blue ocean.  I have only seen this one other place, and that was at at the airport at the Galapagos Islands.  But this was no island.

I arrived at my hostel too early--it wasn't even 11am, and I couldn't check in until 2pm.  Luckily, I got those two hours of sleep on the airplane.  So I dropped my luggage off and ventured out into the city.  I immediately noticed that the people were not as multi-colored as in Santiago.  I suppose this is typical of most countries--major cities serve as a giant melting pot with a large influx of people to mix it up, whereas remote cities and towns are more stagnant, resulting in shades of the same color.

That night I opted to have a simple dinner at the local food court.  I kept it simple, ordering a pizza, french fries, empanadas, and a drink.  As in most countries, there is no such thing as super sizing, but the drink I got was miniature.    

I had to judiciously take sips while eating, so that I had enough at the end to rinse everything down.  I made it through most of my meal.

Antofagasta is not a small town--about 500,000 inhabitants.  Despite it's location on ocean, and beautiful scenery, it is not a tourist town, but more or less a jumping off point to the more interesting locations in Norte Grande.  I decided to spend a couple days there just to relax before I did some major touring, but I do not relax.

I had to go on an adventure the next day.  Just ordering pizza at a fast food restaurant here is an adventure for me, but I had to turn it up a notch.  So I decided to hike into the foothills east of Antofagasta to get a view of the city below.  I also couldn't find the bus station on google maps, which I needed to go to the next day, so hey, perhaps I would be able to spot it from above.   

I hiked up through the poor areas at the base of the foothills, which would be prime property had it been in California.

I got to the top of the foothills in about a half hour or so, and I did indeed get a great view of the city.

I also spotted the bus station.

Saw some views of the backside of the foothills as well.

There were some cool dam structures as well in one of the gorges leading from the foothills to the city, which obviously was to protect the city from flooding during times of torrential rainfall.  

I thought for a second about going down to have a closer look, but it would have been a lot of work to hike down and then up.  So I was satisfied with seeing these structures from afar. I decided to hike along the ridge of the foothills to get different views of the city, intending to pop out at the southern part Antofagasta.

But I soon found myself caught between the city and several valleys, apparently taking the wrong ridge.

Not wanting to ever backtrack, and followed a utility road, but I found that this road actually led away from the city.  So I followed another ridge that led to a gorge with another set of damn structures.  The gorge appeared to lead to the southern part of the city where I intended to go anyway, so I went for it.  I couldn't go straight down the hillside, because the incline was about 45 degrees and very unstable.  I would have definitely ended up rolling down the hill, damaging my computer in my backpack, which I never leave home without.  

Steep and unstable hillside leading to gorge with dam structure

So, I decided to traverse the hill a little bit to get to a dry ravine that was more stable.

I saw a hardy little plant all by its lonesome in the middle of nowhere. I guess we all feel that way sometimes.

I got to the bottom and looked up to marvel what I had just climbed down.

But my work was far from over, because I had to traverse these dam structures, which at then totaled about 30.

But I'm a fan of American Ninja Warrior, and I was confident I could tackle these bad boys.  I  traversed a few of the dam structures before I came across an obviously really dead icuna (cousin of the alpaca).  I wondered about its demise.  Was it eaten by a mountain lion?  Did it just die of nature causes?  Did it get stuck between the dam structures and couldn't escape?  I will never know the answer to that question.

Here are some of the obstacles that I had to climb up and down, and gymnastics that I had to perform.

I was feeling real confident in myself at this point.  Piece of cake I thought.  But then I came upon this.

It looked like it had enough hand and foot holds to safely climb down, so I went for it.  But halfway down, I couldn't find the hand and foot holds that I needed to get down, and I was not confidence in any holds that I could find as it was made out of shale that tended to break away.  On top of that, my backpack was throwing off my center of gravity, so I could see myself losing grip and bouncing down off of the rocks.  I thought for a second about taking it off and throwing down the hill, but my computer was in there, so I quickly erased that thought from my mind.  I had to find a different way down.  My confidence being shaken, I gingerly made my way up the rocks, and climbed up and around to another valley.

I came across this, which seemed innocuous enough, but it was quite deceptive.  

It was covered with very loose shale and dirt that provably had not been stepped on for years.  It was basically built up potential energy that was just waiting to be transformed into kinetic energy, and that it did after I took a few steps, with me being one with that kinetic energy.  I slid for, what I could surmise to be, 50 feet.  I didn't try to resist too much for fear of turning my slide into a tumble, so better my ass take the brunt of it, than my head.  I don't know how to describe the pain that I was feeling as I was sliding down, but shale rock enema comes to mind.

This is a view from the bottom of what I had slid down . . .

I dusted myself off and checked for rectal bleeding, not necessarily in that order.  My ass had some lacerations, but no internal damage.  I would survive.  I have no pictures of my ass as I am not a contortionist, but I do have a picture of my shorts that were ripped from crotch to belt.

I then, much more carefully, proceeded to hike down the hill.  Once I got to the bottom of that hill, I looked up, and I again marveled at the terrain that I had just negotiated.

I was almost to the outskirts of the city, but my hike was not quite complete as I had to traverse the next set of damn structures.

I reached the outskirts of the city where the shanty houses were, and walked to the road, looking up at the craziness that I had just left behind. 

I breathed a sigh of relief, and walked back through the city, with my ripped shorts (didn't really care at that moment that I looked a mess), and got to my hostel, where I changed clothes, and went out another adventure to search for the but station that I saw from the view at the top of the foothills.  Apparently, things look a bit different at ground level, as I never did find that bus station.  

I hiked through the foothills and city a total of 15 miles that day.  I had a full and adventurous day.

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