a far cry from the peace of elqui

My luck with buses…

I was invited to go to Los Andes for Easter and despite the long bus trip, I accepted. However if I had known the nightmare I would have to put up with buses I would have changed my mind.

I planned to leave on the Thursday before easter catching an early bus to arrive in Santiago around 7 at night and to go to Los Andes with the family the next day. I was told on Tuesday I could buy my ticket on line but at the time had not talked to the family with which bus to take. Wednesday with the correct information I went to the Tur-bus site to buy the passage. I was stopped short by my lack of a rut number (like a SS number) which I needed to make an account to buy a ticket. Carlos called the company to see if he could use his rut number and we were stopped again as I could only use a Visa credit card attached to a Banco de Chile. Not only do I not have one, but not one of the teachers in Pisco or Paihuano has one either! Carlos however offered to drive me to Vicuna that night to buy a ticket at the bus station so I arrived home at 10 with a ticket for 1.30 the next day from Vicuna.

Step 2. I got the bus from Pisco to Vicuna arriving at 1, waited around for half an hour and when my bus did not appear at 1.30 went to the office to see where it was. There I was told by two slightly shocked women that I had been told the wrong time, the bus actually left Vicuna at 11.45 and Serena at 1.30. By this time it was 1.45 and I was an hour from Serena. They changed my ticket to the 4 o’clock bus from Serena to Santiago and I ran to jump on a different bus to Serena. When I got there I called the family with the information that I was either going to arrive at 11 in Santiago, or I could wait in Serena for 5 hours and take the night bus arriving 6 the next morning. I was told that either way all public transportation would be stopped. The solution finally was to take the 4 o’clock bus and get a radio taxi from the terminal to their house.

My bus was typically late and I didn’t arrive at their house till almost 12 and then wolfed down a piece of quiche and left with the mum for Los Andes! Got there about 1 having been traveling for 13 hours.

In the end it was definitely worth it. Los Andes is beautiful ( though not as stunning as the Elqui). The best parts were riding their polo ponies through the mountains as the sun set. The horses were amazingly well trained and just as happy to run after polo balls as climber up hills dodging cacti and rocks and drop offs.

Their house is on a farm with peach and walnut orchards. Apparently this year has been bad for peaches as they didn’t grow to their proper exporting size and fell of early, left to rot on the ground. This produced the most wonderful sweet smell in the evenings during rides and meant the orchards were fine for us to scour.

Semana Santa I went to the church of Santa Teresa, I think that is the one, my first chilean catholic church going experience and it deserves its own post.

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