The Adventure North - Part 1

Friday evening, Henry, two French guys, a gringa from Philly and myself piled into a tiny Fiat ’Siena Fire’ on a road trip north to La Serena on the coast. After being serenaded with French songs through many tolls, a tunnel and 400+ kilometers we eventually arrived in La Serena around 1:30 am. We crashed at a hostel in the quiet city center for a short 5 hours before waking up to hop back on the road.  We had to leave good and early to catch a boat from Los Choros to go see the Sea lions, Dolphins and Humboldt Penguins before the seas got choppy in the afternoon. 

We stopped here to ask for the dirt road to Los Choros.

       We found the road but soon realized that apparently leaving at 7:00 a.m. wasn’t early enough when it takes 3 times as long to get there as everyone says and when you almost run out of gas….. but now we know to never believe a Chilean’s judgement of distance..especially on a dirt road in the desert.

        The E for empty light came on when we still had about 30 kilometers to go. My armpits were beyond sweaty and Ivana my co-pilot generously reminded me that we didn’t have any cell phone service. Any slight downward topography we came across I gladly let the little Fiat coast.  

        After cresting yet another desert ridge after being on empty for what seemed like the longest 25 kilometers of my life, we looked up to see a small town in the distance. An oasis to our angst-ridden eyes. “There’s got to be a gas station here.” “Oh thank goodness – we made it!”

           We pulled into the town but there were no COPEC or Shell signs looming over head. The pains of concern returned in my stomach. I pulled the car over to stop at a small convenience store while Ivana ran in to ask if there was any hope for our barren fuel tank. She ran back to the car whith a smile and a look of confusion on her face,   “We can get gas right up there!” (There was no gas station to be seen in the distance.) “We just have to knock on the door of the third or fourth house.”  “Seriously?! People are selling gas from their house?!”

I didn’t hesitate and pulled up for the fill up.  Two of the roommates ran in to ask for 95, and a lot of it. A guy came out carrying old wine jugs filled with the potent fuel. We couldn’t have been happier and couldn’t have been more gringo taking pictures of the whole event.

In Henry’s words “I thought it was really stupid not to get gas a few hours back when we were on the main road.. but looking back I’m glad we didn’t,  ‘cause  filling up your car with wine jugs of gas in a no name town in Chile is an experience I never imagined  I’d encounter."

       After asking for a group photo, we climbed back into the Fiat, each grinning ear to ear to complete the remainder of the desert journey to the Pacific to catch our boat to see the Pinguinos.

Pacific – I could not have been happier to see you.