Interestingly enough, the longer I stood still, the closer I got to Santiago. Standing at the Iberian Airlines ticket counter initially started with a conversation about how I wouldn't get a flight to Santiago until at least March 10. Given a race start of March 7, that didn't necessarily work unless the rest of the competitors minded me showing up in the middle of Stage 3. Thirty minutes passed and Iberia had a flight suddenly that would get me to Lima, Peru for $2100, one-way. An hour passed and Iberia suddenly had a flight for me leaving a day later that would get me to La Paz, Bolivia for $1,700, one-way. After two hours, Iberia had a one-way flight for me to Santiago de Chile that was leaving in an hour and would get me there for $1200. I feel like I should've hung out longer...they probably would've found a way to run the race for me, pick up my medal, and get me back to London for $6.80. After all of that I finally boarded a flight to Santiago via Madrid.
Arriving in Santiago heightened the senses a bit and I started getting ready for whatever the world might throw my way. All I can say is 'wow, what a scene'. After waiting on the tarmac for an hour, we filed off the plane and into single file rows on the tarmac that reminded me for some reason of an elementary school fire drill. Narcotics and bomb sniffing dogs passed up and down the rows handled by police in green uniforms and cargo pants with lots and lots of pockets. 'That must be where they hide their drugs' I joked to myself, then I hoped that none of the dogs were 'thought' sniffing dogs or I would surely end up in a makeshift prison on a makeshift runway. Passing the sniff test we were herded around the back of the airport through tents serving as a makeshift customs department.
The airport terminal itself was closed and roped off, and it was easy to see why. Broken windows, collapsed floors, dangling lights, and strewn rubbish served as a melancholy backdrop and bookend as we filed through the middle in orderly fashion, however we emerged to find the other bookend full of chaos and activity. Taxi drivers, bus operators, and tour companies hustled for our business while work crews jackhammered away at the damaged overpass above. Despite the spike in noise and activity I left being very impressed with the order and calm instilled by the Chilean Authorities. Really the most chaotic part of the entire trip was the large group of students from La Universidad de Salamanca who seemed to be 'living la vida loca' the entire time...
I boarded a free bus provided by Iberia Airlines that took me into South Central Santiago and the Terminal de Turbus, where I was able to buy a one-way ticket to San Pedro leaving in 20 minutes and arriving 25 hours later. Have you ever gotten off a flight somewhere or arrived at a destination and felt like someone just waved a wand and somehow you ended up there? Maybe you left a rainy London one morning and ended up in Barcelona or Rome and it was as though your flight, your travel, never existed? Maybe you left a snowy Washington, DC and landed in Houston or Jacksonville or Nashville and it was though you simply woke up there to start the day?
Well....I left London on Tuesday afternoon at 1pm GMT and after two flights, two buses, and 50 hours, I arrived in San Pedro de Atacama. I don't feel like someone waved a wand so much as I feel like they whipped me with one. I did a good job staying hydrated with loads of water and Gatorade, but I also felt quite gross thanks to the eight 'mystery meat' sandwiches I had to eat along the way, and for the fact that I hadn't changed my clothes since I went to work on Tuesday morning. If I could smell me, then certainly the other 70 people on the bus could smell me, and trust me there's no Molton Brown in towns like Iberra. Unfortunately for the guy seated next to me, San Pedro de Atacama was still over a day away...
My seatmate was a French guy, living in Belgium, but speaking with a Scottish accent. I pressed him on his bizarre accent, and even though he maintained his Normandy upbringing, I wouldn't have been surprised if his name were Glen Morangie or Johnny Walker, or William Wallace. I never got Mr. Pierre O'Callahan's name but what I can tell you is that he was on an 8 month sabbatical from his job as a solar energy scientist and that after three months of windsurfing in Brazil that he was on his way via bus to Bolivia. Unfortunately, after 40 hours of straight travel and bizarro foodstuffs, the most intelligent comment that I was able to offer on the subject of solar energy was that "I always have more energy when the sun is out..."
It's no surprise that just as the bus turned sharply changing its course from the coast to the internal route, so too did our conversation turn sharply from the intellectual to his current issue of the heart: Mr. Jean-Luc Murphy O'Sullivan had met a lady friend in Sao Paulo, Brazil and was torn on whether he should quit his job and try to make it work with said lady friend. Apparently Mr. Olivier McGillicutty feels that at 40 years old that it might be time to settle down and that she might be the one...or 'La Uma' for my Portuguese speaking readers. I can only attribute what next came out of my mouth to my 41 hour travel haze in which I completely stole a line from Jerry Maguire and said something to the effect of "if you love her, then you have to be fair to her..." I even said it in Cuba Gooding Jr's voice.
The next 9 hours was surprisingly quiet except for Mr. Francois Glencoe's occasional humming of 'The Secret Garden'...
As I mentioned after 50 hours of travel I finally reached San Pedro de Atacama, which sits on the edge of the Atacama Desert against a backdrop of volcanoes and perched at roughly 8,700 feet above sea level. I've been here before. Well, I've never been here before per se, but I've been HERE. While this is Chile, it could easily be Egypt, or Namibia, or Argentina or even Arizona. The small desert town, the mud and straw walls, the tattered corner store, the dusty streets, and the oppressive sun. I've met the guys who hang out at the bus stop, and I've even tossed treats to the old, mangy dog that is always laying in the dust on his left side, half-asleep, and pestered by flies. If you're ever going to start a sleepy desert town you absolutely have to have this dog or else your street cred is out the window.
While I've been here before one thing I know full well is that I've never run this race before. I've crossed sandy plains, outlasted insufferable suns and climbed rocky canyons, but none of that matters amongst the terrain of the Atacama. The Atacama will offer up shoe-piercing salt flats, and a lung wheezing altitude that I've never run in before. I had my fun with Benoit McKutcheon and overcame my first hurdle, but that was the easy part. Now there's a race to run and it's time to take the next few days to get mentally ready for the Atacama Crossing...or Stage 1 in the Race of No Return. Game time.
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