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May 10, 2007 Santiago, Chile has three major bus terminals, one right after the other, along Avenida Libertador Bernardo O'Higgins, the main street of the city. These have, collectively, about 150 platforms. Compare that with the pathetic Greyhound Station in Los Angeles, with 10 or 12 platforms. On Monday, October 7, 2007, I found my way to ultra-modern Estación Alameda Tur Bus about 11 AM for a 3 PM boarding. Everything went like clockwork. The ticket cost US $93 for the 50-hour, 1534-mile ride aboard a bus belonging to Transportes Tas Choapa. I had 10 kilograms over the baggage weight limit and had to pay $18 extra. We rolled at 3:30 and it took us about 2 hours to clear the farthest reaches of metropolitan Santiago, where there are some houses and farmsteads, along with gas stations, malls and whatnot. Spurs of the Andes Mountains were all about, and it was painfully obvious that, were it not for irrigation, this land would all have been near-desert. Before nightfall, we were in raw, unmitigated desert, the southernmost parts of the terrible Atacama Desert, the driest spot on Earth, where it hasn't rained in 400 years. In the morning, of course, we were still in the utterly desolate and barren Atacama. We rode perhaps 200 miles seeing, not so much as a blade of grass, only limitless sandy plains. Then we came upon an area where there were mining operations for copper, nitrates and gypsum. Around there we saw a few wretched mesquite trees. Then we rode another 200 miles without a blade of grass, and arrived in some forsaken little village in the middle of nowhere, and there we had a short stop. Before nightfall of the second night, we had left the plains and were in the midst of dunes. I would never have imagined in my life that sand dunes can reach a height of 500 feet, but I saw them there in the north of Chile. There were sandstone outliers of the Andes there too, and often it was hard to distinguish between mountains and dunes. Everything was the same monotonous tawny color. At 7 PM, we reached Arica, an oasis city of 200,000, the northernmost city in Chile, 1100 miles north of Santiago. We had skipped Antofagasta, Chile's third city, which I was hoping to glance. In Arica, at the terminal, where we spent an hour, I made the acquaintance of 5 or 6 ladies who were also on my bus. At around 10 that night, we crossed the border between Chile and Perú. Passing through customs took an hour, and I was gratified to see the Peruvian visa stamped in my passport. The rule is that you are supposed to have proof of onward or return passage in order to enter Perú, but the last time I entered, in 2004, no one asked to see it, and I was gambling that there would be no problem. I don't like to be constrained to a particular itinerary months in advance. We passed through Arequipa, Perú's second city, late at night, when I was asleep. At daybreak, I could see that southern Perú was largely sandy dunes and sandstone mountains, just like northern Chile. However, we did cross several minor oases-stretches of two or three miles of green farmland spread around small towns. The unheard-of places bore names like Nasca, Palpa, Llipata and Chincha. The only place of note was Ica, a city of 200,000, where we stopped for lunch. The first two days, food was provided on the bus. Then we rolled through another 200 miles of desert and found ourselves in the outskirts of Lima, the capital of Perú and a city of 7,000,000. We arrived at 5 PM, and I got a room immediately for $14 a day, including a balcony, hot shower, table and chairs, double bed and full mirrors, the best room I've had so far in South America. I'm in a largely residential area called Jesús y María. Coming to Lima from Ecuador in 2004, I know that north of Lima there is uninterrupted desert all the way to Tumbes, at the Ecuadorean frontier. South of Santiago there may be more desert. So in all, the desert is at least 2100 miles long, and maybe as much as 2500 miles. It really hurts to see all those wasted expanses, while half the civilized world is overpopulated. Chile has an area of 290,000 square miles, somewhat larger than Texas. But only 2.6% of the land, or 7,500 square miles, slightly more than the area of Delaware. is arable, and then only with extensive irrigation. It's amazing that the great city of Santiago exists at all. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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