Rust Never Sleeps

It`s been a long , strange and at times tense couple of days since I dropped A off at the airport in Iquique. A more detailed post is forthcoming, but two nights in a row I`ve found myself driving very long, very deserted stretches of desert highway without much of a map and with no absolute sense of my destination.

Tonight I drove all the way from the nitrate ghost towns of Santa Laura and Humberstone to the industrial port town of Tocopilla, about 350km to the south and then due west another 50km. Figuring I had plenty of gas in the tank, I bypassed the station a few miles south of Santa Laura with the idea that I`d gas up somewhere down the road. After 100km and no station, not even a building with a light on in the endless waste of desert, I was annoyed. After 150km, I was nervous. After 200km, my intestines had worked themselves into a very snug sailor`s knot.

I cruised into Quillagua, the only village between where I started my journey and where I had a vague inclination I`d end it, riding on vapors. My ¨tank empty¨ light had been on for at least 30 miles. At least. And what do I find when I get there? Nothing. No service station. No friendly faces. Just a dark village. And just when I`m about to turn around and head back, I see a light on down the street. I inch along, not wanting to get my hopes up. Sure enough it`s a mom `n` pop shop…with the door open…with stuff on the shelves. Actual commercial goods. I hop out of my sputtering car, walk inside and basically beg for gasoline. Turns out that the proprietor has some…that he´s willing to sell me…for twice the amount I`d pay at the pump. F#$k it!!! Who cares!!! It`s GAS-O-LINE. I pull my car around and the old guy comes out with 3 milk jugs full of good `ol fashioned petrol. Now I see why we fight wars for the stuff because without it life is a BITCH, believe you me.

So with that, I climb back inside what I`m now certain is the least fuel efficient Toyota this side of existence and go on my merry way…back into the eternal night of the Chilean desert.

Consider this message proof of divine providence…and remember, when in doubt, get gas when you can, you IDIOT.

Signing off….

B

View from the Mountaintop Above Iquique

The Place in Quillagua Where I Bought Gas

Touchdown for A!

Just a short post to say that one half of the a+b bat-team is home in San Francisco. After a full 24 hours in transit from the moment Barron kissed me goodbye in Iquique, Chile, I landed at SFO and am now sipping tea and eating heirloom tomatoes in my dear friends Claire & Ruth’s kitchen.

It is bittersweet to have our journey come to an end, for me at least, but it is exciting to know that Barron is still there for a few more days with all 3 cameras in hand.