Farewell to Conce

Sitting in the internet café off the central plaza of San Carlos you reflect on the first day of the viaje.

Christmas in Penco. Probably the place most like your native Hermosa Beach. Small town on the coast of a large city. The avocado eaten before Christmas mass is doing a number on the intestines. Going back to Jorge's place begins a night of discussing politics until 4:30 when you finally have to excuse yourself and crash on the couch.

So much for leaving at the crack of dawn. The pack has to wait for assembly until 11 after a few more winks of sleep. Alas it never ceases to amaze how much cluttler and crap has been accumulated over the year and how easy it is to pack-rat it all.

Mid-way through the process you take a stroll through the neighborhood you've come to know quite well over the last 10 months. Chacabuco is deserted but Parque Equador is in full swing with children running around the fountain and riding new bicycles on the path. You stop by the bakery where a good friend Fernanda works and she gives you two absolutely exquisite empanadas for the day's journey. A few days earlier she also gifted you a set of combat rations straight from the Chilean special forces unit for the southern journey ahead. Awesome.

The first go of the pack is deemed much too heavy, around 35 kilos, alas the shaver and water bottle must go. A gift for Chimbe and a beard for you.

One last pass of the apartment, home for the past 10 months, and a shot of pisco to calm the nerves. Nervious? Possibly. Anxious as hell to get started? Been that way for months now.

Damn this pack is heavy walking through the streets of Conce but you've got to pass by your favorite bar to snap a pic. Averno, you shall be missed.

Time to get on the micro to drop you off at the spot you've fished there before but there are already doubts before you start.

Walk a way up the highway, it's still not too late to back out and return to Penco for the night with Jorge, out with the thumb.

10 minutes and you try a sign, "quizás soy Jesús" perfect for the season.

30 minutes in and you've got a bite! You run over collecting your 3 bags of mostly junk, fumbling and dropping them, but ecstatic to have a ride.

"Ruta 5? San Carlos?"
"Te llevamos a Chillan, dale?"
Awesome!

The car starts out towards la Ruta de Itata. "Wanna beer?"
You can tell this ride is going to be good.

Politics,highways constructed by Mexican imperialist businesses, music, time signatures, the Gringo Nations' lack of rhythm...

"haha! Yea I've tried to dance cueca a few times" you mention, then admit "beer helps".
"I play cueca and other music at a bar every Tuesday..."
"Wait, you mean martes Chileno? At the Averno? Weon! You're the guitarist aren't you!"
"Sure am!"

If running into a musician from your favorite bar isn't a sign then you'll be damned.

"So you're from California right? You know there's a lot of links between that state and Chile. In fact one of the cuecas I sing is about the roto chileno working in California during the gold boom."
"What exactly is the roto chileno?"
"Basically a Chilean who works from day to day on odd jobs. He's good at drinking, a womanizer, and sleeps anywhere he can lay his head."

You arrive on the outskirts of Chillan, exchange numbers for a possible New Years' encounter in Valpo. Good man that Choro Boro and his girlfriend!

You walk under the overpass and relieve the beer, fish a bit longer but it's a bad spot. Maybe it's best to stay in Chillan for the night so you walk over to the toll booth entering the town.

Standing less than 5 minutes later a middle aged lady in very nice car takes you to the street ("Schlayer" says the woman, "German, heil Hitler"... hmmm maybe that was a bit innapropriate Señora) of your friend L, you practice English along the way.

A few calls yeild nothing, a short walk and you ring the bell.
"Hello, who is it?...Sarkis? Really?"
 L and T are going to Conce, but at least you manage to have some sort of farewell as you had missed a goodbye with them a few days prior.

So you're left to have delighful conversations over Christmas cake with the mother and you're certain this is what you've been looking for.

Manifesto

Reflecting on the past 10 months you realize it’s been a good while since your last trip back in July, and even longer since February. These didn’t exactly feel like real trips however, they were rushed and had an end date that was too soon. It was binge travel, one of your arch enemies.

The natural progression of travel has led you through the gamut of styles that has resulted in this dislike for binge traveling. In high school it was of the prepared and paid for variety that introduced you to Costa Rica. A bit more independence was tasted on the road trip of West US and led to a longer, yet still pre-paid, stay in Spain.

It wasn’t until the US perimeter voyage that travel began to become more than just a summer escape or weekend excursion, and it wasn’t until this point that the concept of the end date became such a formidable foe. It was still a short period of time to be sure, 3 weeks, and if it hadn’t been for finishing your degree, it would have lasted 3 years. Arriving back to the daily grind of study and work only left a bitter taste and a need to avenge yourself for the time slaved away.

The decision to teach English in Chile was meant to be a double-edged sword to both work and travel, you were ready to assimilate into the culture and open to be Chilean. Since February you’ve tried and succeeded in some respects. Your language is noticeably saturated with the Chilean dialect and vocabulary, something your Colombian neighbor with her near perfect Spanish loves to point out. You’ve also encountered many sides of Chilean society from the man who sells chocolates and cigarettes from his cooler to your boss who treats you to bottomless buffet lunches, and both are encountered daily. But there was one flaw in the plan, the job kept you pinned to a worker’s schedule. It was a morning to afternoon gig that many times demanded even more than that. Such hours made it nearly impossible to interact with your student housemate that followed the post-noon to post-midnight clock. You had the perfect set-up to create many friendships and stay in the university student atmosphere that you so adored, but once again, society (for lack of a better word) and tedious obligation kept you on the baby leash and didn’t let you roam off the 9-5 path. Once again you had been outsmarted. 10 months and the connection with your housemate is still little more than acquaintance. Many opportunities were planted, yet few flowered. Thankfully, those relationships that do exist and managed to survive are of the highest quality but to say you truly knew the student life of Concepción would be to tell a lie.

For this reason so much is riding on “El Viaje”. The whole year has been spent working with this one redeeming factor in mind: that in the end you’ll have the opportunity for real extended travel. Yet the particular idea or mission of El Viaje has only managed to truly take form in the last arduous months. All of your trips to date have been of a certain brand, that of security: security in lodging, security in finances, security in food, security in contact, and  security in knowing just where you’ll be the next day. You’ve convinced yourself that what will come when leaving Concepción must be different.  It needs to be like that one day you decided to leave it to the road gods and tried your hand (literally) at hitchhiking. While the mission had been to reach Ventura from San Luis Obispo and then merely take public transport to LA, the events that transpired gave you a much more real feeling of true…adventure that just hadn’t existed on your previous jaunts.

And so, for El Viaje, it is decided that the only money for transportation will be used to get you to the start (Tierra del Fuego) and to take you off the continent (Bogota) as well as a bit for emergencies. This leaves a good few thousand kilometers to burn through and every meteorological climate minus the Antarctic. Unfortunately there is still a time limit as the route must be completed before May 11^th, the day of your brother’s graduation, and you’re sure as hell not going to miss that. It wasn’t until a few days ago that you were planning to fly solo, but over a few beers and a few more serious conversations later, you’ve found a companion in one of your former students.  Not only will this make things much easier and safer on the road, but sharing experiences increases their values exponentially.

The date is set (December 25^th) and the pack armed, now it’s time to see where the thumb takes you.

EQ Report:

25/11 4.9

11/12 4.9

14/12 4.8

15/12 4.4