Teamwork

The Atacama Desert. Never has so much nothing been such a big something. Only here can a small patch of scrubby spinegrass seem like an oasis. There's places alround the town of San Pedro rightfully called The Valley of Death and the Valley of the Moon. And yet, in this parched little spit of land, something sprouted.

It started with meat. Chile doesn't allow meat products to cross their borders, so the man next to me on the bus wanted me to help him finish off his beef jerky. His name was (is) Martin. He's from South Africa, backpacking like me before he goes back to school. Also like me, he's going down into Patagonia. Unlike me, he's 41. Slightly grizzled look aside, he's got enough youthful energy and geek chic charm that the two of us get along surprisingly well.

Traveling with him are Rose, another older-than-she-looks South African, a bit of an OCD planner but otherwise lovely. Rounding out the trio is Bart, a highly opinionated and vocal Polish lawyer, who's entirely too tall for any doorway in South America. They all met each other in Bolivia and formed a bloc. Quickly, wordlessly, I joined too. We found a hostel.

Our one day in San Pedro was a busy day. Breakfast, a trip to the Valley of the Moon, and a guided tour of the night sky after. The Valley of the Moon is a pretty spectacular place, where wind and sand have carved monoliths into rolling waves of rock. Paltry compared with the Salt Flats, but worth an afternoon. We scrambled through salt caves, up the waves, over the dunes, across the ridges, all to catch the sight of the setting sun.

This was one of my favorite daytrips, but not because of what we did. Stellar, sure, but what really set it apart was the laughter. The four of us, plus a French couple we met (the first French couple who's company I've really enjoyed), somehow really clicked, and the conversation flowed like cool water in the desert. We could've been on a dull night bus and had the same amount of fun between us. I felt connected in a way I hadn't since Cuzco.

After sunset, we bid the French couple a reluctant farewell, and prepared for our second trip of the day. Except, we only had 20 minutes between the two. I needed a bus ticket, Rose and Martin needed jackets, Bart needed to find his other friends, and we all needed dinner. No way we could pull this off, separately.

I recall the full menu of this pizza place I went to, and tell the others on the taxi ride back, before jumping out of the taxi early to run to the bus station. Rose takes all our orders and runs to the restaurant. Martin runs off to get jackets, and Bart goes to confirm our spot on the tour. I get my ticket to Santiago, cross into Martin on my way past the hostel. He gives me a message to pass off to Rose. I take a piss, get my own cout, and hurry off for the restaurant. Rose is there with our orders in, but she needs to get some water from the bodega. She tags me off to stay. Bart comes, tells me I need to pay for my tour. Just in time, Martin shows up the restaurant and tags me out. Bart shows me the way to the tour place before taking off to find his friends. I pay up, and head back the the restaurant. Martin needs to leave, but he's already paid up for all of us. Rose comes, just in time for the food to be ready. She's brought forks. The two of us grab the food and go to the company where Bart has just shown up with his two friends. Then Martin arrives with the tickets, just in time for the bus to show. We all eat in the back row of the bus, satisfied with ourselves for pulling off the impossible.

The 'tour' if you can call it that, is an odd one. An older French ex-pat, a bizarro, combatively atheistic, jingoistic, sexually harrassing astronomer, shows us famous constellations in the southern skies, and gives us tips how to use this knowledge to pick up women. Seriously. But he's funny and off-color, and we enjoy it in spite of ourselves. Then we get to play with his telescopes. The man spent thousands of his own dollars to built fantastic telescopes out of abandoned barrels and top-quality ground glass optics. For the first time, I could see star clusters and nebulas with my own eyes.

Some of the best features of the night sky were washed out by the nearly full moon, but this misfortune of timing turned out to be the best part. One of the telescopes was pointed at the shadow on the edge of the moon, and with a slight push, you strafe along the craters of the moon like Apollo 11 ready to land the Eagle. We all took closeup pictures through the lenses before we left, satisfied wtih ourselves for finding this off-beat gem of a 'tour'.

The three of them took off for Salta the next morning, promising to meet up with me in Mendoza a week later for drunk winery biking. My bus to Santiago was that afternoon, but the time between proved traumatic. Suddenly the desert was unbearably hot. Suddenly I kept getting lost in this little town we'd explored plenty together. Suddenly the food was awful and the water left me parched and I felt ill. It seems inexplicable, but at the time I understood.

I'd been slowly running out of stamina. Traveling by yourself drains you to your marrow. I'd been in a low place before, right before Cuzco. Then I'd been refreshed, and it held me aloft until Potosi, where I could fill up again. The desert is a harsh place, a place humans aren't really meant to be, and I ran empty fast.

However, I was headed for cooler, more humid, more southerly climates as I began to tackle the Great South and Patagonia. And I wasn't going to be alone. As you head into Patagonia, people all start headed the same way. And the South African bloc promised to meet me again in Puerto Montt for the start of Torres del Paine. I wasn't going to alone as I started the second half of my Austral adventure.