03/03/2023

It shows unhappy face if you’re going over 50 km which is 30 miles an hour and nobody got a smiley face because everybody was going over

This sign means there are electric wires overhead so be careful

This is mostly what I’ve been looking at for the last four days,pretty much nothing

Sign for a Japanese mine 

More desolation

Someplaces no vegetation at all

An artist’s interpretation of I don’t know what, they are red painted metal rods or pipes

A mostly rabbit, but also alpacas, deer and other animals zoo or I’m not sure

Since there is no fence between the two lanes on each side, every few miles or so, there’s a thing called returno, which means you can make a U-turn here

Saw two new models with camouflage

Even the wheels had their center logos taped over so you couldn’t tell what kind of car it was

Should’ve bought one of these long time ago.   Buying groceries

And lugging them to the hotel is a lot easier now

A deer in that zoo

This guy was driving the worst car in the parking lot but I saw him taking his steering wheel off and asked What are you doing and he said too many people trying to steal my car 

I was thinking this must be some kind of rare model or something because it was a piece of garbage car.

The memorials along side of the highway range from really elaborate to as simple as can be

This is how you buy all produce in Chile, you choose whatever you want put it on the scale and it  spits out a weight and price that you stick on the bag so that the cash cashier can read it

This is one of the really simple ones

Hairpins coming down from the plateaus towards the beach

A more elaborate one

The simplest one I saw, it just a little house with no decoration at all

So I continued south to La Serena where I am now but not until having the best conversation with the cleaning lady and the two receptionists about Chile. Blah blah blah

For those who haven’t heard this before all three were very surprised when I said, (after one of them asked come back next year) sorry I will never be coming back to Chile.  Of course they wanted to know why and they got my stock answer which is there are 195 countries I’ve only visited 50 so I can’t afford with my age to spend another vacation in the same place. There’s too many other places to go to and experience. They readily understood that especially after I told them how much time I probably had left to be riding a bike

Stopped for gas yesterday at the first gas station that didn’t have attendants pumping for you. I saw a credit card-like machine on the side of a little building that had blacked out windows. I asked someone else who was getting gas can I use my credit card here? He said yes or cash so I said where where do I put the cash and he said give it to him and here I was doing all of this in front of a guy right behind the blacked out window, and they were both laughing at me because I hadn’t realized there was an actual person inside that little box. God, what a way to spend your day. 

The day before yesterday’s  breakfast was the worst ever, it was already prepackaged and had pretty well nothing that I wanted except an orange juice. It was milk, white bread, meat, yogurt, and some chemically impacted breakfast bar of unknown origin,  so I asked the receptionist if I could bring my own food and cook it there because they had a microwave and toaster oven so he said sure so I came in with a half dozen eggs the smallest quantity I could buy from a store.  I put two of them in a cup, put them in the microwave, heated them up, and then basically scrambled them up in the cup, so that was good and when it was time to go, I told  the house cleaning lady that she could have the other four because they wouldn’t make it in my travels probably.  She said no no I’ll make them hard boiled I said OK great thanks so she took them away and then she left and then 10 minutes later while I was  still in the dining room I heard a boom from the kitchen area. I knew immediately when it happened she had let them cook too long without piercing the shell to let the air in and out to equalize the pressure. As I was leaving she came out and said oh I’m so sorry I destroyed your eggs I said yeah I know it’s OK no problem and not expensive but she was mortified and so she said can I give you something I said no thanks  and she offered a bottle of water I said OK water thanks so she came up and gave me two bottles of water but she still felt bad but just another example of how nice people are here now I haven’t had any problems with anybody basically especially hotels yeah I know they’re supposed to be nice but still a lot of these people go overboard to be nice.

Last night was also very nice because all the people here including the bartender were really interested in practicing their English with me. All three were on on Duolingo and showed me their levels and so I just told them OK I’ll speak Spanish. you guys speak English and they were having more trouble than me because their level was much lower but still we had a really good conversation especially the bartender, apparently I now know his whole life story and he poured two pisco sours, the national alcoholic drink for me and only charged me for one which was really nice And the receptionist told me that she didn’t have the room that I was expecting so they were going to upgrade me to a really much nicer room which it is because I have a bedroom and a living room which is way bigger than the bedroom, it’s got a couch, four chairs and a table in it, that was pretty nice and just turned out I happen to be in a hotel. only a couple of blocks away from the main mall in the city so I walked over there to get groceries last night. Pulled my new grocery cart with me, so that was pretty easy going.  Made the mistake of forgetting to weigh my bread and getting the sticker from that machine for it so after standing in line for 15 minutes to pay had to go back and get the sticker and stand in line again for another 15 minutes. 

As I was leaving town yesterday, soon as I started up two dogs came bounding over towards me so we had to go through that whole scene again with me slowly inching forward and then wait,  this time I waited till the light turned yellow and then I just started to start going, and I saw a car was starting to advance into the intersection so the dogs decided not to chase me after all, so I gunned it.  It’s becoming a nuisance having to avoid these guys all the time 

Saw this days ago, but just got around to remembering to put it in here. There’s a Chinese car here in Chile that’s for sale, it’s called The Great Wall. I said what’s the name  of the maker of this car and he said that’s the name of the maker, the Great Wall of China company so I don’t know what the model is but it was an Econo box like most of the cars here.   There are quite an assortment of cars here from French Peugeots, lots of the Chinese and Indian cars, but most popular are the most popular, which are Toyota Kia and Ford 

Couldn’t get a really good picture because of the haze from the fires’ smoke but I passed several mountains that you could see a white ball on top which meant an observatory and then I saw a sign that said observatory, but evidently out in the middle of nowhere parts of Chile like I was driving through have super good air quality, not meaning no pollution because they’re usually isn’t pollution. It’s only the fires causing a problem but light pollution since there are no cities around there is no light, so I guess they have a very good location for stargazing.