Hitch-hiking to the sea

- October 01, 2019

I am in a remote place. Very remote. The instructions of how to get to Matanzas: 'Walk to the end of our lane, go towards the right and cross the river, there is a place were it is only knee-deep. On the other side, there is a big tree and a road going up. At the top, take a left after the houses and walk 15-20 minutes until you reach a church. There is the bus stop. There is a bus every hour or collective taxis.' Fair enough, sounds feasible, if the river is only knee-deep, I can manage.

But as I stood there by the river, looking for the most shallow place to cross, I got nervous. There didn't seem to be a place I could cross that easily. I took off my shoes, put on my flip-flops and rolled up my pants. I started walking in the river at the place that seemed the most shallow, but after 4-5 steps, the water got deeper and deeper. I tried different places in the river, where it was wider and therefore hopefully more shallow. But everywhere it seemed to require going in the water at least to my waist or more without seeing the bottom. I did not want to to do that, really. So I decided to do it differently, I took the other road, the long road, the one where it takes 2 hours to walk to the intersection where the buses go by. Hopefully a vehicle will go by and I can hitch-hike, very common in Chile especially in remote places like this. And a vehicle did go by, quite miraculously at that time, a large yellow truck that had been pumping water out of the river to use for a construction site. How lucky! He drove me about a third of the way until he had to go another way. And go off on the road, and started walking on the deserted road in the hot sun, in the middle of nowhere. I stayed positive that some car would come by. I passed by a farm where 3 dogs came running growling and barking at me. Luckily they didn't get that close and I was safe. I kept walking, saw a couple jeeps going the opposite way, hoping they would feel sorry for me and turn around for me. But they didn't and I kept on walking. After about 45 minutes, I heard a sound, yes! a vehicle! But wait it is actually a tractor and there is only one seat in it. So I was surprised that he stopped and made signs for me to come up. So I climbed up and yes, I was right, there is no second seat. But he just told me to stand there. At that point I was so relieved to get a ride and the guy seemed harmless, so okay! I did get a bit nervous when he started telling me about the trip he did last week in the south where there was snow and got his phone out to show me pictures and videos. Please keep looking at the road I prayed. But then again were were going 30km/h. That ride lasted for about 15-20min to the next village where I got off and that time got super lucky to see the bus arriving exactly when I reached the bus stop, going straight to Matanzas.

Arrival in Matanzas was a bit spooky, there wasn't so many people, everything was closed, except for a couple small stores and one restaurant, it seemed a bit like a ghost town. That's because it's a Tuesday and this is a beach and surf town, it gets full only on the weekends and summer holidays. My first stop was a restaurant, the only one I found open, where I had a delicious vegetarian lunch. With some strength back in me after the emotions of the morning, I headed for the beach, such a beautiful long wide beach with dark grey sand and huge waves. It felt so good to breathe the ocean air, dip my feet in the frozen waters of the Pacific and watch the funny little birds do their to-and-fro dance with the waves on the sand.

My way back involved less walking, taking 2 collectivos: taxis that take more than 1 person going back and forth from several towns. When I got dropped off at the final intersection before starting the 2-hour walk back, the yellow water truck miraculously re-appeared, going back to the river where I had started! It was slight creepy as he was asking lots of questions about where I was staying and how many people were there and if I was travelling alone, but as I got off I first stayed at the neighbor's so the truck driver wouldn't see down which lane I was walking back to.

Glad to get back home safe and sound after a day out of my comfort zone.