A brief stop in Antofogasta

Well.. That was fun. 

Maybe I'm crazy but I wanted to get a trifecta of Elemental housing projects and Antofogasta was sort of on the way back down South from Iquique. By all accounts it's not really a great touristic town and "a bit of a shithole", even though it's Chile's wealthiest town due to a mine and port. 

I arrived here on the bus at 05:30 and booked a ticket back down to Santiago leaving at 13:00. I figure that's plenty of time to go photograph a housing project and get back to the terminal. I had to wait around for about 90min in the terminal before it got light outside. 

I should probably have mentioned in the last post how lucky I was to actually find Quinta Monroy. I had the street address and was sitting at the hostel cafe looking for it on a map. I happened to mention it to the barista, who luckily spoke very good English because she told me tht they had actually changed the name of that street! Surprisingly she knew the project and drew the location on my map. An easy 15min walk away! 

Anyway, I realised yesterday that I didn't have an address for this housing project in Antofogasta, just a street name (it is a very long street), so I had to spend a while zooming around on Google Street View to find an approximate street address. 

At about 7am I checked my bag in the bus terminal 'custodia' and went and caught a $10 taxi out to the housing project. I think the taxi driver thought I was a bit loco. He wanted to drop me off at a particular house and I kept saying "acqui, acqui... Muy bien" (here, here... Very good). He eventually just let me out and then watched as I started photographing the complex before slowly and hesitantly driving off. 

I decided I would walk back to the bus terminal despite having only a vague idea of direction since I had hours to kill before my bus. 

Nothing like an early morning stroll through a bit of a slum. 

Well.. It was quite a long walk. I had to keep stopping and (poorly) asking for directions. At one stage el hombre told me it was only tres blocks away (woo!) but I got there and realise he'd directed me to a ticket office of the bus company, not the terminal (boo). I figured the woman at the counter would know where the bus terminal was, but she just kept telling me "lejos, lejos" and I'm like "¿asi?" (this way?) and she just keeps telling me "lejos!". Mmhmmm ok.... Whatever that means. I typed it into the eng/esp dictionary app on my phone.. It translates to "far away". Yeah, helpful. Thanks biatch.  

Well I had already made up my mind that I was going to walk, so I kept on walking! Here's a photo I took at one point looking back at where I'd come from - you can see the housing project teeny tiny in the distance:

I stopped again at the Shell service station for directions, then again a few blocks later. A kid on a motorbike was calling out to me, I roll my eyes. I stop to pat the most adorable Labrador puppy and the kid on the motorbike has pulled up behind me... I realise he's the guy from the service station that gave me directions.. And he wants to give me a ride to the bus terminal! FUN! Dw mum and dad.. He had a spare helmet...

Actually it's funny, a lot of men driving past will wolf whistle or make kiss noises at you, but the two times now that I thought someone was being really irritating/creepy (like the guy on the motorbike just now) they've actually been trying to help me. The day before yesterday in Iquique a man slowed down next to me in his car and was gesturing behind him. I thought he was being a creeper and telling me to get in his backseat so I gave him the "piss off" glare and head shake combo... Only to realise a minute later that I'd been walking down the street with my backpack open (noob.) and he was tryin to tell me! Oops. 

Anyway, the kid on a motorbike gave me a ride the last couple of km to the bus terminal and dropped me off out the front. Only about 4h til my next overnight bus....

Amiee x

Update: I have now eaten a hotdog for for breakfast. Also, it costs almost a dollar to use the bathroom here so I'm holding out until my bladder is about to burst. 2.5h until the next bus...