Friday 13 March 2015

Day 24 - 130 KMs, Petrobas Petrol Station, (120 KMs from Santiago), Chile (08:00) to Santiago, Chile (11:00)

Scariest Day of Driving

So I wake up in the back of my van in the back of a petrol station.  I slept quite well surprisingly.  I got the sense it was quite cool outside so I opened the van door to my left.  It was felt good.  I felt good.  The three lorries were still there beside me.  The drivers were still asleep.  Anyway I got out of the van and locked the doors.  I went inside the petrol station to use the bathroom, and after I bought a hot coffee as well as a pastry for breakfast.  Not the healthiest breakfast in the world, but you know what it filled my belly and wakes me up.  That's all that matters at this point because I have to drive into Santiago during the end of rush-hour traffic. 

Luxury Accommodation 120 KM from my Santiago final destination - LOL

What you have to understand is that I'm not used to driving in heavy traffic anymore.  This is going to be interesting, and probably chaotic.  I snapped a few photos of the van for this blog as well as some of the petrol station.  And got on my way northward towards Santiago.  At first when I left around 8 AM, traffic was light, sun was still low in the sky, and I was quite happy.  However all that changed very quickly in about 50 kilometers.   I passed a suburb of the Southern Santiago and it was obvious now I was in a major suburb with many people driving towards the big city for work.  Traffic became chaotic so I stopped doing all photography and video to concentrate on driving.   

The traffic was like a combination of the Dakar rally and Los Angeles rush hour traffic.  I wasn't on gravel roads or mud obviously, but the people who live and work in Santiago appear to drive like maniacs compared to what I'm used to.  They change lanes without signalling all the time like race car drivers do so on in Indianapolis 500 oval racecourse.

So I one point I was in the fast lane going about 125 km/h which is only 5 km/h above the limit.  I looked in my review mirror and saw a car coming up fast behind me. So I obviously got prepared to change lanes to give the speed demon behind me and open late for him to go fast.  I turned on my right turn signal on to indicate I was changing lanes for this guy but yet he started honking at me and flashing his high beams for me to get out of the way. What the fuck?!  So safely and as quickly as possible, I get out of his way.  I wasn't even out of my lane yet when he was already passing me in the same fucking lane!  The driver only had to wait probably 1.5 more seconds for me to be out of his way.  He can wait.  Anyway the sort of thing happened over and over again.  

About a half hour down the road, traffic came to a standstill. Obviously there had been an accident because this is a major highway.  Well that was an accident because as I slowly drove by the accident, I saw a car that looked very familiar.  What happened was a big lorrie / semi had rear-ended an older Pontiac sports car. I think it was an old Fiero?  Anyway the car was hit by the big truck, but the car was sideways though.  The big lorrie had hit the car on the right-hand side. Ouch!  Now I'm not an accident investigator, but it would appear to me that the driver of the sports car was at fault by driving recklessly.  More often than not, drivers of these large lorries are using very good drivers; Yes that means even here in Chile as well.  The accident was quite bad and I could hear ambulances coming from all directions.  I didn't really stop a look to see if the driver was dead or alive.  I just kept going...

I eventually made into the central part of Santiago with this chaos continuing.  My GPS told me to make the next right hand turn to offramp which went to a major street in the city.  Well when I got to the offramp on the map of the GPS that is, the street was not there?!?!  WTF!?  The highway as it would seem was on top of the main street that I could see below me, but there was no offramp to it. Oh shit.  So I get there; to the depot that is?  What you need to understand is that I was holding my smart phone in my hand, with the GPS driving software enabled, while driving a stick shift. This is very dangerous to do in rush hour traffic to say the least because the hand I was using to drive a stick shift, or the same hand I was holding my phone in.  My main flaw was that I was not carrying my suction cup mount for windscreen to hold my phone.

So I got off at the next exit to be in the city.  There were two lanes exiting at this point.  However there were two lanes on the right-hand side to approach one traffic light.  Well whatever city planner designed this, really has a bad sense of humour.  The problem I had is that I needed to go to the far right lane to turn right on the road. So I changed my tactic of driving from defensive to offensive style.

I literally had a bully my way to the right, honking at cars, and giving people dirty looks, including returning one middle finger gesture to another driver who gave me the middle finger because I was using my right turn signal and trying to be polite.  I wasn't too worried about getting shot, because people in Chile don't carry guns like people do in the United States.  I eventually got onto the road as I wanted to and drove straight for about 12 blocks.  I turned right on some main street, and then turn left onto the road I want to be on from the beginning.

I was home free to the depot!  I'm getting excited, because soon I won't have to drive this thing anymore.  However I had another problem to deal with.  The depot was on the left side of the road, and all the left turns off the road were for buses only. Shit!  So I kept driving past my need turn off in the hopes I could find a left-hand turn. No luck!  I ended up driving about 10 kilometers farther than planned.  So I decided to turn right at a streetlight, and then do a U-turn to get back onto the main street. From there I could turn left and go down the street for easy right-hand turn where the Wicked Vans depot was.

The streetlight eventually turned green and then I turned left.  I drove for about 10 km back to the street I wanted to turn on, and made it easy right-hand turn.  At first I couldn't find the Wicked Van Depot, but then I turned around to my right I saw a guy waving at me.  He open the secured fence, and motion for me to back up and come into the depot.  So I did and then when I parked the van where you want me to, I turn off the engine for the last time.  I made it, without killing myself or destroying the van. Wow!

The manager of the depot came over to me and shook my hand.  He said, "you must be John" with a smile speaking very good English. I replied, "yes sir, it's me, I made it, I'm alive and your man is on damaged" while I sort of gave in the smile and wink back.  I then proceeded to take all my stuff out of the van, laying bags on the asphalt in the shade.  With then both did an inspection of the van and I showed him all the extra stuff I'm leaving in the van for the next renter.  

Dropping off the van...FINALLY!
I left things like a jerrycan which I purchased, as well as good roadmaps that I purchased for both Chile and Argentina, and a flashlight that was left in the van prior to my departure in Punta Arenas.  Jorge, the friendly manager of the Santiago depot, was quite happy to see that.  After 5 quick minutes of inspection, he said your van is fine.  I advised him though that the left windshield washer sprayer was clogged with dust and that, but front wheel alignment needs to be done as it drifts away to the left.  

I also advised him this van should really not be rented for people who are going to drive through Patagonia. He asked me why I said that.  I replied, "this is a rear wheel drive (RWD) van, and even though it's relatively new, it doesn't have the power nor traction ability to handle the rugged roads on the Carretera Austral (Ruta 7 Chile).  I also advised him I have a lot of off road driving experience learned from Canada and Alaska.  He seemed to take my advice well, and would talk to the owner of the company. However, I don't expect him to take the car out of the fleet as long as it's making him money.  

My goodbye to the van...

I contacted Andrea, my Couchsurfing host, to tell her I was done my drive  or are shipped Iand at the depot.  She then called a friend of hers who's a taxidriver to come pick me up.  He arrived in about 20 minutes on time.  The drive to her flat about 9 minutes in traffic and cost me 5000 CLP.  I was tired but I was still washing with the driver was going, and I surely would've gotten lost trying to find their flat.  The driver was very friendly, and when we arrived Andrea asked him in Spanish if he could pick me up again on the 17th and drive me to the airport at about 9 PM.  He agreed, and then shook my hand saying, "Buenos tardes, muchas gracias! Hasta luego.".  This basically means, have a good afternoon, thank you and I'll see you later.

The rest the day I spent basically hanging out in Leo and Andrea's flat.  It was quite big, and spacious.  Andrea offered me a nice lunch of authentic Chilean food.  She asked me before serving me, "have you had any authentic Chilean food on your trip yet?".  I replied, "no I just had really crappy road trip food so far.".  She cooked for me a corn-type dish with homemade breaded chicken nuggets which was very good, but unfortunately I don't remember the name of the corn dish.   We hung out at their flat, and went for walk with her two dogs.  They are 2 cute wiener dogs. After a quick walk with her dogs, we came back to the flat in a stifling hot Santiago heat waited for her husband Leo to come home from work.

A welcome to Santiago lunch from Andrea

A welcome to Santiago lunch from Andrea

The tallest building in Santiago


Volcanic ash mud flows from the recent eruptions in Chile.  Yes this
is the city of Santiago hundreds of KMs away from the eruption zone.

Leo eventually arrived home from work and we hung out the rest the night.  We had a late dinner, talked a lot, and we all went to bed around 11 PM.  The next day was Saturday, so all five of us (this includes the two dogs) were going to go walk around town tomorrow. Leo and Andrea are going to play my tour guide for a day.  How exciting!  I'm looking forward to it and the rest of my stay with Leo and Andrew.  I'm so very glad that I'm out of the van. Here is a picture of myself with my Couchsurfing hosts in Santiago:

Myself, Leo and Andrea walking around Santiago
Daily Summary:

About two weeks ago I thought I experienced then for what I thought was going to be my scariest day of driving while on this trip.  I was wrong.  This last day of driving on this trip has turned out to be the scariest possible because I was dealing with variables far out of my control. It was still very hot, but now I was dealing with maniac drivers who didn't really seem to care much about life. 
In retrospect, I'd rather deal with jagged mountain roads versus dealing with this shitty traffic in the city.  

I don't miss driving whatsoever and when I get home to New Zealand, I'm really going to try to avoid driving whenever possible at least for the first one month of being home. All in all I drove a total of about 5150 km on the trip.  What made it the most difficult was that the van did not have air-conditioning and it was not all-wheel-drive (AWD) or four-wheel-drive.   I think that the lack of air-conditioning, really played havoc on my sanity because when you have to seal up the van when driving on a ultra hot dusty road for many hours on end, it would be really nice to have air-conditioning.

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