Day 23 - 690 KMs, Pucon, Chile (09:00) to Petrobas Petrol Station, (120 KMs from Santiago), Chile (21:00)

One Long "Hell" of a Day Today

I woke up around 8 AM feeling pretty good.  My bags are all packed and stuff,  so I just woke up brush my teeth, and went down to get a breakfast.  I chatted with a few other guests, using Google translate of course, and wave goodbye tell them I had to go upstairs and get ready to leave.  However I never got to say goodbye to the owners of the backpacker because they usually slept until about 10 AM.  Yes 10 a.m.!   The couple that own the accommodation are young in their early 30s and always, clearing throat, touching and holding one another. It's my fun guess that they're up late every night having lots of sex which explains why they got up so late. Laughing here, it's all good I'm happy for them and if I ever come back to this town I will definitely stay here.

Not sure if you can see them, but from Ruta 5 you can
volcanos in the distance... 

I went downstairs put my three bags in the back of the van, visually and physically check the tires to see if they're okay because driving up hot highway for eight hours is much different than what I was doing driving on gravel roads look at slower speeds. Everything is all good so I started the engine and got going. However when I backed the van up, I paused for a brief second before I went forward.  For some strange reason– it felt like I was going to work. Anyway I left town and on the way out I stopped at a petrol station to fill up the tank.  This is probably going to be the first of second petrol stops for the day.  

Unlike how I got lost when I came to this nice town, the way out of town to Ruta 5 was easy.  There were signs everywhere pointing me to Santiago and Ruta 5 Norte. For the life of me I don't understand why the signs are so good leaving town, but not coming to the town?  WTF is that all about!

I quickly got to Ruta 5 after boring stretch of about 45 minutes.  I don't think I should call that boring because what I was about to get, seven hours of flat open highway is very very boring comparative to that initial 45 minute stretch.  The owner of the hostal back in Pucon gave me advice to drive to Santiago nighttime.  I ignored that advice which I'm realising now is a major mistake.  I mean I've driven long distances before on highways, but this drive was horrific. There will hardly any cars on the road and the reason why is because it was so fucking hot.  The only other vehicles on the road seemed to be road train lorries.   

Boring, very hot stretches of Ruta 5 Norte towards Santiago

After about 3 and 1/2 hours of miserable hot driving, I stopped to get petrol.  It was a Petrobas station.  There are very common in Chile.   The best part about these is that they are well-equipped for the café inside and air conditioning!!  Yes air-conditioning and free Wi-Fi.  I got a meal deal for about equivalent of NZ$14, and I bought a Starbucks Frapuccino in a bottle.  I took off the plastic seal from the bottle, but did not turn the knob to open the coffee itself.  I started to shake the coffee so I can mix it up better, and suddenly the cap came off and I ended up getting a coffee shower with about 10 people watching me from the other side of the café.   This was very embarrassing indeed.  The server came over to help me and gave me some tissues to cleanup.  So I finished my meal which was now partially covered in coffee. Yum!  Afterwards I went to the bathroom to wash the stains off my orange cargo pants. 

Dodgy loads on Ruta 5 make driving this highway a
dangerous task...

After doing that I came out of the bathroom with my pants all wet like I just pissed my pants.  Ouch more embarrassment!  However thankfully because it was so hot and sunny, it took about five minutes in the sun to dry my pants. That's very scary actually.  

So I kept going on northbound towards Santiago.   I saw some strange vehicles with strange contraptions such as a horse being carried at 120 km/h, but the carriage had no top on it.  The care to self look very dodgy as itlooked like it was about to fall over while bouncing around all over the highway. I actually felt sorry for the horse inside the carriage. And there were other various strange vehicles I saw on the highway.  These vehicles will never pass inspection back home in New Zealand as they would be deemed not roadworthy.  Welcome to Chile!

Open air horse carriages at 120 KM/h ?? Dodgy looking eh?

The sun was getting lower in the sky but it was still very hot.  I was at about 500 km at this point for the day.  I was really exhausted.  So I pulled into another petrol station, not for petrol, button I hope to find a tree to sit in the shade for a while.  I was lucky and found a little small petrol station with a few trees.  I parked my little white van under the tree.  I roll the windows down one third, got out to go to the bathroom.  I splash cold water on my face, then went into the little convenient store by the largest PowerAid drink I could find. They were quite small in there so I bought two of them.  Before even paying for my drinks I drank one of them because I was so thirsty.

I eventually got back on the road about 20 mins later and headed north again.  At this point I was about since 650 km for the day and boy I was fucking tired.  There weren't going to be any nice campsites by lakes tonight to camp beside.  This was going to be a nasty night.  I drove a little longer and pulled into a petrol station.   it was a very big, in busy Petrobas station with cars and lorries everywhere.  I didn't really see anywhere to park the car with any privacy at all.  So because it was dinnertime anyway, I went inside and got another nasty meal for the day.  However this time I did not get a coffee so I couldn't spell it on myself.   LOL!  The meal tasted okay but nothing special.   After the meal I want to the bathroom and then move my van towards the back of the station.  It just wasn't a good place to camp out. The little voice my head said not to camp there.

Unsafe loads of 'what the fuck is that!?' on Ruta 5 Norte
while driving at 115 KM/hr.  Good grief! 

So I using Google search on my phone to find a campsite nearby. According to the map there was one about 10 km away up the highway or so. So I follow the directions on my GPS phone application, and I am not getting lost, well sort of, in a town that was complete under construction.  The place with a campsite was supposed to be, was completely blocked off with construction vehicles and signs.  Oh shit!  It was dark now and I was really tired; no I mean like really tired to the point where I didn't really care where I camped out.  I sent a text to my couch surfing hosts in Santiago in Andrea row me back advising me not to camp anywhere else except in back of a petrol station.  I sent this text to her at the point I was camping in the dark along and on-ramp to the highway.  I told her where I was and she said that was a bad idea.  So tired as I was, I took her advice and kept driving north.  

One of the many toll stops on Ruta 5. I was not prepared for
this, but am glad I had the cash to pay these though. 

At 690 km, I saw small Petrobas petrol station on the side of the road.  So I pulled into the back of the petrol station where it was dark.  There was no one there, and unless you went back there you never know I was there.  Perfect!  I backed the van in so the front of the van was facing the highway and turned off the engine. I'm done!  My triple odometer reads 690 km. Damn what a fucking long hot day!

So I put myself in shutdown mode, prep the van for sleeping, and then started to go to bed.  I forgot to pee so I got out of the van and took a piss on the dirt.  Yes it's rather irresponsible but I was too tired to walk to the petrol station 50m away to use the bathroom.  I was really that tired! 

My trip odometer at the end of the long hot day... zzzzz
690 KM.  I'd rather go the dentist than do that again.

As I was about to go into a deep sleep, I heard a few trucks pulling over the next 10 minutes.  It seems that I have some guests parking beside me.  These are obviously truck drivers looking for a place to sleep.  I wasn't worried.  I quickly fell asleep in no time.

Daily Summary:

I did not enjoy today whatsoever. I even spilled spilled coffee on myself in public. No I take that back, I showered myself with

coffee. Dammit!  Long hot dry day of driving. The only good news is that I was soon bringing my camper van to the depot in Santiago so I didn't have to drive it much longer.  Surprisingly sleeping in back of a petrol station enabled me to get a good nights sleep without being disturbed.  One more day, but I have to deal now with Santiago traffic. I wonder what that's can it be like?  I'm afraid to know...