Still trying to be the cheapest yet. The next day we decided to hike Fray Jorge Park all the way to the Pacific Ocean. It was a grueling 25 Km hike round trip so by the end we were dead tired. The views were gorgeous, we had our best Buddha pic yet. We had hiked early in the morning so we didn't have to pay a stupid entrance fee but when we were hiking back to our camping site we had to bypass the guards so we didn't have to pay, something like $3 US. We made a sharp turn away from the ticket booth but they somehow saw us because we weren't too far away enough. This is where we were playing Commando in the bushes and trying to take cover. After playing Rambo for a few minutes we thought we lost them. It was the funnest thing ever trying not to get caught. Just then, out of no where, an old man from up the hill saw us and was yelling "Malo, Malo", which is "Bad, Bad" and started radioing his fellow goons. We quickly played dumb and pretended that we were looking for zorros(foxes) and rats. We went back to the information booth and thought we were done for and had to fork out $3 US. When we got there, all the park guards were looking at us and giving us the evil eye but we still pretended to play dumb. There was a small museum there and we pretended we were interested in all the animals. We ended up signing our names and where we were from, and that was it! We didn't even pay a cent! Yahoo! We lucked out by taking the last truck out of the park and hitch hiked all the way to La Serena.
-steve
Our next big adventure was in a small city called Chanaral. We were contemplating whether to go to Pan de Azucar to see the penguins or to Antofagasta to go to a confluence point near there. It was funny because we had no idea where we wanted to go. After waiting and waiting and realizing that no cars had come by the past hour, we decided not to hitchhike and bought an overnight ticket to Calama. We had decided earlier that it was time to cook up our biggest meal yet over the fire. After conquering a huge hike near the city we quickly set up our fire pit. Earlier in the day we had bought a pan and all the necessary foods for our big meal. This was not like any other meal. We were in the desert and had to scrounge up every possible twig, branch, cardboard, and juice box there was near the city. We found a spot near the mountain away from the city and this is where our 3 course meal began. All we had to work with was an half-inch long knife. We had ate a total of 12 eggs, 5 fish fillets, 4 tomatoes, 2 onions, 2 peppers, 2 lemons, some bread, 2 bananas, and 2 mandarin oranges. It was the best ever – stuffed to the bone.
-kevin
