Porto Fino/Chanaral

So we get to the Copiapo bus terminal on Monday morning, with no word from our regional coordinator. No one was there to greet us, so we don’t exactly know what to do with ourselves. We were three gringas who stick out like a sore thumb with a bunch of luggage and nowhere to go. So we called every number we had, and realized that all the work numbers we had were wrong because they were switching offices, go figure…Finally I resort to the EOD (English Open Doors) emergency number when these two men walk up to us and introduce themselves as our regional coordinators. They take us to the EOD office in Copiapo and they have this huge table of food set up, but nobody takes anything so it’s just this really awkward waiting period where nobody is really talking because nobody can understand each other. Finally a teacher from my school comes, she understands some English, and she seems sweet. My Co teacher shows up and I get the feeling the other teacher knows English better than her, so working with her might be pretty interesting. I hope we don’t have too much of a communication gap. Finally, my mom, her sister, Ana, and daughter show up, as well as, the family of a fellow volunteer and we all sit around the table and finally start eating all the food they had set up!
My mom takes me home and tells me to unpack, then we go grocery shopping, have lunch, and I find out I need to pack a bag for a week-long vacation at the beach. They tell me to bring warm clothes though so I know this isn’t going to be a typical beach vacation. Little did I know there was no electricity or running water either!
Porto Fino is about two hours north of Copiapo just south of Chanaral. On the way there we passed a part of the desert that had received rain and little green, white and purple flowers covered the desolate hills. They told me to take pictures (I didn’t think it was that pretty) but they were pretty excited about it so I took pictures. I later found out it’s a rarity that you see any green, it only happens every 10 years or so. I tried looking up Porto Fino in my Chile guidebook, but they didn’t have it on the map. It’s a really tiny town, used only in the summer for vacation. It basically consisted of 50 or so little shakes and a beach, a beautiful beach tho!
The first night we did everything by candle light, it wasn’t as bad as you would think. There was a toilet and sink but no hot water. The first thing I learned was that you are not allowed to throw toilet paper in any of the toilets here, the plumbing sucks. The next day we went into Chanaral where Ana and Gloria grew up and where they still have a mom and sister. That is where Flavio is from and where we picked him up to come back to Porto Fino with us. We picked up a generator and charged all our things that needed charging at their house and drove back. The generator I found out gives us light electricity at night!!! I kept wanted to translate that verse from Genesis “And God said, Let there be light, and there was light!” But they didn’t know what I was talking about…they aren’t very religious, that must have been the reason why, haha. Having the light at night was so much nicer! And I found out they run their refrigerator on gas. So they have somewhat of a modern little set up that’s much cheaper than keeping utilities, I’m not even sure they have utilities in what looks to be a tiny little shanty town if your just driving by.
It’s a nice little community though because at first it seems like its deserted, but then you see signs of life and you find out everyone knows everyone because they all come to live there each summer. Surfing or “Body” is a popular sport practiced by almost every chico from the age of 10 to 30. But it’s boogie boarding not Surfing. Surfistas son maraco, or surfers are gay. And the body boarders son el reyes de las olas! (the kings of the waves). They are pretty hard core though, they were out surfing in the middle of the winter when the hottest it got during the day is about 65, I swear the water was probably only about 40 degrees. I went for a swim, my “brother” Flavio convinced me the water was mucho mucho calor…mentiroso! It was fridgid! But I think it was the shock my body needed because I wasn’t as cold thereafter. Another thing I couldn’t figure out, it gets really cold at night, like 30 and they don’t have heat and they have this strange habit of leaving the door open…I don’t know why? Well, I was pretty much in a constant state of frozen, accept during the middle of the day if the sun came out, but others seemed fine in t-shirts! My hands and feet particularly were always frozen, once I touched Flavio’s bare arm to show how cold I was and was shocked to feel he was warm in a t-shirt! Maybe that’s why he doesn’t have a problem surfing in frigid waters.
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t bored at times, it was just so repetitive and of course I can’t speak/understand a lot so I was left out of a lot of conversation. Here’s a typical day. We wake up around 9, have breakfast, work on some mosaics (we made a bunch of mosaics because Ana is really into art so she had all the supplies) eat lunch, work on mosaics again until it gets dark, then eat dinner. We would then would make a fire or fogata outside, and then come in and play cards until midnight or so. If we went into town we would do that in the morning, other than that we pretty much did the same thing every day. I like cards, but I think they only knew one game, and we played that one game every night. In the summer they have a club that gets together and does tournaments of this particular game (Karaoke I think it’s called), they even get certificates, and Gloria had a bunch framed and proudly displayed. I was pretty excited to get back to Copiapo and take a hot shower. I forgot to mention there was no cell phone service out there in the middle of the desert.
So when I wanted to use my phone I had to do it in Chanaral. It was quite bothersome actually, because I ended missing a flight for this reason exactly. So EOD isn’t the most organized, or if they are they like to wait until the last minute to give their volunteers any information. They kept going back and forth about these winter camps we were supposed to work. They’re on, now they’re not, now their back on. On Thursday, I had my host mom call my regional coordinator to confirm that we didn’t need to be back early for camps and he said yes there were no camps in our region. I go into Chanaral on Saturday and find I have 8 missed calls from my friend Erin who is volunteering in Copiapo also. She knew I was cut off from modern society and was going to relay whatever info we got via email. Well, it turns out they arranged a flight from Copiapo to Santiago and a bus to Vina Del Mar on Saturday and they gave us this info on Friday. So I missed my flight, and now I’m taking an overnight bus to Vina Del Mar tonight to arrive a day late to the camp. I still have yet to see Copaipo! I guess it will have to wait one more week!