A beautiful day ... Visiviri (Northern Chile / Altiplano)
(Grocery in puna somewhere between Visviri and Putre)
"From the beginning, I found this work insanely fun! First, we meet lots of great people and above all .... Handle so much money, it's really exciting! -The other day a gentleman came to 15,000 pesos and play in less than a quarter of an hour he walked away with ten times his bet! .
one who called and expressed Marisol. She is rather pretty with her black miniskirt, white satin blouse and her his little bow tie. For a month, she is a "new" Casino of Arica. At the end of the year, the prestigious building has decided to strike a major blow by hiring a great staff "cruppers" whose task will be to encourage players to venture to the tables "21" and "crap" ....
We will not know most of this small revolution because the article is not full ... and for good reason. It has been roughly carved out of a local newspaper and filed as a toilet paper in the toilets of the "Rancho Ferroviari" canteen adjoining the station Visiviri. A
Visviri everything is poor and desolate. The city, the station, the restaurant, his toilet ... and read such literature in a place as "unglamorous" borders on surrealism.
In fact, all that is to say Visviri is printed on a metal plate screwed to the wall of the station: "Visviri-altitude 4500 meters-1800 inhabitants" Below this information terse, one sentence was added "Drugs destroyed rights ".
the north, less than ten kilometers from the town, begins Peru. To the east, Bolivia is hardly more distant. The place is probably for strategic drug traffickers but
reality I wonder if Visviri, the largest city in northern Chile, really exists. It's just a point on an atlas. The perfect illustration of the mapping illusory. Dots and lines symbolizing the villages, roads, railways exist it seems that bridging the gaps concern of a world map that man would reassuringly familiar and conquered. It curious habit of imagining (or want) a city or a place of interest under the pretext that his situation is at the edge of a map at the geographic center of a country or at the intersection of and a meridian of any tropical. It is certain that Visviri aptly named, although this place name may well have baptized any other village in the Puna-: in Aymara, Visviri means "the land of the wind."
Here, even the toilet squalid station where I am, we are not immune. Precise and scathing gusts infiltrate the smallest imperfections in the roof.
Through the cracks of the door, all I can see is these passers disheveled through the dusty streets with the eagerness of bewildered those seeking shelter before the bombing.
If we are to Visviri is that Manuel Rios, instit 'of Guacoyo, we had recommended the place. There was a friend who said he could let us know and we even stay around for a while. It was the town doctor. But
arrived at his door, one paper showed he was on tour in the surrounding villages and it would not be back until two or three days.
Fortunately, Manuel gave us the name of another person who could, if necessary, help us. It was Omar Calderon. Young man of 27 years, newly appointed head of a station where there was no more than once a day, including the International Arica-La Paz. "Man, we had said Manuel, had agreed this position as 160,000 pesos per month was guaranteed. A handsome salary, including isolation pay and a bonus ... .. of "altitude"! We met Omar at the bar of the railway canteen.
It was a jovial man, and as the teacher of Guacoyo, the idea of sharing a meal with people passing was not displease him.
His glibness and good humor will even pass the tough flesh of the old lama that people came to serve us well as this villainous ice wine, presented as usual in an austere one-liter carton.
As we speak French, the station manager thought it would interest us to have some fresh news from France: "You saw in the newspaper: Yves Montand died yesterday! . To confirm the information already unfolded Omar tabloid. It showed a picture of unexpected "Galan francs" (Playboy French). She was not taken from one of his movies or taking in a concert but during a visit to the artist, a few years ago, in the popular district of Victoria in Santiago. A place notorious for having suffered at the time of Pinochet's bloody atrocities.
"The only place in town a few acceptable for tourists is from the old Lalo. Must be known. It is not even a sign, I'll take you there, Omar dropped by swallowing his last piece of llama. "
The board looked furiously at a general store whose decay was matched only by the toothless old man who ran. There was in this room that resembled a dormitory ten bunk beds with mattresses filled with holes and stained with suspicious spots. The ceiling was made of sheet dilapidated and much of the floor was gone. Probably burned a day of great cold. Washroom came down on her at a well from which we could extract water through a canister attached to a rope.
An unusable because the morning frost made the rope harder still a steel cable! ....
This night will also very strange.
For some unknown physical phenomenon probably due to the altitude and high atmospheric pressure, the air was saturated as static. The slightest movement of the head on the pillow synthetic will cause a real "shock" erecting not only the hair on the head but above nimba face a sort of aura of the unreal.
Maybe he should look on this side to find a plausible explanation for holy halos?
Before you finish this tour through the puna "northern" and return to Arica, we decided on a final stage in the small village of Putre. From Visviri, it does have a hundred of kilometers to the southwest, but the track is bad and the bus driver apparently chose a route-of-fancier. As the bus comes from Bolivia, he must, before resuming his journey, abide by a set of customs formalities finicky and a thorough search. This, as we suspect, will prove unrewarding, except the discovery (and the immediate confiscation) of some unfortunate forgotten bananas in the luggage of a Bolivian peasant distracted. (Importation into Chile of fresh food is subject to very strict regulation).
That soon after boarding of passengers that travel will take a bizarre turn. Barely a half-dozen miles away, the driver will start a complicated circuit in the web of local slopes on or approximately 'at each crossing, cyclists loaded bundles of the most diverse and are waiting to sign driver to stop. The script is running well: the bus stops a few seconds and the bundles are immediately thrown out of the doors ajar.
Packages are only approved as the bus starts again with a bang. That's when passengers rushed over to open the packets and out of clothes brand new leather jackets, mostly from Argentina-. Each woman would wear two or three, one over the other, then readjust everything on a large poncho alpagua as camouflage. In minutes, these women have taken a sacred waist, but never mind "Operation leather Argentina" has once again worked remarkably well ... the nose and the noses of customs ... ..
The rest of the voyage was uneventful, except for a puncture just before the end of this step.
Putre is a small village located. It is
surrounded by mountains and is 
altiplanesques spared the high winds. Night frosts also seem less intense and the infrastructure is pretty good. There's even a post office and telephone and a branch of the Bank Chile. A brand new building whose architecture is inspired by traditional Aymara buildings with adobe walls and thatched roof. 
About five kilometers outside the village by a chaotic path along a ravine can also access a magical place. At the foot of a chalky cliff, men were drawn there are six or eight thousand years before our era a large table with the colors red and ocher depicting a hunting scene undoubtedly memorable. We see llamas or hundreds of vicuña, a quantity of characters in different positions and swarms of strange cabalistic signs ... We look all around you .... and we say that the landscape since then has not can not be changed much. 
(Landscapes near Putre)
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