Chile - Cats, Condors, Cherries.

“Somewhere. Where the waters meet. Lie the days before us.”

Bright moon, falling sun, we cross one of the largest lakes in South America, bifurcated by the Argentine border. A man’s necktie flaps in the wind as he watches the sunset on the top floor. On the other side of the lake is a small mining town called Chile Chico. Here, there are houses without locks, backpacks that go properly on people’s backs, and eyes that point forwards instead of being glued to the back of heads. Cats saunter around the streets, pulling up for a pet from passerby sitting on benches.

Copious amounts of coffee leads to an outflowing stream of conversation with Rayen and Francisco about Augusto Pinochet’s US backed coup of Salvador Allende, the first democratically elected Marxist in the world. In the aftershock of the coup, with the help of the Friedman-trained economists known as the “Chicago Boys”, Pinochet sold off many of Chile’s resources to foreign hands. Francisco straightforwardly called this action the theft of their precious metals. They angrily talk of the difficulty of the indigenous in the area to buy housing, the filtering effects of exams to get into public schools where those with more resources can pay for better preparation.

A quick bike ride to Argentina across the border, we scream gratitude into the desert owned by no country. Waves lap at bulky rocks, tumbling up and down the shore. Short, draping trees and a cold, glacial lake. Rocks skip over the waves. We lie as the pits pile up. Draped in the sombra, Vero expresses her hatred for Pinochet. An unexpected anger from a elementary school teacher that seems to only come up when Pinochet's name comes up in public. Friends nap with stomachs full of deep red cherries, bursting at their seams. On the way back, Vero picks up drugs that were stashed behind the “Welcome to Chile” sign.