Dave Ford Does Earth

Posted by Dave Ford

The Atacama Desert

When the Aussies, Raj Majal, and I were planning our Salt Flats excursion we were told repeatedly by many other backpackers that San Pedro in Chile was a must see. Many of the tours of Salar de Uyuni start in Uyuni and end up in Chile. Furthermore, none of the other guys have been to Chile, so we decided to make our final destination from the Salt Flats San Pedro de Atacama.

San Pedro does not appear on most maps of Chile, but lies in the very north of the skinniest country in the world in the mineral rich Atacama desert. Although it is a very small town, it is also a backpackers paradise. The streets are lined with travel agencies and niche restaurants. At night, all of the restaurants burn huge bonfires right in the middle of the restaurants. It’s a beautiful place.

Ben and I were set to spend our 5 month anniversary traveling on Saturday night in San Pedro. Massive plans were made. The initial plan was to take it easy on Thursday night and to celebrate to the fullest on both Friday and Saturday night.

Unfortunately, things did not materialize as we expected.

The four of us went out to eat at one of the nicest restaurants, Adobe, on Thursday night. The four of us had a very big meal and started off like any night with a few beers.

This is where things began to get weird. Continuing to follow normal protocol, we switched over to vodka & sprites (I usually drink vodka with soda but trying to get people down here to understand what club soda is can be more than a challenge).

The vodka drinks arrived and the four of us began to get drunk much faster than we normally would have.

Sidenote: Aside from Raji Taj, who is much smaller than the Aussies and me, we are all big and have had plenty of experience in the “handling your alcohol department”.

The first indicator:

After a few more drinks, Dave “the Weapon” Mallet fell straight back off of his chair and got a beautiful view of the stars. Personally, I barely remember Dave doing this.

The second indicator:

Apparently we were hanging out with two American guys ( one of them had just won $64,000 playing poker in Vegas) and they picked up our entire tab for the evening. Between the four of us, the tab was easily over $200 bucks US. The guys actually commented on the blog a few posts back saying that it was nice to meet us and such. (If you guys are reading this, thanks for hooking it up).

Out of the four of us, only Raj has a slight recollection of this. The next day we all woke up wondering if we ran out on the bill.

The third indicator:

Ben and I apparently ended up in some sort of wrestling match in the middle of the street. Neither of us remember. I hit my head hard. His eye and hand were really screwed up for a few days.

Sidenote: Ben and I, simply put, do not do this kind of shit. We have been here for 5 months and if anything, work to prevent blind drunk assholes from partaking in this kind of behavior.

The fourth indicator:

Late that night we were apparently approached by 6 Chileans who had unkind things to say to us in Spanish. Unfortunately, Raj translated what they were talking about to us and Ben took off after all 6 guys. They kept walking. Again, Ben does not behave in this matter.

The fifth indicator:

“The Weapon” completely disappeared. He has no recollection of what happened. He remembers being in a different bar for awhile, and that’s it. For the next couple days he was approached by different groups of people telling him to “be careful in San Pedro”. This is where we began to think something was seriously wrong.

The next day Raj and I were flat on our backs all day long. This was not a normal hangover. Dave and Ben did not feel as bad, and actually went sandboarding. I was violently sick (maybe the second time since traveling). We think we all got different amounts of the special sauce.

The conclusion:

We were drugged. None of us are sure why. We look like any other backpacker. Why someone would drug 4 guys is beyond our comprehension.

We asked Ben and Daves’ sandboarding guide if stuff like this happens in San Pedro. He said that it was not unheard of.

After further analysis, we think that they did not give us enough of “whatever it was that they spiked our vodkas with” to make it possible to rob us. Fortunately, we all stuck together and made it back safely to our hostel.

The next few nights we ate dinner out but took it easy. Mostly to avoid a run-in with the Chilean Mafia…if such a thing exists.

This my friends, is the weirdest thing that has happened since I have been traveling.

Riding in San Pedro de Atacama

On the bright side, we did have a fantastic afternoon horseback riding on the sand dunes surrounding the city. We saw some beautiful volcanoes, dunes, and sunsets.
It was also very humorous when Raj fell off of his horse.

Then, we got the hell out of there, never to return again.

Just a little note from my two Aussie friends, Raji Taj, and me:

F YOU San Pedro de Atacama! F You and all of your drink spiking residents!!!!

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Notes:

> After talking to the owner of the Hostel in Cusco, he told me there have been many nights when local “girls” have spiked his drinks. He says that whenever he starts feeling a little strange he gets the hell out of there. Although, we did not run into many girls that night in San Pedro. Maybe one of the culprits had a secret crush on the BV show.

> After San Pedro, the Raj Mahal took off on an alternative route. He has about a month or so left of traveling and headed out to Salta in northern Argentina. Raji Taj brought much to the table in the three weeks that we hung out. Not only did his fluent Spanish make life easy, he also brought a completely different dynamic to the crew. We have all been talking about how much we miss Raji Taji and wish him the best of luck when he gets back to London and to the real world. Something tells me that after making the British Pound Sterling for a few years, Raj will be back on the backpacker scene once again. He was also an amazing proof reader. Clearly, if anyone needs an amazing proofreader it’s me. Raj is fantastic with commas.

> OK, so we boogied out of San Pedro for a strategic two day strike of Arequipa and Colca Canyon in southern Peru.

> Although this can seem like an extension of the little unlucky patch I went through a few weeks back, I disagree. The reason nothing bad happened is because the boys and I stuck together (except for Dave as he wandered off for a bit, this does not matter as much because I am sure he could take out the entire town of San Pedro de Atacama by himself). Nonetheless, South America affords you the luxury of making mistakes. I would much rather make as many mistakes as possible here, so when I get to Africa I am the ultimate backpacker. From what I gather, there is much less room for forgiveness on “The Mother Continent”.

Note to self: Improve your skills of identifying dodgy characters in bars.

Needless to say, my horse suffered immensely throughout the entire ride.

Note to self: I need the big horse in the future

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