North by Bus - Chile

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

This may be a little mundane, but I thought I´d write this to remind myself later about how this sometime´s works. I haven´t had any hassles the past few months loading my boardbag into the storage areas of any south bound buses. As soon as I started heading north, the gringo taxes began... Leaving Valparaiso I was asked for 2,000 pesos. Then 3,000 pesos. I got off the bus and went into the office and was told by the manager, the bus driver, the luggage assistant, the ticket taker, even the guy selling hot dogs on the street that I had to pay extra for the boards. I kinda have a problem with this since everyone else is bringing wide screen TV´s, Ice chests with frozen shrimp, dried seaweed snacks and all kinds of other crap without being charged anything anything extra. So with the silence of the other passengers giving me strength, I maintained my position of not paying extra. I held out till the bus was pulling out of the terminal. We were already ten minutes late because of my stink. Well they asked once again if I was going to pay. I said, "no." They actually reversed the bus at which point I caved in and paid them 2,000. $4 bucks isn´t really worth missing the bus for....

Next up was La Serena. They wanted 2,000 straight up. I held firm with my desire not to pay. I was told we were going to the Policia and laughed at em. "OK, lets go". I´ll pay them before I pay you! Well I was a little nervous when we pulled up to the Policia checkpoint. Will they drop me and my boards here in the middle of nowhere? Is all this really worth $4??? In the end the bus inspector got off. The driver took the wheel and the ticket guy came over and quietly asked how much I´d be willing to pay. I gave him a buck and the rest of the 12 hour trip he was my best friend. He even played "Resident Evil" for me in English. Ummm, thanks. I guess. The photo is of a police checkpoint in the Atacama.