Part of the reason that we'd needed to get money out of the ATM the night before was to pay for our day tour to Isla Damas and Isla Choros. "Hostal Jofre", in addition to providing cheap (but poorly appointed) rooms and hamburger buns for breakfast, arranges tours to some of the attractions near to La Serena.
Lacking the mental capacity when we arrived in town to want to think about planning it ourselves, we'd tried to book the day tour to Isla Damas through Jofre, which we needed some extra cash to pay for. As it turns out, though, the tour was cancelled, because the boat that was to be used was not available the next day. Why?
Locos!
More on Locos in a minute. For now, let me first explain a little bit about how the tours are arranged. Some kind of transportation is required to get you to the small port of Caleta Los Choros, about 120 km north of La Serena. There, local fishermen in Los Choros ferry tourists out from the port, cruise around Isla Choros, and then dock at Isla Damas, where people are allowed ashore.
These two steps are usually arranged by a tour company, but after the Jofre tour fell through, we decided to take it upon ourselves. We drove up to Los Choros, including another 20 km on another dirt road. This was a bit of a risk, not just because we hadn't yet fixed the flat tire, but also because it was a Sunday, and things generally shut down on Sundays. But we'd read reports online before we left that people had been able to go out on tours on Sundays, and we were willing to be patient (of course despite our stated patience, we left the hostel before 7am just to make sure that we'd be first in line).
Loco, you may recall from earlier posts was a delicious shellfish that we had a first taste of in Puerto Natales. It is also a lucrative export, and a sensitive species. Combine these features with the practical Chilean government, and you end up with the following situation (as it was explained to us -- in Spanish that we understood! -- by Fernando, who was helping to secure us a tour boat):
Locos abalone used to be plentiful, but lack of regulation led to overharvesting and low numbers. To combat this, the government imposed strict regulations that limit commercial Locos gathering to 12 days per year. Japanese restaurant importers, who 'don't value money' (according to Fernando), pay a relative fortune for the Locos, so the 12 days of Loco harvesting each year are very, very important to the local fishermen.
As you may have guessed by now, it was during this 12 day stretch that we were in Chile. And during this time, a boat's time is much more well spent ferrying locos and divers gathering locos than tourists. So we were without a boat to take us out to the islands.
So, also, were two other tour groups. Hiring a boat can be quite expensive, so we befriended the tour leaders of the other two groups, hoping we could get on the boat with them, should they succeed in getting a boat.
After about 2 hours of waiting, one of the tour groups gave up. They were en route to somewhere farther in the north. But the other group, led by a very friendly guide named Victor, was hoping to wait out the morning and midday locos hauls and catch a boat in the afternoon.
Actually, I should be more specific. The whole second group that was not willing to wait. There was one couple that had been with the group that began to get testy and eventually demanded to be returned to La Serena. Clearly they did not make the effort to enjoy the opportunity to see the local economy at work and to get to know the livings of other peoples lives. They just wanted to see some damn penguins, and they'd paid good money for it, so they deserved to.
Care to guess their nationality? Yep. Rude American tourists. Some stereotypes are true.
Anyway, we were enjoying ourselves. Keenly following the fishermen's progress, but enjoying the clearing skies and the company of the other tour group. Around 1:30, we were told that there would be one last boat that might be able to help us, and it would be getting back around 3:00. Filling the vacancies in their group after the departure of the Rude Americans, we joined Victor's group for lunch.
At lunch, we enjoyed some local fish which I've forgotten the name of (but that Victor joked was dolphin), and conversation with people from Israel, France, Colombia, Germany, and Chile. It was awesome.
At 3:00 we returned to the pier, and were given good news. We had a boat!
The day so far:
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/555609873tqcpCX
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