After spending Saturday morning at Dario Salas (see previous blog post) we headed home for lunch, and then Pam came by to pick us up to drive over to the beach at Copquecura, about an hour and a half away. We arrived there in mid afternoon and checked into our small hotel/cabaña in town. The town was small and quiet, and the first thing we saw out our room window was a man plowing a small field with two oxen.
It was a 10 minute walk down to the beach, and what a wonderful 5 km long beach it was. We headed north along the beach, passing by the Loberia, a large rock formation with a colony of sea lions. We could hear them barking above the wind, and when we got downwind of the rock we could also smell them. We continued along for about an hour and a half - it was a long beach and the going was slow in the soft sand. 
Finally, we got to the far northern end of the beach and the Iglesia Piedra - a large natural rock cavern carved by the ocean. Inside it was like a dark cathedral, with religious statues and various inscriptions on the walls. The cave opened out to the beach in three different places, and the tide was obviously rising, so we didn't get to spend too much time inside. Just to the north of the iglesia was another beautiful cove with wild windblown waves.
About this time we were getting tired and hungry, and the sun was just about to go down, so we decided to take the long walk back to town along the road. The wind was fierce, and it was getting colder as night fell. We were going to hitchhike, but very few cars were passing by. After walking along the road for about a half an hour, we overtook a man with an ox cart full of hay. He offered to give us a ride back to town, and after a bit of negotiating about the price, we climbed on board.The driver was either going deaf, or thought that since we didn't understand his spanish too well that it would help to talk REALLY LOUDLY. He was a bit drunk and very friendly. We never did quite catch his name, but he proudly told us the names of his two oxen, Elegante and Flagrante. It wasn't much faster than walking, but it was a very entertaining mode of travel. He proudly proclaimed, "fui militar!" (I was a military man), "Cuando?", we asked. "1973! Pinochet, Pinochet!". OK, right, I'm not sure how to follow up on that. A few months from now when my Spanish is better I might be able to really have the rest of that conversation, but for now we just kept jostling along in the cart. He sang us a Chilean song. A partial video is here. You can see that by this time it was quite dark.
Eventually we got back to the edge of town and he explained that he had to let us off here because the Caribineros would give him a ticket if he went too far into town. We said our goodbyes. He was hoping for goodbye kisses from Catherine and Pam but they demurred. We then walked the last kilometer or so into town and found a place to eat some hot seafood soup to warm up.
Links:
- More pictures of the weekend in Cobquecura
- soundtrack of the frogs that sang to us as we walked that last dark kilometer into town after our ox cart ride
- Link to a google map of Cobquecura
