Leaving Mejillones

I gave FedEx a couple of days, while I obsessively watched the tracking information, before I sent them another angry email. According to their tracking, our parts were still in Santiago. It simply wasn’t acceptable, I told them—what kind of service do you call this? I was both slightly deflated and incredibly relieved when the response came back: the parts are awaiting collection. We told Boris the good news, and he said that they had a job planned the next day in Antofagasta and he could therefore give us a lift there, and we could catch the bus back. This sounded like a great plan, and so we bided our time, continuing to look after the multitude of strays (now 14) we had attracted.

We had wanted to take the cat with the bad eyes to the vet, but it seemed that there wasn’t one here. Then, when we went back to our favourite and cheapest pet shop, we saw that they had some medications. Initially, we went there to buy the wet food as it was significantly cheaper than the supermarkets, but we had returned to pick up the spot-on treatment for our girls. Living in a garage with over 10 stray cats, it seemed like it was an important time to keep on top of parasites. Recently too, the kitten had developed a problem with its ears. We had somewhat reluctantly come up with a name, after refusing too for so long. And so Lottie, as she was now called, seemed in need of some medication. She had got some very unpleasant pussy ears, which were clearly causing her a lot of discomfort. We had been debating daily whether to take her with us or not—an impossible decision. Seeing her sick, however, had swayed things in her favour. I couldn’t bear to let her suffer for something so easily treatable but which could have such dire consequences if left. After some googling, it seemed likely she had ear mites and that some simple spot-on treatment would sort it. We thought even if we were wrong, there was definitely no harm in trying, and so we went to pick some up.

The man in the pet shop was very friendly, naturally a little confused as to why the obvious tourists needed cat medication. We explained to him about the cat with bad eyes, and he seemed genuinely concerned. He asked if we could bring it here, but we said that we couldn’t really. It was basically feral. We decided to buy some eye drops though; at least it might help if it was a simple infection. We told him about the garage we were staying at and the amount of stray cats, and with our bill ending up pretty high in the end, he was kind enough to throw in a couple of packets of treats for the cats too.

It was a simple thing to give Lottie her treatment, and we bided our time waiting for the ugly blind cat before eventually, after a lot of treats and persuading, we managed to squirt eye drops into its eyes. I wasn’t sure it would be back after that, but we had done what we could at least.

That same day, we got a message from our friends in town. They had kindly let us use their address to receive the spare part for our Wallas, and that too had finally arrived. It seemed like everything was happening at once. We hopped on our bikes and headed round to collect it. Samantha was busy in her kitchen making crafts for the coming festival that weekend. We grabbed the part and told her about Lottie too. This was our ultimate plan—we hoped that as a fellow cat lover she might take her, despite the fact she already had six. This could be the best for both of us, guaranteeing her a nice home but without costing us the money and complications of another pet. We left Samantha to mull it over and headed back to the garage.

It seemed that the party had somewhat quietened down in the light of the new year, although I did hear Boris come in around 3am—this was pretty normal. What was less normal was what we awoke to the following morning. We first noticed the bloody handprints on the garage doors, then a trail that staggered around the workshop, over the washing machine, Lee’s trousers, and towards the bathroom. I had no idea what had happened last night. Lucho said that Boris had had a fight with “his woman”. Either way, there seemed like quite a lot of blood, and soon Diego had pulled his little blue jeep into the workshop to wash off all the blood on that. It seemed like the trip into Antofagasta wasn’t happening, and so after waiting around for a bit we headed to the bus terminal to get things sorted ourselves.

It turns out that the bus only goes once an hour and we had missed it by a matter of minutes. We bought our tickets and headed back to the workshop. Still Boris was not in sight, and that remained the case until we headed out again just before midday. At the bus station we chained up our bikes, and I went to try and explain to the driver where we needed to get off. It seemed the buses here were a little stricter. Unlike most buses we had used in Latin America where you can get on or off where you please, this bus had designated stops. It turns out it also had designated seats, as we found out when we sat down in the wrong place and were asked to move.

As we sped across the empty desert between Mejillones and the outskirts of the city, I couldn’t believe we were finally getting our parts. I kept an eye on the map to try and make sure we got off at the nearest possible point to the depot. We were in luck when we realised that the bus stop was right outside. It was a short five-minute walk down to the office. In the office I gave our tracking number and after a few moments we were given our package. They didn’t even want to see our ID—it was very easy. We walked back to the bus stop, ready to wait.

It was a fast road, and we tried to pick out the approaching buses to see if it was the right one. There wasn’t much time to see if it was your bus and then try to flag it down. We spotted one, but it was too late. He whizzed past us without slowing, and we assumed that the next one would not be for another hour. To kill some time, we walked down to the next stop. We figured if we went to the airport, they would definitely stop, but we didn’t have time to make it the remaining 6km before the next bus would pass, and so we stopped and waited. It was an incredibly hot day as well, and it was probably a good idea to stick to the shade of the bus shelters rather than cremate ourselves outside.

Now that we had an idea of the time the bus would pass, we were ready. We spotted him a while off, and I walked out of the layby into the road to flag it down. Much to our annoyance, he drove straight past us. I was ready to get really annoyed when Lee shouted over to me that he was waiting. I turned around and saw he had pulled into the hard shoulder around a hundred metres away. It turns out that it was the driver we had spoken to earlier that morning; he had clearly recognised us a second later and decided to stop. We jogged down the road to the bus and made it on board, thankful to enjoy the air conditioning and not wait another hour outside in the afternoon heat.

Back at the garage, Boris had still not materialised. We got the details of the local torno (who had fixed our step) off Lucho and headed off with the parts in hand and the bell housing strapped to the back of my bike. Despite the fact there was a car outside the workshop, no one came to the door, and after waiting a while we left without giving him the parts. It was a shame, as we had hoped to get things moving, but we would have to wait until morning to do it.

Boris was back the next day and we asked him if he could phone the workshop and make sure they knew we were coming so he could open the door. We waited a while but soon got impatient when it seemed Boris couldn’t find his phone and didn’t really appreciate our desire to get things moving either. As it was only 10 minutes away, we decided to just cycle down again and try our luck. This time, the gates were open. The guy recognised us and took the bell housing. I left him with the new seal for reference and a written note of the measurements. Even though it was morning, he told us it wouldn’t be ready until the end of Saturday. At this point though, what was one more day anyway?

The final remaining job was to weld the exhaust. Boris had bought us both the gearbox oil and a new flexible section to replace our old broken one from the city. I would have welded it myself, but it turned out that they only had an arc welder—something that isn’t my strong point. We decided it would be better to ask one of the guys to do it, and so I chopped it up and prepared it ready for welding. In an unexpected turn of events, the guy from the torno turned up that afternoon with our part. Apparently he had plans for tomorrow he’d forgotten about, and so instead he’d done it early. This was great news for us because it meant we could spend the weekend taking our time and refitting it all with the garage mainly to ourselves.

It was Sunday by the time we got around to it. Saturday they worked on a car directly behind us, meaning we had no access to the engine bay. Instead we tidied and got everything else ready; after being here so long, there was a lot of cleaning to be getting on with. When we finally had some peace and quiet and some space, we got hold of the trolley jack and started to refit the gearbox.

This is on the awkward side, especially as Ruby was on the floor and there wasn’t too much space under there. After a lot of shunting we got it on a jack, manoeuvred it into place and bolted up the rear mount. Then it was time to play with the engine. The reason we normally use an engine crane is it is by far the easiest way to slide the engine back onto the clutch. It’s possible on a jack, but not only is it a lot more dangerous as the thing wobbles around, but there’s a lot less control. In the interests of safety we had the ratchet straps on top, but these got in the way too. It must have taken us a good couple of hours of shunting and adjusting before we managed to get the clutch and box aligned.

Finally, with the two pieces back together, we could beat the engine mount into place. With that secured, it meant that the majority of the work was done and that we could now move easily around the engine reconnecting the final hoses and wires. The only thing that remained was the exhaust, which I hoped they’d weld up for us on Monday. By the end of the day, it was time to turn the key and hear the engine roar into life once more. We were so close to leaving.

Our welding plans didn’t work though, as the guys had apparently got a job to do in Antofagasta and weren’t in the shop the whole day. Their working hours always took a bit of guesswork anyway and so we set about with the huge industrial vacuum, cleaning everything. At this point, what was one more day anyway? Tomorrow would mark 5 weeks in the garage though and we did really want to make that the final day.

Boris was apparently the main welder here, but yet again he was a no-show. We deduced from the new blood spatters around the workshop he’d had another incident with ‘his woman’. While he had been friendly up until Christmas, things seemed to have turned a little sour the past week. He was almost unfriendly to Lee, constantly joking about how he couldn’t speak Spanish, which wasn’t really funny (or true) at all. Perhaps we had overstayed our welcome, or perhaps it was whatever problems he was clearly having in his family life, but something seemed amiss.

We had now had enough and so we asked if Diego, the youngest of the guys, could weld it for us, having seen him sporting the welding mask. He looked a bit hesitant but said he’d give it a go. We assured him it would be fine and he welded up the flexible section for us fairly quickly. Now we had everything cleaned, fitted and working. It was getting on a bit in the day, but tomorrow we’d definitely leave.

As the day had finally come, we had an impossible decision to make. Did we take or leave Lottie? We were both split 50/50. It made it even harder. Normally one of us has a stronger opinion that helps sway things, but here we both were just stuck in the same place. Limbo.

My heart said yes. It told me that we’d find the extra money somewhere. What was an inconvenience to us over another life saved? You can’t save them all, but we could save her. She got on well with our cats already; she was only a baby. What a shame to leave her in a place where the best-case scenario was a life of being kicked out of the tool cupboard and fighting over food with the 14 other strays we’d seen just in this one building. We’d been feeding her since the time she had weaned; would she cope if we just left? Before long she’d probably be pregnant too.

My head said no. You can’t save them all. She will most likely survive here; she’s not starving right now. We can’t afford another cat, think of the borders, the trackers, the vaccines and other medications. We couldn’t legally cross the border with her either, as we didn’t have time to do the papers, so we’d need to smuggle her into Argentina. The whole thing made me stressed just thinking about it. But who cares about your stress, a little voice in the back of my head said—this is a living creature you’re abandoning.

Lee I knew was in the same place. We discussed it openly several times. We never got anywhere solid. In the end he suggested we flip a coin, and I agreed. How else to make an impossible decision? So we did. Heads to keep her and tails to leave her. We flipped it. It came up heads. And there I still was, stuck in the middle. I felt my stomach sink and at the same time my heart did a little leap. All day I couldn’t think about much else. We gave her an old collar of Aimee’s and shut her up in Ruby ready to leave.

At least Lottie was a good girl. She stretched out across the worktop and slept. Lexi slept in the cab as it got hotter. Aimee, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found. We washed the car while we waited, but in typical Aimee fashion, she was nowhere to be seen. And so we waited.

We had seen the German couple earlier that morning, who we had spent Christmas with. They had come to say goodbye. We told them today was our day too and we’d be leaving. We agreed to meet them later and camp together, either in the south of Antofagasta or further out depending on how things went. Now it seemed our chances were slipping away as the day wore on well into the afternoon. We couldn’t do anything though, except curse Aimee and sit in our plastic chairs looking like fools.

By the time she reappeared, it was past 5pm. Boris had vanished somewhere and only Lucho remained. We decided we still had time and we were going to leave. So we said goodbye to Lucho and headed off with our new companion in tow. We didn’t get far. Ruby’s cooling system decided it didn’t much care for having its hose disconnected and we were only a few minutes into town when it overheated. We pulled over at the side of the road to let it cool and try to bleed the engine. As I was removing the coolant cap, a car pulled up behind us. Our friends Samantha and Guillermo got out.

It was one of the moments that I suppose was meant to happen. Lee went and brought Lottie out to show them, as we’d only shown her a picture before when we’d asked if she’d consider adopting her. Lottie sat in her arms as good as gold and then she was passed into the car for the kids to pet. We chatted to the adults for a little while as Ruby cooled and Lottie raced around their car to the delighted squeals of the kids. We told them they could still take her if they wanted to, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to leave her behind. They both clearly had a soft spot for animals and after a few minutes, they brought her back to us and told us to say goodbye and that they’d keep her.

We drove away a few minutes later, after saying goodbye. The engine cooled and held, and we drove out down the straight road of nothingness to the city. It was a bit emotional. I hadn’t expected to give Lottie away just like that and although a small part of me was relieved, it was still a bit of a shock. I knew we had made the best decision though, both for us and her. She would have a loving home and never go hungry, and we wouldn't have the stress and additional expense of travelling with another cat. Not only that, but it was the first time we had driven in over a month.

After all of this, it was pretty late. We headed straight to the street spot we had stayed at previously in the south. The Germans were already parked there on the side and we camped up next to them and pretty much fell straight into bed after a long day.