Back to Santiago

Congratulations, sister!

Today is our last day of driving in Chile. We just have to cover the remaining 800 km from Pucon to Chile to meet our friends. We've had enough of driving. After all, we've already covered 18000 km.

Driving in Chile is not fun! It's not just because of the bad roads, but also because of the drivers. Chileans love risky overtaking maneuvers. It's also completely normal to drive very slowly on the left side of the highway, so that all incoming vehicles have to brake sharply before overtaking on the right. Another highlight is pedestrians calmly crossing the highway. Chilean drivers would rather have an accident than brake, which has put us in precarious situations several times. Heike has even resorted to rude gestures. Chileans are not known for their anticipatory driving. Here, whoever brakes, loses! Chileans also like to overtake whenever they feel like it. They don't look back to see if someone else is trying to overtake them. It's also quite a sight when a truck wants to overtake another truck and there is only a small gap between them. The Chilean feels challenged to take advantage of that small gap. Like in a video game, they drive a right-left combination to reach their destination 5 seconds earlier. The interesting thing is that no one seems to be bothered by this. No one gets upset about it, except Heike, who wants to enforce the German traffic regulations here. So it's not surprising that there are countless crosses on the roadside.

Chileans honk only when they think someone is driving too fast. In contrast to the Argentinians, who like to correct you when you turn in the wrong direction. Turning in the wrong direction means trying to enter a one-way street that looks like an alley. We still can't figure out how we should or could know that it is a one-way street. Turning left on country roads is a science of its own. You must not slow down or stop on the country road to let oncoming traffic pass. Instead, you have to drive onto the right shoulder, which looks more like a landfill. You're afraid to drive on it because the shoulder often resembles a slope that you could slide down. In any case, you have to wait there until no car is in sight and then turn left across both lanes.

Still, another burden, but this applies more to Chile, are the many many dead dogs that also lie by the roadside. Some are so flattened that you can hardly tell them apart from the asphalt.