A comfortable night bus ride

The night before again an insect had bitten me in the forearm. It itched terribly and the sting became bigger and bigger. I thought it would be okay somehow and I booked the night bus to Antofagasta, where I wanted to stop in case the sting got worse, because there is no hospital in the Atacama Desert, where I wanted to go afterwards.

Normally I can't sleep in buses, but in this comfortable bus I was able to do so without problems. I could fold out my seat almost 180° and the ride went straight ahead almost the whole time. Chile is a very elongated country. In the east it is bordered by the mountain range of the Andes and in the west by the Atlantic coast and in between there is more or less desert and a few cities.

straight to the hospital

When I woke up in the morning in the bus and arrived in Antofagasta, the first thing I did was to check my sting and it had meanwhile swollen to the size of my hand. I checked in at my hostel and went to a pharmacy immediately.

They immediately sent me to the hospital. I went to a private hospital, had to pay 70 € and wait 1-2 hours. The nurse said she had never seen such a big sting. Apparently my sensitive European blood does not get along so well with the nasty beasts here. It was probably a spider that bit me. She gave me another injection in my bottom and I had to take antibiotics again for 1-2 weeks, but then the infection got better quickly.

Not much to see in Antofagasta

Antofagasta is a port city and regional capital in a mining area. There are hardly any sights. In Antofagasta I wanted to see La Portada, a rock gate, but the bus that was supposed to take me there did not come, so I had to return to the hostel without being able to go there.

The very next day I went to the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world.