Motel HELL!!

The Pacific Ocean town of Constitucion

January 29, 2010
Friday
After leaving Santiago at about 11:00am yesterday, I headed south on the Pan American Highway, Route 5 in Chile. I rode about four hours before turning off Rt. 5 and heading west toward the Pacific Ocean town of Constitucion. Constitucion has some very nice beaches with black sand a jagged shoreline. After leaving there, I rode along the shore until in the town of Chanco the road headed back east and eventually back onto Rt. 5 once again. By the time I started back south on Rt. 5 it was quite late in the afternoon, and it was a tossup whether I could make it to my Aunt’s ranch at a reasonable hour or not. They tend to close up shop there around nine at night, so I chose to find a place for the night in the city of Los Angeles, even though I was only about two hours away. The Motel looked nice enough, a safe place to park my bike, a good size clean room, nice bathroom, and WiFi, always a plus! Now comes the “good part”. What I wasn’t aware of was that there was a small window left open in the room with no screen on it. Now, I’ve been going to Chile for many, many years now, and I had never seen a New York size mosquito let alone any Mosquito here in Chile because it’s generally a rather dry climate for the most part. But this hotel room was full of Mosquitoes. They had the market cornered, and I think they were all in my room. Well, after spending a considerable amount of time killing these nuisance critters, I figured I was home free and could get a good night’s sleep. Boy, was I wrong! There must have been a little Mosquito Commander in charge of this squadron of menacing marauders , that was sending them my way, one at a time, because as soon as I killed one, there soon would appear one more, and it went on this way all night long. Now, if the Skeeters weren’t enough to keep you awake all night, there was some kind of infernal whistle that kept going off every five minutes, like clockwork. As soon as you ducked your head under the sheet to keep that last Mosquito from attacking, and you started to drift off to sleep, TOOOOOOT! This damn whistle would go off and jolt you from your sleep, and it continued until at 4:30 in the morning when I woke someone up in reception and complained. Soon after, the whistle was gone! But I still have to ask, why the hell do they have to have a whistle going off every five minutes when you pay so that you can have a place to SLEEP? Guess I should have bitched sooner!