In towns and cities where we sleep alongside millions the notion doesn't arise. But out here where there is nobody, we're terrified of seeing a single man, precisely because there's nobody else. For why would anybody be out here if he wasn't reeling around the mercury sands with an idiot grin that changes to a grimace as soon as he sees the tent?

The gleaming bus is heading north through green hills. Santiago is far behind us and the black asphalt road flows through the countryside like a sleek river of oil. Out here beyond the grey sprawl of the capital, you start to feel Chile for the first time; the Chile that hasn’t aged since the Conquistadores arrived. The size of the blue sky always feels like the New World and through a squint of the brain you can imagine that the rivers and villages that are passing by outside the AndesMar bus have not yet been named. The road is good. Everything is smooth and something is not right.

The trouble with Chile is that it is always in-between. Neither South American nor European - a little of one and not enough of the other.