Onwards and upwards

It was a relatively long days drive up to Antofagasta so I got on the road after breakfast.

Fuel was not going to be a problem as there are places marked on the map, but it is always a relief to find the station exists and that it has fuel. On these roads it pays to have this bike. Being an "Adventurer" it has a large tank capacity.  The guys with the smaller bikes have to watch themselves more on the long stretches but then theirs are better on the tougher terrain - it is swings and round-a-bouts.

It was a very nice drive along the coast to start with before turning in land. You cold easily stop every mile and take a picture of what you see but the photos don't do justice to the scene and it would take forever to get anywhere. Again the desert changes continually but subtly which I really enjoy. In the morning the temperature was down around a cool 10 -12 degrees and it tends to be overcast. At the hottest part of the day, when the sky has cleared, it only got to 30 degrees, so quite bearable on the bike. I don't know how hot it gets in their summer months.

It is not until you pass Chanaral and turn inland that the desert resembles what I imagined the Atacama desert to be, completely arid. Only rock and sand with no vegetation whatsoever.

You can see the ribbon of tarmac winding away in front of you with the inevitable trucks carrying the Miners wares. The desert is far from flat or straight. There is some nice riding to be had and the Truck drivers seemed to be more fun up here. Lots of flashing lights, tooting of horns and waving. They like to give a V sign. I just hope it was the "positive" version!

It was a case of the Tortoise and the Hare. I would whizz past them, stop a few miles further on for a sip of water or a photo and they would pass by with a Toot on the horn. Then I would catch them up, overtake with a wave and hare off again. You need to get your fun where you can in the desert!

I could put up lots of Desert pictures but I won't bore you with any more in this posting

As I mentioned, there are loads of trucks and occasionally you see one with "escorts" (not Ford Escort 1600 Ghia's). Some of the machinery is massive, especially the Mine Dumper Trucks.

This is the Chassis of one on the back of full size lorry, it can't get under the canopy at the fuel station. The Dumpers are moved in three parts, the Chassis, the Wheels and the Tipper Body.

Those are the wheel hubs sticking out of the Chassis. The 4 wheels alone take up the entire flatbed of a full blown Tractor Trailer unit. As for the Tipper unit, they are f****** enormous and get a police escort. I will try to get some photos of these over the next day or two.

Although you drive out of the Atacama region and into Antofagasta, the scenery is still very much the desert. From Taltal there are two routes - back to the coast road or the inland road. At Taltal there is a lot of roadworks with diversions. I had intended to take the coastal road because it would take me past Cerro Paranal where the European Observatory is with the technically named "VLT" - standing for Very Large Telescope!
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 Of course, I missed the bloody turning and did too many miles to realistically turn back (time & fuel). I am not sure if it is still the biggest but I really wanted to visit it and was cross with myself. My luck with the observatories has been pretty poor! This is a picture from the Interweb.

One can't have everything in life apparently but a distant second best (by some margin) was to go past this piece of sculpture "Mano del Desierto". It is about an hour south of Antofagasta (on the other road). What you can't see is some Chileans on the other side in their Campervan taking a picture from the other side. I am not sure if they were intending to stay the night but we had a brief chat. They are nice people out here.

There is a lot of roadwork going on around Antofagasta and with the trucks churning up the temporary diversions you need you wits about you. You drop down from the mountains in to the city. It is a modern business type town with little in the way of attractive features, there aren't even any nice bars on the beaches (it has a nice coastline).

 The hotels are large, expensive and hard to come by. I had booked mine over the Interweb the night before & got the date wrong. When I turned up after 6 or 7 hours on the road I wasn't best pleased to hear my booking was for "tomorrow" night and they were completely full! They kindly started ringing around the other hotels. I should think they had phoned 6 or7 - all full. just when I was thinking I would have to drive another 250 kms to the next town, their phone rang........it was someone cancelling their room! So the bad luck of missing the VLT was offset (a little) by getting a room for the night.


Sad to say it was a modern businessman's hotel with a Casino, but i didn't care at this point! The room was wonderful with hot water and towels etc. I got excited when I saw the ancient ruins "Huanchaca" that overlooked the hotel, so I wandered over to marvel at the ingenuity of the Incas.

Unfortunately it used to be the foundry of the Huanchaca Mining Company and was shut down in 1912! My days sightseeing was a triumphant disaster!


The food was excellent and after dinner I got some money out of the ATM with the idea of a flutter. I wandered around watching the players;

Those at the Slot machines didn't appear to have any sense of life about them at all. Like metronomes they kept tipping coins in to the machines which played a ridiculous tune and swallowed their cash. Even if they won their expressions didn't alter.

The Black Jack players were a bundle of nerves, drawing hard on their fags and cursing their luck every time the dealer drew a court card.

The Roulette table was home to the middle aged women. Smoking hard and apparently aimlessly frittering their chips across the table as fancy took them. I couldn't discern any formula to their betting and not one of them looked like they were having fun.

When you stand back and just watch, it is easy to see things clearly. The money coming out of their pockets (as they reload after losing their initial stake) and their money disappearing down the shoots of the various tables (or machines).

I like a gamble but surely it is meant to be fun? i kept my money and slept well in crisp white cotton sheets!