Just Deserts

Days 157-160

We hadn't quite seen enough desert yet, so on our second evening in San Pedro de Atacama we both hopped on Emily's bike and rode into the nearby Valley of the Moon, where sand and salt abound and erosion has made strange shapes in the landscape. Shortly before sunset we pulled up at a sand dune which people commonly climb and found a familiar motorbike there... Victor, the Argentinian Canadian who we met in Mexico, was apparently also at the dune! We had a catch-up with him and a Spanish guy on a small dirt bike who he was riding with, but we were unfortunately all heading in different directions the following day – we're sure we'll meet again though.

The few days of riding in northern Chile were nice but fairly dull: good roads, good fuel, lots of sand, lots of sunshine, and a bit of wind. There were a few things of interest to break the monotony of the Atacama Desert though. The first was an old railway station in Baquedano complete with decaying carriages and rusting steam engines along with the roundhouse for turning them round. The second stop was at the pretty cool “Hand of the Desert” sculpture. Further down the coast we camped at the lovely beach town of Caleta Pan de Azaca, where we hoped to ride out with the fishermen to see rare Humbolt penguins on the nearby islands but were sadly foiled by rough seas. From there we had just one more overnight stop on the way to Santiago, in the very liveable-in colonial town of La Serena. The last leg took us through increasingly fertile land and increasingly hot climes – we emerged from one tunnel close to Santiago a whole 10°C hotter than on the other side, and the weather stayed hot and sunny throughout our time in the capital.

Days 161-163

We've been in Santiago for over two days now and have managed to get the laptop sorted (broken RAM, again, same problem as in Panama and very easy to fix), and the bikes mostly sorted out. Unfortunately we couldn't get the sprockets to go with Emily's new chain, so we'll have to figure that one out later, and the servicing took so long that we had to leave her bike with it's broken pannier rack overnight in the welder's hopefully-capable hands. In the meantime we've done a pretty comprehensive walking tour of Santiago. It feels like somewhere in Europe - Spain or Italy maybe - except nicer. The difference with the major cities of the other South American countries we've been to is marked. The streets are wide and clean; there are trees, plazas and parks everywhere, all with manicured gardens; even the cars are all clean! Moreover, drivers obey the traffic lights, give pedestrians right of way, use their indicators and not their horns; all the cars have working brake lights, and not one vehicle has belched out black smoke at us as yet. Santiago's a big city but we have friends: Dan arrived on his Harley the day before yesterday (Jacquie having gone home for Christmas) and Thom and Flo arrived last night to give us a fun evening with “the gang” before we head off today.