Back To The Desert

Waking up in a mechanic’s yard is not as joyous as it might first appear; but it has its compensations. 

Theoretically we should be in good shape to roll for a while now and enjoy being bums.  Mark opened the gates for us and we promised to come by next year on our way north. He charged $100 for everything which seemed a bit low to me but he was happy. 

He used to be a mining engineer traveling all over northern Chile to the many and various mines in the desert. Then he dropped out, took up living in his compound with his rescue dogs doing carpentry, fixing mining equipment like the bulldozer behind him, and enjoying life. His most recent rescue was a mother and her litter he found beside the highway, too scared to show herself but safe in a fenced corner of his compound in a kennel he made her himself. He’s a man after my own heart. 

IOverlander will show you how to find his shop where he has a cold shower, an asado grill and shade if you come in summer. And his dogs. Lovely man. 

Food shopping required so we did a quick stop at Lider which is Walmart and got some supplies. Crappy bananas and excellent apples, bicarbonate of soda for toilet odor control and Pad Thai sauce and pretzels. On the road you do sometimes need the familiar in the privacy of your home to offset the barrage of weird cultural stimuli you  get snowed under by in the outside world. 

As we hope to be back in Peru in a few days where Lider (“leader”) doesn’t exist she is stocking up. In Arica where we will get Rusty’s exit papers she will pay a last visit to her favorite supermarket called Jumbo. I will be getting ready to miss Chile for the next year.  

Even in the bowels of corporate civilization the Atacama Desert is never far away. “Automac” is the drive through. 

Those slashes in the hillside are the way out of here to the PanAmerican Highway 35 miles away.  

Iquique (“ee-key-kay”) consists of a long thing curve of waterfront maybe ten miles long filled with skyscrapers and jobs in this tax exempt region. 

We met people all over town who came here from somewhere else. Refugees from the cold down south, people nostalgic for rain and greenery, they live here to make a living.  

And because the seasons are reversed in the southern hemisphere this I am told is as cold as it gets in July, 65 by day and 55 by night. And never any rain.  

Glad to be on our way from this useful stop. 

The PanAmerican Highway 180 mules due north to Arica and Peru. 

Team Lost was hunting for a wild camp as the sun went down and we misread the directions in iOverlander and went too far down a side road to a mine. Bit tricky that as the road was too narrow to turn around on and we had to keep going trying to beat the dark. 

It was beautifully remote down the canyon but we didn’t really appreciate that until we found a side road where I could make an 18 point turn without getting stuck in the soft sandy lunar surface either side of the paved road. 

It was past time to find a spot to park for the night. What people in Britain call “a park up” which sounds weird to me. We just call it a place to park, not up or down. 

It is spectacular to my eyes if rather dry. Webb Chiles is fond of pointing out the southern hemisphere has just 9% of the worlds population and you can feel that statistic here. 

We stumbled into the easily accessible vista point (“mirador”) near the highway. GANNET2 is well enough insulated the occasional passing truck didn’t bother us. Nighttime traffic even in the highway is almost zero. People around here like to sleep at night, not work. 

I tried to ignore the suspicious looking bone in the foreground but I couldn’t help but think this would be a great area to bury your enemies if you have any. 

On a less macabre note toasted ham and cheese sandwiches for dinner with an ice cold Patagonia beer and bed. Much snoring.