Life After The Tsunami

I will say, had we been anchored on the waterfront in Iquique we’d have moved up the mountain just in case when all that tsunami stuff was going on but as it was when the warning was issued we had no front wheels so here we sat. We have front wheels now, they’ve been aligned and we are getting ready to go and relax at the beach for a couple of days. GANNET2 is ready for Brazil.  

It was an almost all day affair to get the wheels properly aligned. The first two tire shops weren’t big enough to handle our van so we ended up driving around a bit. 

The third time was the charm and they listened to me when I explained it’s a Ram 3500 Promaster not a Ram pick up.

That operation cost $25 and tons couple of hours because we had to wait for our turn. GANNET2 is driving smoothly and there’s no more clunking in the rough stuff and on top of that the gearbox is working smoothly and unobtrusively. We are ready and I am hugely relieved. 

But we still had to drive across town to get back to the campground. 

That involved a long drive across town because Iquique (“ee-key-kay”) is a long winding snake of a waterfront city and it takes ages to get across town. 

The northern area is around the industrial port and is therefore pretty coarse. This is where they do port business with lines of trucks blocking the streets. Reuben pointed out the cars getting loaded on the transporters have right hand drive steering wheels, as used in countries where you drive on the left. 

The car transporters have Paraguayan license plates and the story is they collect used cars that come from Japan and sell them in Paraguay where apparently they switch the steering to the left side. I’ll be interested to see when we get to Paraguay after Brazil. 

I thought this part of Iquique looked pretty Stalinist with these brutal high rise apartments. Mind you it’s housing. Layne was asking Mark about the cost of housing in waterfront apartments near the fishing harbor and he said his daughter rented one for $600 a month. 

Dogs in Chile are for the most part well looked after though there are some street dogs especially here in the north. It’s another thing I like about Chile. 

A waterfront walking path and bike path… pretty civilized. 

These abandoned building apparently were a whale processing factory once. Rather gross. 

And so back to the campground for what I hope is our last night. Laundry was dry, we filled our water tank and we have enough fruits and vegetables for a few days wild camping. About time.