Beached

We paid the bill and left around ten thirty yesterday morning. We’d spent ten days at Marks place, that was a hundred bucks while Reuben charged two hundred for his time and skill. The wheel alignment cost $25 and the parts we replaced were $252. For all that Chile is not considered cheap it seemed like a good deal to me. As Layne pointed out that included two loads of laundry, electricity to charge our batteries, a cold shower and we even had a dump station available. But now it was back to the cold hard life of being alone on the road. 

Our plan was to park about twenty miles down the road at a site mentioned in iOverlander overlooking the ocean and it all worked out by early afternoon. It was an upbeat start to our next round of travels.  

Our first stop was a rest area on the coastal highway with free hot showers in a building kept clean by an onsite attendant. 

The little white van was occupied by a young French couple who bought the van in Santiago and after their tour are driving back to sell it and go home. He was just as excited as I was to be in civilized Chile. 

The rest area would have been a good place to spend the night had we needed to and Rusty enjoyed an off leash stroll as well. 

Then we got back on the road to look for lunch which we found at this place: 

In the Atacama Desert where it doesn’t rain you don’t even need a roof, just some shade. It was sunny but just 65 degrees on a cool windy afternoon.  

The young waitress said “lapas” was the menu of the day and all Google revealed was that they are mollusks. We got mussel soup to start and it was filling and excellent. 

Then we got the main dish but we were stuffed so I got a to-go bag from GANNET2 though I did taste the food and it was a delicious mix of mollusks potatoes and peppers in the sauce. 

Rusty was relaxing aboard during our lunch. 

Layne went to look for some fruit at the nearby market and then we were set for the beach. 

It was as usual the perfect Chilean highway good for 60 mph and hardly any traffic. There was a dollar fifty toll booth which seemed well worth the ease of the drive. 

Our plan was to camp on the cliffs overlooking the roiling Pacific swells in a place listed on the iOverlander app.  

In summer I imagine there is a lot of coming and going even though it is a very trash free location. Chileans are much less inclined to dump trash than their neighbors. 

The wind got pretty strong making it unpleasant to dig outside and get sandpapered but for an afternoon rest it was a good spot to get back into the habits of traveling. 

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. 

Repairs

Our parts arrived in the campground in late afternoon, inner tie rods,

Which with the outer tie rods steers the front wheels on this front wheel drive van.

For our $252 we got front brake pads, complete tie rods and CV joints so our front end should be solid for a while. The suspension, our expensive aftermarket Bilsteins, is doing fine so nothing to change there. 

Reuben, the former Toyota and Hyundai service manager in Ushuaia was in his knees and I don’t doubt we’ll be watching this come together Tuesday. Then the front end will need an alignment which should put us on the road soon.

In other news I took Rusty for an evening walk and it ended up not going well. A dog appeared and the two of them eyed each other. Rusty seemed excessively friendly to me and she did indeed pounce. He folded and fell on his back as they snarled at each other and snagged each other’s fur. 

It happened just after I took this picture as we stood outside the gate. I grabbed a 4 x4 from the pile on the right and whacked the fig as she stood over Rusty worrying his fur. She ran and I grabbed Rusty and got him inside the gate. 

There was no broken skin just a lot of wet fur but my biggest fear is he will be reluctant to go out again. I enjoyed Our walks and I hope he will go out with me again. 

I got a message asking if we were okay after the Russian earthquake about which I knew nothing. Apparently there is a tsunami warning in effect but I think we are high enough up not to be in danger. 

Mind you we have no front wheels so here we are, a good bit higher than the beach. Had we been off wild camping we’d have known nothing…