Hunting For Parts

Reuben took me into Iquique bearing parts that need to be replaced, an inner tie rod, an outer tie rod, brake pads and CV joints which are looking a bit with and need to be replaced. 

Reuben gave me confidence because he went looking for the proper parts and accepted no substitutes. The van is heavy and the road is long and rough so we needed to find proper replacements. No luck in the first two shops. 

But in shop number three the boss got on his computer and couldn’t find the RAM Promaster listed, no surprise. When finally he accepted he was looking for Fiat Ducato parts he got with the program. He looked online, measured the greasy dusty parts Reuben brought in and to his surprise they agreed. I can get them here in three days he said. 

Reuben is Argentine and he likes living in Iquique so he’s applied for residence after working as a Toyota and Hyundai head mechanic at the dealerships in the southernmost city Ushuaia. He got sick of the cold weather and working in a t-shirt in midwinter tickles his funny bone. 

He also got tired of working hard everyday so in that spirit he took us to the beach for some ozone. 

Suited me. 

And I learned  about free overnight camper parking on the waterfront at Playa Brava. This spot could come in useful when we are in the area. 

The shop is ten miles out of town around the headland in the distance. 

Layne made sausages and beans for dinner, Reuben made olive bread and his mom’s famous Argentine mayo and we brought some beer from town. 

We here for a few more days probably until Tuesday or Wednesday at the earliest. We’re parked in the shop plugged in to electricity and with Starlink up and running. We lack for nothing and we’re going to be as roadworthy as possible when we leave, finally for Brazil. 

Iquique

We were offline for a bit there which was one sign of movement through the wilderness. It was a really nice break from being parked and plugged in, but we are back in a yard attached to the grid and preparing for more maintenance. Five years and more than 100,000 miles fully laden take their toll. They’ve been good miles though. 

Monday morning, not early, I stowed the Starlink and we took off for an early lunch and a shower. We were camped in the desert and had spent Saturday and Sunday down by the river in our van. 

Lunch was at the top of long uphill in a place where we had had breakfast on our journey north a couple of months ago. 

I liked my bean stew but Layne thought her beef plate was too greasy and it spoiled the memory of our scrambled egg breakfast of fond memory. 

Most overlanders we talk to aren’t too thrilled by driving the desert or the arid sandy coastline and though I would prefer to live within sight of waves and tides I don’t mind driving these landscapes especially on these kinds of perfectly paved highways. 

Highway 5, the PanAmerican in Chile is built like a Dutipean highway with clear markings and signs and disciplined traffic for the most part. It’s winter so it isn’t as burning hot as it looks but it did get around 90 very dry degrees. 

We got held up a bit by some road work but a good road deserves some care. iOverlander has some wild camps along this stretch between Arica and Iquique but we didn’t need to stop for a night as we had to get to the coast. 

The plan was to get our front end of the van checked as I’d been hearing some clunking especially on dirt roads. Mark’s shop has facilities but the shower is cold and it’s a bit too brisk for cold water, at least it is for us. 

This is mining country and it’s cold  at night because it is a dry empty sandy waste that epitomizes what a desert should be.  NASA uses the Atacama as a training ground for astronauts who need practice walking on the moon or nowadays on Mars. It’s that desolate.

And a van on a strip of asphalt rolls across this at a mile a minute with no problem. We keep the windows closed and open the vents and try to keep the dust out and listen to the radio as we roll. After so many endless miles of gravel and crap asphalt and hairpins the Chilean Atacama makes a nice change. 

1850 kilometers to Santiago, the capital, about 1300 miles. 

A weigh station for trucks and buses, we just drove on through.  

Chile offers some great truck stop along the PanAmerican including gas stations and even rest areas with showers. At the Copec gas stations they cost very little, a dollar or two while at rest areas they have an attendant to keep them clean but they are free. Here we had to stand in line for a bit but the hot water was worth it.  

Then we drive into the port city of Iquique for some food shopping. They call it Lider (leader) with low prices to live better. With the Walmart logo. 

Then we drove a few miles north of town to Punta Gruesa. 

Where they have a surf camp in summer and where surfers gather in the morning even on cold overcast mornings. 

Hardly any trash was nice change and the city dumpsters were a nice touch. 

Rusty loves the cold. 

Joggers were also in evidence. 

As well as surfers. 

Low hanging marine inversion keeps the sun away so it’s a bit colder than we’d like. 

Up next more tedious but necessary  mechanical repairs. 

Monday

On arrival at our desert wild camp Layne took a look around and pronounced “one night only here, I think. It’s not attractive.” And I will say the place is a little trashed in a Peruvian sort of way. 

I kept quiet and waited. Sunday morning I got up and made myself some tea and read the papers. Rusty snored in his bed, Layne did the same. Ten o’clock came and went as did a second cup of tea and the sun was high in the sky bringing some warmth to the cold winter desert air. They slept. 

The day went like that though Rusty did want a walk eventually and Layne spent the afternoon cooking and putting up some art she’d bought.  We had decided not to leave; the wild camp had come up in Layne’s estimation and that may have something to do with sleeping in till eleven. 

The campsite as listed on the iOverlander app was out of sight of the PanAmerican Highway up the dirt road into the canyon but we preferred the shrubbery near the stream and this the road.

We could hear the traffic but GANNET2 is well insulated so inside the van the noise doesn’t bother us and at night traffic drops off to almost nothing. 

Rusty liked the spot making the point by hanging out into the night and refusing to come  in. 

After we exercised I dragged out my kindle and settled into read my novel. It’s escape time for me and I’m reading a story by Thomas Keneally about life in Stonewall Jackson’s confederate unit. It seems well researched and nicely imagined and a vivid recreation of a time that is too often romanticized.

It’s nothing to do with South America so it’s a nice escape. 

We had avocado toast for lunch and German sausage and onions for dinner. It got dark just before seven and with night came cold desert air. 

Life on the road. Up next: the port town of Iquique and things to get done. 

Spooked

We spent Friday evening moving from one spot to another. We were parked in the lot at the tourist attraction statues in the desert watching TV and having dinner. Over Layne’s shoulder I saw a car crawling up the road and I mean slower than walking pace. Then it stopped and the lights went out. I locked our doors and turned off the cabin lights and kept glancing outside. We were alone in the desert except for the mystery car.

Then some cars drove by from the left in the photo above off the PanAmerican and the parked car turned on his lights as though to avoid being struck. Had it come into the parking lot and parked like any other visitor checking the statues I’d not have cared. And then the lights came on and we both saw a figure walking away and we both thought it was a couple fighting. The car eventually started moving and rolled very very slowly after the pedestrian. We both breathed a sigh of relief. 

Then a few minutes later the lights came back, square headlights with fog lights underneath, and the car stopped. Then it turned around on the road and went back to the highway and appeared to turn right and go down the hill toward Arica just ten miles away.

It was pitch black and 8:20 pm and we felt very exposed. We weren’t sure what to fear exactly but the occupants of that car knew precisely  where we were if they cared. We bugged out.

Driving at night in Chile causes me no more concern than doing that in the US so we drove to another spot we had used previously visiting this town, it’s  about half an hour north of Arica at the airport where there is a small underused parking area. Much safer it seemed to us than the vast empty desert where we had planned to spend the night. 

The funny thing was as soon as we settled in at the little parking strip outside the airport a whole huge gang of Friday night bikers showed up and parked all around us drinking coffee and bullshitting. From being alone and creeped out in the desert we were surrounded by a phalanx of noisy cheerful bikers having a good time. We stayed up till midnight when they left and we fell into a deep sleep.

By eight o’clock Rusty couldn’t wait any more and I staggered out of bed to go for a stroll to keep him happy.

An hour later we were still walking in a huge circle out in the desert. The red arrow above marks where Layne was snoring aboard GANNET2.

He stopped half way around and leaned against my leg and licked my face. The desert made him happy. 

Then he drank a bowl of water, ate some breakfast cookies and took a well earned nap. I had a cup of Yorkshire Gold tea and Layne struggled awake. 

We stumbled into town after noon so we rated it a slow start to the day. Northern Chile is much more like Peru than the clean orderly center and south of the country. 

Seeing as how we had to drive through town to get back to driving south we stopped at the Copec gas station for a well earned break from a tough start to the day!

For a buck fifty each we got access to showers. 

Truck stop showers with everything we needed, mirror sink and somewhere to put your stuff  and the place actually was quite clean, well used but clean. 

The water didn’t quite get too hot but it was warm enough to take the edge off, but not hot enough to make you want to dawdle. 

Then with a tank full of gas we drove south on the PanAmerican up mountains, across canyons and down valleys, stark but beautiful. 

As a test drive everything looked normal and the transmission so far feels just right and on smooth Chilean roads it was fun driving with a Michael Connelly novel on the radio we drove up and down. 

And at 3:30 on this rather delayed day we stopped for lunch. 

It didn’t look open but it was ready for us with no menu and a mere promise of food. 

First course was soup with a complete chicken leg, corn potato and squash and naturally pasta. A complete meal. 

Oh but this is South America so for five and a half bucks you get a meat course too. We aren’t Chilean truckers but we’ll take advantage of the places where they stop. 

We never got her name but she was fascinated by our story so she and her daughter got the nickel tour. She’s Bolivian and is going home next month to vote as she like everyone in that unfortunate country wants change. She wants a motor home now too. 

We’ll be back. 

Last year traffic was stopped for five days by a landslide here. This year a surprise rain closed the road again annoying regional officials taken by surprise. They announced this time the road will be fixed for good. 

We got held up for twenty minutes but this is the PanAmerican Highway and there’s traffic here. 

Cuya is the village astride the river that separates two regional governments and as such it is the place where the national agriculture department checks fruit travel. 

They checked our fridge but we’ve been through here before so we knew not to load up with fruit in Arica. They were friendly and professional when they took our token yellow pepper. Our vegetables were permissible. 

Then we turned right to Shrimp Beach where we thought we might stay. 

The village is pretty much empty in winter, the sky was heavily overcast and the track down to the beach looked a bit unappealing as it is narrow and clinging to the sandy cliff. 

We left and headed for sunshine inland. 

With a quick windy stop to check out a monument celebrating some ancient residents. 

“They build really weird statues,” was Layne’s anthropological commentary. I thought they looked like the Boris Karloff fan club but I’m notoriously incapable of appreciation of subtlety. 

The. Chinchorro culture are known nowadays as a people who adapted to life in the arid Atacama Desert coastal region 7,000 years ago. They have left the world’s oldest mummies behind along with piles of seashells where they used to live. 

It blows my mind how many records are set in South America where I’ve seen the oldest building, the highest town, the highest road tunnel, the southernmost city and so on and so forth. 

Look at this lovely Chilean pavement. We rolled along comfortably at 50 mph enjoying the scenery. 

iOverlander found us our spot alongside the highway where a trickle of water runs down to the sea. 

I spotted a travel trailer on the highway reminding me of summer when these vacationers are everywhere in Chile and Argentina. 

We had this place all to ourselves, wide open and ours to enjoy. 

You can see the highway in the background but at night traffic falls to almost nothing and our van is well insulated enough we hear very little when GANNET2 is closed up. 

Rusty loved it here. We couldn’t get him in after dark. He sat outside and refused to come in until he got thirsty and wanted a drink. Then he passed out on his bed. He’s getting old and stiff but I help him as he needs it and he’s getting better at letting me lift him up onto the bed. We are aging together.