Iquique Winter

Different city different mechanic’s shop. I’m tired of living in the dust waiting for parts but we have some work that needs to be done so this is good, better than it looks. Our neighbor from Germany is not occupied as the owners are in Germany for the summer. 

Iveco is part of the Fiat/Ram/Jeep group so our two vans share the same door handles, and we both have the same front winch. Apart from that I’d hate to drive anything so big but some travelers are fearless. This Mercedes below is planned to become a traveling home but that project for an Iquique resident has been three years in the making and seems a tad bit stalled. 

There are vehicles of all sorts in the compound some waiting for parts while some owners are waiting for money to get them repaired. 

GANNET2 looks a bit uphill but she’s a magic van as the interior feels a lot less on a slope than it looks. Mark the owner rescues local dogs and so far he’s got five with a new arrival separated as she was rescued off the beach trying to raise a clutch of puppies. They all live next door and the youngsters are flourishing. 

We are hoping our parts will be in town within the three days promised. At least this time we are dealing with wear and not breakages.

The plan is to change the tie rods which control steering, plus the universal joints that hold the wheels in place and take the stress of the transmission. 

Rusty doesn’t like all the fogs in the compound but he’s getting used to them. He needs time to adapt and he spent the afternoon next to me sitting in the sun but he spent the morning indoors out of the way. 

These are the bits we are replacing. The one closest is the drive shaft that was the part that I heard clunking. 

The outer tie rod was new in Panama and it works okay but the torn rubber will allow dirt in so we figured it’s best to change both and not deal with them for a while. 

I had the aftermarket heavy duty CV joints installed in the US and they were supposed to last but here they are and will I trust be replaced by standard Fiat Ducato parts. I’ve been greasing these things every few thousand miles and I’ll  be glad to see the last of  my grease gun. 

The front brakes take the stress on the Promaster and we have spare pads but we’re going to keep ours and buy replacements. At least we caught these in time and soared our rotors. They have some material left but again the idea is to take care of stuff that is starting to give way and not wait until there is a problem. 

Exciting stuff. I can’t wait to be back on the road.  Oh and we tested the rooftop air conditioner when we’re in the warmer areas inland and wouldn’t you know it, it’s blowing hard but not cold. And we need that fixed for the Brazilian drive which will be in tropical heat. 

It was a day off for Rueben so we read and exercised and took Rusty for a walk in the desert. That’s how we wait in the sun either cold night and never at least whisper of rain this desert. Not a bad winter. 

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.