464 kms

Well San Pedro has been kind to us, just what we needed. Some people find it a desolate dust blown place, but I guess they're mainly backpackers without their own transport. For us it's been a tonic. Completely different to the rest of Chile in most senses. Virtually all single story adobe mud clad buildings and a very predictable weather pattern and lots of interest around for us to venture too and return from. And it has to be said it's nice to find some tourist infrastructure by way of eateries of all types even if the prices are higher than elsewhere....if you could find it out here.So, once more unto the breach, and onto more endless miles of carriageway with little of interest by the wayside.

We returned to Calama, stopping in route to pour a bottle of tap water on a small shrubbery besides the road in the middle of nowhere we had noticed previously due to the 'please water me' sign. I guess an old shrine, or perhaps someone’s attempt to green the dessert. It's obviously getting water anyway as it's there, and it wouldn't last without assistance.

It was funny seeing a news headline in the UK talking of the south east possibly having hose pipe bans when we were in the driest desert in the world and there was such an abundance of water they can waste it by damping the streets down or watering verges.

The road after Calama, well after Chuquicamata, was in poor state to start and then was monotonous to say the very least. Dead straight, hazy, but still hot with it, and several power lines each side, with only pylons for company, quite abstract.

After a long straight uninteresting leg we joined the Pan Am for a much longer uninteresting stage. If you could ride the bike at 100mph you could get an awful long way along this road, but at 100kph it just drags and drags and drags.

Today’s leg was through nothing, zilch, nada, nought, diddly squat for the vast majority of the ride. It was extreme boredom, especially without any intercom to at least talk between each other. It’s unbelievably boring when riding; I can't image how bad it is as pillion.

The scenery was one of old abandoned Nitrate works from say 100 years ago or so, and their existence must have been extreme to say the least, must have been a god forsaken place, and then you see the iron crosses in their hundreds in fenced cemeteries. Some British, some German, like the fallen from wars.

Half way along we entered what was supposedly a National Park, it was another Salar, but common to others it was not what you would imagine. It wasn't endless white flat salt lakes, but in actual fact a massive expanse of what looked for the entire world like a rough ploughed field back home.

Habitations are few and far between, and when you do come across one it will have little for you. Perhaps petrol, or not, perhaps a posada for meals, or not, and generally just a row of kiosks selling drinks and corner shop supplies. If you want shade, this is your chance; there is literally bugger all in the way of shade anywhere else. There were a few scrubby trees today - the park - but they were set back offering little. You don't appreciate just how much cover there is almost anywhere else in the world we've been.

The extreme boredom was the reason we didn't continue to Arica and ended up in Iquique, we were just so bored we had to stop.

The dune outside Iquique, impressive!

Entering the city is quite surreal as you drop through the first larger more sandy desert scenery that you'd expect of a place like atacama. And once you see the coast you realise you are hundreds of metres up. The road drops down (two lane one way) cut into what looks like a huge sand dune. Far below you can see the large sprawling city at sea level with a couple of two-hundred-or-so-metre high dunes directly behind some of the buildings, very weird. The road that looks like it is going through a dune is actually cut into harder material so I guess only sand covered. Until we stopped I couldn't figure out how a road could survive being cut into what just looked like sand.

The road cut into the side of the mountain above the city, plus dune

We had checked the book and noted one hostel with 'motorcycle parking' so aimed for that. After a while we found it, had changed name recently, and I went in to see about a room. It would be about nine quid which sounded excellent, but it went a bit downhill after that. The parking was actually out front behind the ballastrading which I wouldn't classify as completely secure, and we had to remove the tank bag panniers and rear bag that we normally leave on when secure. After we had taken the room we discovered the next door room was inhabited by the family running the place and they were up most of the night for the door and had lots of young children. In fact we soon discovered the place was more like a homeless hostel than a conventional hostel. Rare we make a poor choice, but I had done on this occasion. Luckily the smell of our socks covered the smells already in the room. Oh for a love hotel now!

It's the impression you get when you arrive that sticks in your head for a place, like first impressions of a person. Fair or unfair, and it's hard to reconcile our feeling past that. We have perhaps had experiences that have coloured our judgment on some places we have stayed.

Unfortunately we could only smell drains when walking around, and we did that thing that does happen occasionally were you walk around a foreign town desperate to find what you want and fail, and end up wasting a lot of time, getting hot and bothered, and occasionally falling out. Then, when you least expect it, you find a gem. We did with the restaurant ‘The Third Eye’ (could translate that one as it had a Buddhist sign). And where was it? Just round the corner from the hostel! We had an excellent meal and wandered back to our pit to try and get some shut eye as we wanted to leave fairly early.

There are some lovely, if forlorn, buildings in the area, dating back to the time of the nitrate barons, beautiful wooden ballastraded building with loads of character and mainly with loads of maintenance required.

Once back in the 'hostel' we had a fair racket to contend with as the kids were running up and down the corridor as it was only 12.30 or so, but we forced our selves to sleep.

As with so many of the hostels here, the rooms had been resized to create three out of one. This is done using chipboard - or plasterboard - and wall paper. It does not create anything like a soundproof construction. This was proved later on when I awoke to one of the kids next door having a nightmare, and then the very athletic and impressive moans & groans from a couple the other side, with occasional headboard banging wall noises that led a certain hilarity to the whole event. Not what you'd call a five star establishment.

As usual in morning there was no sigh of life at all at 8 and we were packed and off before we saw sight nor sound of anyone (we'd paid the night before)

Saturday 25th February 2006

Iquique - Arica

318 kms

As we had no breakfast (and little else) with our 'room' we had to find somewhere before leaving, and it was a return to the garage forecourt to get a 'real' coffee and something to eat. Sad state of affairs, but very easy.

We retraced our steps to The Pan Am, stopping briefly to see the skeleton of a works at Humberstone. You don't see much on these roads, then it's all at your destination! We didn't want to stay so rode on for Arica.

Today was a bit more mixed than previously, but as you'd expect with us being so far north the temperatures were high too. We took a side road a few kms to see the 'Giant of Atacama' and were disappointed. There are many geoglyphs along the road, large figures and symbols made by ancient peoples by moving the top layer of scree from a hillside and placing stones as an outline. The same sort of thing as the Nasca lines, but on hillsides. Sadly 'the giant' didn't life up to expectations, no way as impressive as the Cerne Giant for instance, and in fact surpassed by many other geoglyphs we saw later in the day, many unmarked.

Geogylphs of llamas on hillside

We bumped into a bunch of bikes at the side of the road shortly after, coming from Peru, but mixed nationalities on a three week tour, organised I guess. Had a brief chat before continuing.

The scenery changed into far more (really!) arid desert like scenery as we crossed a couple of immense baked valleys with long ponderous uphills and death defying (or not!) descents. I say or not, because there was evidence of shrines by the roadside and when you stopped to look over the precipitous sloping edges there was sometimes evidence of the totally destroyed wrecks of trucks hundreds of metres further down the slopes. Quite sobering. If you went over on a bike you’d come unstuck, but at least be separate of the vehicle and probably not go too far down, but being in he cab of a truck, or a car, you'd barrel down in a horrendous set of death rolls while the vehicle tore itself apart. Quite sobering when you see a HGV coming up behind you in your mirrors. We’ve had one or two "Duel' type moments (the film where a seemingly driverless truck is hounding a car) and on the sections were they were doing roadwork’s and had a stop section seeing a huge rig coming down behind you was a bit unnerving!

Careful of the road edge please

There were still occasional oases in the valley bottoms, but otherwise absolutely nothing at all.

More geogylphs at side of Pan Am

Approaching Arica we came across a set of huge sculptures on the hillside and rode over for the token pictures with the bike.

Just before Arica, the sculptures

Arriving in Arica at about 4pm we thought we'd go up a class and see if we could get in somewhere first then try to find the Tur Bus depot to pick up the tyre.

The hotel we chose had underground parking and the room even had a bath! No plug or tap though! Having booked in we went out to find the tyre and hoped to get it fitted at the same time, tomorrow being Sunday.

We had great difficulty finding the place as the parcels go to a different place to the bus station, and it was on a huge industrial area. As we were looking a jeep pulled up and a guy said in perfect English "looking for somewhere?" Turned out he was a Kiwi who had been here for 5 years running a hostel. Bev got in the Jeep and I followed to just the right place, lovely guy.

At Tur Bus the fun began. Although people regularly use the buses to transport goods, it was soon apparent they are not quite as efficient as say the post office or couriers. There were piles of cargo everywhere and no one seems to have a system for finding things. It took over half and hour before they found the inner tube and discovered the tyre was at the bus terminal a distance away. We paid our fiver to get the inner tube and were sent off to the bus station were we met a guy with the tyre waiting to close up - lucky, or unlucky compared to the fact it shouldn't have been that difficult.

Having both tyre and tube we wanted to get it fitted if we could. The guy was very helpful and suggested a place near the Carabineros (police). We went, and it was closed. What would you do? Ask a Policeman. We saw a Carabineros rider going in to the station and flagged him down. He was of course a great guy and immediately shook our hands and introduced himself. Through use of some interesting collection of words and gestures he understood our predicament and said follow me! He called his mate (they ride in twos) and we had a great ride through the streets following the pair of them and mimicking their actions when they pulled through places we shouldn't have gone.

Moto amigos

They took us straight to an excellent establishment that proved (after our bad experiences in Osorno) that there were plenty of folk here that knew how to change motorcycle tyres, El Progresso in Arica, 1505 street name not known, are recommended. One of the riders had to return, and we were left with our initial friend. We got the tyre done in no time, and all for one pound fifty (making the Pirelli place in Osorno seem the thieves they were) We paid 2.50 as it was well worth it and our friendly policeman took us back to the centre so we didn't get lost. What a great guy! Obviously we owe Miguel in Santiago a massive thank you for organising us getting the tyre in the first place, it wasn't easy for him either so great he was such a genuine guy.

Three wheels on my BM

It was dark just about as we followed the bike into town and then bid our farewells at some traffic lights before returning to the hotel for a clean up before tea. We used the book to find an excellent seafood restaurant around the corner and had a cracking meal to round the night off.

Sunday 26th February 2006

Arica

0 kms

We had decided to have a further day here to relax after yesterday evening being so packed.

The town has some quite nice old buildings, and for a change we were central and so close to the sights. We walked up the hill overlooking the town and admired some pretty good views and visited the military museum commemorating Chile’s defeat of Peru and taking this area of the country. The display was a bit jumped up and rather one sided and I'd guess a bit embarrassing to Peruvian visitors = after all, it was well over a hundred years ago!

Old building Arica (Peru consulate)

That Eiffel character had been at it again, but this time we were able to see his steel church. It had been brought here from another part of Peru - for Arica was then in Peru, you'd remembered that hadn't you - and put up after a tidal wave had swept through town destroying all the other churches. It's an impressive building, especially when made of steel. It was closed, but due to some open windows and creative use of a digital camera we saw the inside which was also impressive. He got around this guy as we saw one of his bridges in Porto, Portugal, a few years ago too.

Eiffel´s steel church

Interior of Eiffel´s steel church

We had a wander around own and tried eating in a food chain place, schopdog (schop being draft ale) but that was a mistake. Cheap, but poor quality food compared to what you can buy in most small good places here.

Christ the redeemer makes like an eagle

It's very warm here, in 30s during day, and 20s at night, first time we've had it hot right through for a while, like a British heat wave - only here it probably la