Day 90: Still Heading South

We are still heading south…..but we are closing in on the final goods…..Patagonia. We will arrive there in two days and probably spend about five weeks there between Argentina and Chile. We are especially excited because we meet our son, Cory, his wife, Jen, and our granddaughter Marissa in Patagonia for five days to celebrate Cory’s 40th birthday. Bruce says it feels very strange to have a child that is 40!

We crossed the border from Peru into Chile 9 days ago. Between the Andes and the Pacific coast of Peru and northern Chile is desert. Amazingly dry desert. In northern Chile it is called the Atacama Desert. It is a huge area. It is starkly beautiful and over 1,000 miles long. The northern section is devoid of any vegetation (except for a few rare spots)....just rock, dirt and sand in varying shades of brown. It is the driest non-polar place in the world. After hours of riding in it day after day, it gets a little monotonous. Roads are generally straight, so we can zoom along fast (up to 80 mph) ….as long as it’s not windy. It’s windy most of the time so we’ve done a lot of sideways riding. There were a couple of times that unexpected strong gusts send us swerving trying to stay in our lane. Speaking of wind, we’ve learned to slow down and brace whenever we see wind turbines on the horizon. Something we never thought about before when driving a car.

Running out of gas in the desert. Thank goodness we carry extra gasoline. Gas stations in chile can be far and few between.

This sand sculpture appeared out in the middle of the desert.

The Atacama Desert hangs over the coast on a high plateau. We’ve gone back and forth between the coast and the Atacama numerous times as we traveled south in northern Chile. Our first night in Chile we arrived in the beautiful coastal northern city of Iquique only a few days before “Papa” (the Pope) came to visit. They must have trucked in police from all over the country because police lined the city streets and the highway for miles. This city has one of the most stunning entrances that we’ve ever seen into a city.

At one point, we went all the way east across the Atacama to the foothills of the Andean to the hot spot tourist town of San Pedro de Atacama. We did a day of riding there through Moon Valley and to a salt lake to see flamingoes. Bruce got into some deep sand and over his bike went.

The coastal riding in northern Chile is gorgeous. Most of the northern coast is undeveloped except for the occasional harbor town.

We stayed a couple of nights in the Valley de Alqui where the famous poet, Gabriela Mistrel, grew up. This is a beautiful river valley in the middle of the Atacama Desert, where vineyards abound. The grapes are used to produce

pisco, Chile’s national drink (Peru’s also…they have an ongoing argument over who originated this drink). For the record, Bruce thinks Chile’s pisco sours are better than Peru. Enjoying one of the famous Chile pisco sour drinks.

Chile has upped the ante for roadside memorials…. tables, chairs, BBQ grill along with the typical large covered structure. At times the memorial includes the wrecked car that the person died in.

We thought we were doing good with our Spanish……despite the time MB sent Bruce down to the hotel reception desk (was that in Ecuador? Or Colombia?) to get another towel. Apparently, Bruce’s attempts to say the word “towel” in Spanish weren’t understood so Bruce started pantomiming drying his body off with the paper map that he happened to have in his hand. The reception guy smiled and nodded his head in understanding. He disappeared in a back room for a while and came back with a bar of soap! Anyways, all our progress in speaking and understanding Spanish is now down the drain. Chileans speak an incomprehensible type of Spanish at 10 times the speed. We have now regressed back to speaking basic words to communicate and we can’t understand anything they say.

Chile roads and drivers are very civilized! No more speedbumps on the highways……lots fewer in towns too! Road infrastructure is US quality which makes riding a lot more civilized although tame. No more constant car honking. No more little motos and tuc tucs whizzing all around. It all seems pretty tame compared to the rest of Latin America.

After six days we emerged from the Atacama Desert to the harbor town of Valparaiso where we treated ourselves to a lovely dinner overlooking the

harbor.

Then on to Santiago for two days for new tires, oil change, air filter change and overall check-up. We are ready for Patagonia!! Right now we are planning on finding a way to fly or ship our bikes back home in March and follow ourselves by air. We are getting a little road weary and have decided that riding all the way back home is not in the cards.