The Atacama

We took time out in San Pedro de Atacama with Julie and Oliver and swapped stories, information and any news from home. It was really good to have their company and sad leaving. We wish them well on their quest to Ushuaia.


San Pedro is such a tourist magnet for the young backpackers and is a main border town between Chile and Argentina. A neat wee town still with its dusty streets and old adobe buildings set in the middle of the desert with great restaurants and hostels etc. Some great tours to the outer areas can be had here.

We moved on and continued our way north to Iquique by the inland route through the middle of the Atacama Desert.This desert is so hot and dry that it is recognised  as the driest place in the world.

This whole desert region has a history of mining and in a few places it is still going on today with Chuquicamata having the biggest open cast copper mine in the area. Check it out on Google earth. The miners were on strike and the traffic jams ment we could not get to see it.

Iquique was a major surprise. The entry into the city from the high hills was amazing. A massive sand dune looks as if it is about to cover the city, it is so big.

That night the fire station across from our hotel was nearly engulfed in flames. It was good to see how other fire fighters attacked such a thing. All very similar to NZ except that most of all fire fighters in Chile are volunteers with only their gear and equipment supplied by the government, although we have seen a few public requests for donations in some towns and cities we travelled through. Seems there is lots of money for the military but not the fire service.

From Iquique we rode the next day for Arica before deciding if we would go to Peru or Bolivia. The ride had us dropping into a couple of massive ravines at least 1500 metre drops and then back out again. We have never been into anything this big yet. The shear size was too big for the camera to capture and the winds in the bottom had us thinking of Ruta 40 again. Another battle for the bike again.

Once in Arica we decided to head for Bolivia so a stop for the night at Putre was the goal. This meant a climb from sea level back up to 3600 metres, and what a climb it was. It was a lesson in road construction.

The most astonishing thing is that this road is a major route for imports and exports from Bolivar, so there are more big trucks on this road than anything else and it is not an easy road for trucks. Yet again these truck drivers amaze us. Its all very slow going and is incredibly hard on equipment. It is nothing to see these guys on the road side doing major engine or transmission repairs, being so far from any repair shop it all comes down to them.

We are spending a couple of days in Putre to get use to the altitude again before crossing the border. What the weather is doing in Bolivia, as it is now their wet season, will depend on what direction we take and what we see. All will be revealed.