Across the Atacama....

I kind of realise that I´m a bit "late", I wanted to be in Santiago the last week in August and I´m over 1700km away and there´s just 2 days of August left !!  I decide to go as far and "fast" as I can...

Wild camping in the desert, there's not too much else out there....

In 2 days I make it Antofagasta (back on the Panamericana, to the West of Chile), once again, camping in the desert overnight, and it was freezing !  At least -5 dec C, everything froze, including the dew on the inside of the tent which, when the sun is on the tent, immediately thaws and drips water on me, sort of an unpleasant alarm clock !
Antofagasta is a big busy  town and I don´t even bother stopping (which is a mistake) as the next stretch is the longest, hardest and most isolated. There is nowhere to buy food and I´m forced to have a cold night with no supper at all.

Next day I´m away early and pass a sign that says "Tropic of Capricorn", I´m out of the tropics !  Then something weird happens, I see a cloud ! , the temperature drops, more clouds, it starts to drizzle, a strong wind picks up & I´m suddenly very cold. It becomes WINTER !!! just hours after the leaving tropics !!  In retrospect I think it, possibly, had more to do with the Humboldt current, a cold water Antarctic current that closes the coast, right about here....
 

Beach at Chañaral

I´m forced to stop at Chañaral as I need a shower and a proper bed. This part of Chile is exactly the same as Western Australia to me, even the clapboard houses are identical, and, of course, the 100´s of open-cast mines around here (not sure what Chile is going to do when it runs out of the Chile that it can dig up and sell !!). Next day is a great run along the coast, in the afternoon I pass through Copiapo where 33 miners are currently stuck underground, but I don´t see the San Jose mine, where they are.

South of Copiapo there is a fence running alongside the road on both sides, dammit ! how am I going to camp ?  They have only just finished making the fence so there are occasional holes where the fence workers can get through. I exploit one of these for the night, but realise, it´s not going to be so easy from now on....Not really sure why the fence is there ? who is it intended for ? me ?   It rains all night.

In the morning I take a pic of the desert in bloom, lots of Chileans are also taking pictures, so it must be quite a rare event. It´s 300km to La Serena, I want to get there in one day (it will be my longest day) and have a "day off". What a day though, so tiring & cold, at about 5pm it starts raining hard (for the first time), so I reach for my $15 Peruvian Trawlerman´s waterproofs (I´ve been carrying since Lima) and carry on. They are quite a good fit ! but my boots and gloves are not waterproof, and soon drenched. Then it gets dark, with 80km still to go....

My worst fear occurs ! In the driving rain, and dark, the engine cuts out !  I now have to assume that the bike is not weather tight !! (I hired a Russian made "Minsk", 6 years ago, in Vietnam, and it cut out in heavy rain as well....). I think there must be an electrical problem and I am not amused !! Fortunately, I´m on my way down a big pass, so I freewheel about 10-15km. When gravity runs out, there is a restaurant !! After a black coffee, with plenty of sugar (for me !) the bike starts and runs fine !! I then make a very poor decision, to ride the 57km to La Serena in the dark (as it´s stopped raining). A truely terrible trip, the road is busy with big lorries and buses, I can´t see a thing, I´m freezing cold and wet. After 10 minutes the engine problem returns, and returns very 10 minutes all the way to La Serena, where I sputter into 3 hours later. Fortunately I find a very welcoming guesthouse quite quickly, and thaw and dry out, I shall never attempt a dark, rainy night again. It takes 2 hours just to hang everything up, wet sleeping bag too ! Fortunately, the next day is sunny and dry.
In the morning when I show the "guesthouse guy" how to move my bike, should he need to (it´s in his workshop) I see he has already moved it and broken the luggage rack weld !!! I have to bite my tongue....

White sand beach just South of La Serena

I have a much needed day off in La Serena, and it´s now only 475km to Santiago. I change the oil on the bike.  I assume that as it´s been inside for 2 days it will have dried off and will work OK. So I set off down the road, again. After 40km it conks out !! I give it 10 mins then try again, it works for 5km and conks out. Then 1km. Then 800m. Then 300m. What is going wrong ??

 I assume water has got into the carburetter, so on the roadside (not easy!) I take it apart, clean it all, put it back together. There´s no fix. I take the tank and seat off and clean all the electrical cables (the bloody handbook says there is a magneto, I find that it´s electronic ignition !!). Still no fix, I am well and truley stuck !! What happens next is what I half expected. I make an attempt to flag down every pick-up that drives past with the intention of getting a ride back to La Serena (with the bike). I try this for 3 hours, all I get is sunburn !!! There were 100s of pick-ups, every second car.  I did not think Chileans would stop, and they don´t. I´m just about to give up when two fairly drunk fishermen in the worst, rustiest pickup I´ve seen all day, stop !! and pick me up, with the bike.  They give me a very hairey, fast ride back to Coqimbo, 8km short of La Serena (with 2 of us on the one passenger seat), I give them $10 for gasolina. They drop me off at a moto mechanic´s place.  After just 5 minutes, this excellent mechanic, spots the problem, and I CAN´T BELIEVE WHAT IT IS !!  Somehow, just as it started to rain, the filler cap had become air-tight  !!  All I would have had to do to fix the problem was open the tank, and release the vacuum !!  The rain was a red-herring all along.......I´m happy that´s it a simple problem, but very cross with myself too. I´d had the fuel tank right off the bike but had not opened the filler !!

Two more days going South and I finally arrive at Valparaiso, my destination. I was not able to camp anywhere, there was a strong fence running alongside the road, the whole way. During this time the desert becomes green and verdant, the Atacama is over !!. In the last few hours I ride over a high pass and the temperature rises dramatically and the sun comes out. There are vinyards !! I am, it seems, in a mediterranean micro-climate !!  Which is a relief as I thought it was just going to keep getting colder and wetter.