Over the past 3 weeks, we’ve traveled through the remainder of southern Peru, checked in to Chile and headed down the coast past the tropic of Capricorn. Mostly we’ve stayed close to the ocean as it’s full summer here and perfect weather, but we’ve been nipping up to high elevation too when there is something we want to see. We’ve seen a lot of cool spots and gotten a lot of exercise too!
We spent a week at a campground in Tacna, Peru because it had a huge green grass field, an unlimited water hose and a ton of birds to keep us company. We had several truck projects we wanted to get done not the least of which was install new tail lights as the ones Jon had just installed a month before were crap. I’m so glad I hand carried those all the way back from the US so they wouldn’t get damaged! Luckily, we found another set in town of much better quality. Also, the front wheel bearings needed servicing. As Jon pulled each tire off, I prepped and painted the rims. I washed practically every piece of fabric we have given all the water we had and Jon fixed many of of our air leaks such that now, we can almost start her up and drive away without waiting for the pressure to come up! We worked at using up paints and other chemicals we have because when we ship out of Uruguay, we can’t bring anything flammable.
Then we cleared back in to Chile. It felt a bit like coming home because we’ve been in & out so many times. The roads are much straighter and the grocery stores have food in them you want to eat. We stayed on the outskirts of Arica at a beach and the birds were unbelievable in quantity. The beach was perfect for walking on too. We got some welding done of a crack in a crosspiece of the chassis and then headed out of town straight up to the mountains. Neither of us ever feel like stopping to get things done that involve other people but generally, Jon has good luck with finding a shop to help us in South America and we can be on our way. You can’t say that about everywhere.
Lauca national park lies at 14-15,000 feet on the altiplano with a perfectly shaped volcano and a couple of cute mountain towns. It feels so good to be up in that kind of scenery but it is also hard when you’re not acclimated. Ironically, it’s when you’re at rest such as trying to sleep that it is the hardest. Because we are bouncing back and forth, we can only go without sleep for a few days before we retreat to lower elevation. It is a unique world up there though and we hiked to some lovely spots. It’s interesting to stay in the little villages and think of what it would be like to live there all the time. A much smaller radius for sure. They even had a hot spring! We still think about how we drive well over Mt Whitney’s elevation and hike even higher than that.
Back down at the coast, we visited some really interesting beaches over the coming days. It took a bit to figure out that the anchovies were migrating or doing whatever it is they do in massive quantities that draws the whales, birds and sea lions in. Over the next couple weeks we would have many, many, sightings of everything and it felt like a wildlife bonanza. There were so many fish washing up on the beach alive it felt a little sad. Now they’re gone and it feels lonely when we look out to sea although I know they’re out there somewhere. We had lovely sunsets, long beach walks, we peered in to tide pools, went snorkeling a few times, took the bikes out several times and had the pack rafts out too.
It’s always nice to get out onto the water and look back at the shore, something we did for years, me longing to be ashore. Now I sometimes miss sailing off into nothing. It is a kind of solitude that relatively few people experience. But then I remember how antsy I used to get and am thankful that I can step out the door to a huge living room whenever I want!
The days around my birthday were great. We had moved to the isolated town of Pisagua that sits on the coast after a 30 or so km drive through mountainous sand dunes. This whole coast has a mountain chain actually that rises up steeply from shore to a plateau before rising again up to the Andes. This town was once a saltpeter port for the mines (used in fertilizer), then was used by Chile’s ruthless dictator Pinochet as a concentration camp for political dissidents before becoming just a sleepy historic village with a lot of room to be. We did some awesome biking here on a cliff edge road and discovered a sea lion colony that presented the best observations we’ve ever had. The pups were so curious they came right up to within a few feet of us sitting there on the rocks with a perfect perch to view them and the great landscape. We snorkeled in Pisagua wishing it was the South Pacific, hiked all around, sat out looking at whales over our coffee in the morning and just enjoyed being able to be there. The whales were a riot. A mom & baby were both feeding and spyhopping one morning for hours. It was funny to see their heads so far out of the water over & over. We could also see the bubble nets they make when feeding from our viewpoint campspot. I don’t think I would mind if I ended up in a humpback whale’s mouth for a second, would you? Did you see that in the news? It happened off this coast.
56 years on the beautiful blue marble now, nearly 37 of them with Jon, that’s a lot of birthdays we’ve shared between us. The year we met, our Vermonster RV was just starting its life as a fire truck in Sweden. Now we’ve been living in it for over 5 years. Its brought me so much happiness and taken me to places I never imagined, places far away from all of the unimportant stuff and right up close to what matters most to us, nature. And being able to get out into it fully. Whether it be hiking, biking, packrafting, diving, backpacking or rarely, sitting in our chairs looking out over it, these things keep us happy and focused.
We visited Humberstone which is a massive old saltpeter mine that is now a UNESCO historical site. I was really in the mood for this and it was filled with exhibits and old mining buildings and a good interpretation of what it was like for whole families to live and work in the mine and never leave it. They made everything they needed from toys to toilets and the most impressive was a large steel swimming pool complete with diving boards!!
One thing I like about overlanding is meeting new friends. So friends of Mark & Liesbet became our friends in Iquique, a city I really liked. Jeff & Sheri are from Alberta and we spent a couple of days together on the city waterfront. Iquique has the best city waterfront of any place I have visited in South America and one interesting thing you can do is paraglide down from the iconic sand dunes right to the beach where we were parked! So we all did this Valentines morning. It really only took a few minutes once in the air. I really liked the city for it’s unique dunebacked landscape and the beautiful crescent shaped beaches on a perfectly manicured, well loved esplanade. That night, we put together a great dinner watching all the locals celebrate too. It was a popular thing to have a romantic white curtained shelter set up with red roses and Sheri & I hinted all we could but the guys thought we already had it pretty good I guess…. We really enjoyed the company of Jeff & Sheri and had some good laughs and they shared delicious wine.
We had rushed out of San Pedro de Atacama in October because we wanted to get to Bolivia and climb Huayna Potosi befoe the season ended. So we bounced back up there last week to do a couple more things in that landscape. After a long drive, the “magic bus” campsite in the salar was a good place to stop. The bus makes a good photo point for many, but the landscape is what makes the spot come to life.
We rode our bikes here because it’s not every day you get to bike through such an unusual landscape. I was thinking about how many places you go that are special because of rocks. Volcanic rock, eroded rock, sharp rocks, conglomerate rocks, round flat, tall…. I mean even the Grand Canyon is really about rocks of different shapes & colors.
Then we headed up to the altiplano there to visit the lagunas. The scenery is spectacular. Flamingos again. The air is thin and the cool wind requires more layers than the beach. We even had a thunderstorm at the end of the day that dumped some snow at the pass. We had 2 fab days and even went back into town for our favorite empanadas in all of South America.
Along the drive further south toward Pan Azucar NP where we are now, we stopped at an old railroad “museum” where they had the round barn to service the trains. One thing I like about it down here is there are a lot of things that are just there with no one around. You are free to walk in and look at things such as this train station. It isn’t being preserved but it is there to view. Jon really liked it here.
We traveled the coastal road to the park where we are now and it was a ribbon of smooth pavement running through such remote scenery but somehow full of trash. Uneducated locals, primarily fishermen and kelp harvesters aren’t really in to the environment. We can see them littering. It reminds me of hamsters who crap where they sleep. The ocean was beautiful along that road but the garbage kept us moving. Everyone has been very kind to us though, it’s just a different thought pattern.
We’ve been doing a lot of you guessed it hiking & biking in Pan de Azucar NP where we are now. The beaches are beautiful but so far we can’t swim at them- too rough. However, we moved to a campground right across from the island we want to get to and are hoping to launch the packrafts in the morning and not die so we can paddle over- you can see it in the pic where there are supposedly seals and sea lions. It remains to be seen if we can make it through the surf!
The hand of the desert is a brilliant sculpture by Mario Irarrazabal that is an overlander’s icon sitting in the Atacama desert. But it actually represents the human rights violations during the ruthless Pinochet regime, a sobering subject. Still, just like others, we couldn’t help but stop and affirm that we made it way down here as was our dream.
We’ve got many more places to get to, so we better get moving. Goodbye for now!
