| Jeff Poulter & Graham Tillotson: 3rd November 2004 |
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Arica to Iquique
Arica is best seen at night. When we approached it late last night out of the northern Atacama Desert, it was a blaze of welcoming light in the distance. As we rode into the centre, the shops, restaurants, cafes, bars, street stalls were all bathed in bright light. The town was a hive of activity as people shopped, ate, drank and stood chatting. In the morning, with all the neon switched off and ineffective, and as the town slowly came to life, it was light by a sun filtered through heavy cloud above. All the dirt and the grime were exposed, all the glamour had vanished.
Atacama Desert
Within ten minutes we are out of town and on the Pan American Highway heading south into the desolation of the Atacama. It's not the infinite flat sandy desert we expected, but more a low mountain range of smooth solid rock through which the road finds its way. The dominant colour is a pinky red but mixed in are a great many other streaks of colour as other minerals betray their presence. The mountains aren't jagged here. They're smooth, elegant curves, ridged with the patterns of the lava flows that caused their formation. The road south of Arica immediately takes us up the side of one of these mountains in a long gentle climb, seemingly never ending. Beneath us a big valley opens up. Everything is bone dry and barren. It never rains in the Atacama which claims to be the driest place on Earth. We rise onto a seemingly infinite flat plateau, our road taking the easiest course across it - a strip of straight black tarmac disappears to the horizon in stark contrast to the pink hue of the flat desert rock. The sun peeks out and it is eerily beautiful.
A pattern starts to emerge. We travel along long stretches of plateau then suddenly descend into another valley only to rise up out the other side on another long and gentle climb up to another plateau. Each time the climb out of a valley is more than the descent into it, thus we continue to gain altitude. Some of the deep valleys we dropped into sustained a form of life along the bottom, for we could see greenery from perhaps a 1,000 feet above as we descended each time. But, when we reached the bottom, it was just scrubby bush managing to cling on to life, presumably from water draining from the high Andes much further east.
Most unusually for this trip, the temperature is almost perfect. Not too hot, nor too cold, and neither is it raining. For the most part the wind is a gentle breeze. Odd. I expect we'll pay for this.
We begin to get a bit concerned about tonight's accommodation. Most of the places along this route marked on our map turn out to be tiny hamlets, just a adobe huts and a few slightly larger buildings with corrugated iron roofs. But no accommodation, at least none that we could see or would be prepared to stay in.
No overnight at Pozo Allmonte
Our plan was to overnight at Pozo Allmonte which we pulled into around 4:00 o'clock. It was really just a one street town, and not a very long one at that. It mainly offered a choice of basic cafes for truck and bus drivers and their passengers. Accommodation was none too obvious. Worse when we asked people who clearly lived in this tiny place, they had little idea. The only place we could see was a single storey dingy residencia on the main through road. As we lingered outside resigning to our fate, two drunks approached us asking for money. Then the door opened and we could see a dirty basic living room inside. A tubby woman wearing clothing too tight for her bulging figure plastered in extraordinary make up, emerged bearing a joss stick and invited us in. But where are we going to park the bikes securely overnight? In here, she answered, gestured to her tiny front room. It was obvious that they wouldn't get through the door even if we wanted them too.
While this was going, a bloke who had a smattering of English turned up to offer his help, more we suspect because he wanted to try out his English, which was worse than our Spanish. So started one of those conversations that have become familiar now, a mix of Spanish and English through which a vague understanding is reached. He tells us that this place will cost only 3,000 Pesos per person for the night but there was another place up the road. The unlikely-named Richard then hops on the back of my bike and we ride back out of town the way we came in. There, right opposite a Shell station where half an hour ago we had filled up with fuel, was a sort of motel, unsigned, of course. And full, of course, of gas field workers.
Onwards to Iquique
Back to madams? Then Richard makes a suggestion. Why don't we go to Iquique,,
50 km west on the coast, then in the morning we can take the coast road
to Antofagasta which is good and takes two hours less than the Pan American.
What about hotels? Dozens of them.
So we did. After struggling against an horrific side wind for an hour we arrived at the top of a rise and there, perhaps 1,000 feet or more below, are the welcoming lights of Iquique. As if that wasn't welcoming enough, we find that right in the centre is a delightful pedestrian walkway based on a nostalgic tram theme in honour of a bygone age. We find a delightful cafe and peruse the town's hotels as we sup decent coffee. O choice is two blocks away, indeed we can see it from where we sit. OK so it's up a one way street the wrong way, but we're foreign. Yes it has a room and can garage our bikes. It's dark now, so that's perfect.
Jeff 03.11.04 |
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