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Chile - Northeast (regions i - iii)
The Bolivian/ Chilean border crossing
From Arequipa in Peru we drove a few hours south along the Panamericana until we reached the border town of Tacna. A kilometres town we came to the very organised and very unlike any other we've come across so far border crossing. That didn't mean to say it was any quicker than the others, a long winding orderly queue, a fairly thorough check through our car, a few document checks and signs and confiscation of all our fruit and veg meant it took almost 3 hours until we were through. A vast improvement on the hectic, unorganised, get-ripped-off-by-everyone previous border crossings however. So this was Chile.... welcome back to the first world!
The first thing we did on entering the northern border coastal town of Arica in Chile was to go the supermarket. Wow! What a change from the previous 8 months...it was almost as good as sainsbury's in Pirbright. Stocking up on fresh cheeses, ham, fruit, veg and biscuits, we headed back out of town to find a campsite near the beach for the night. We found a very local type site which consisted of a little swimming pool containing about 10 fat adults and 10 fat children playing who can make the biggest splash. Music was blaring and there were plenty of weekenders drinking themselves into oblivian. Including an obliterated granny who had to be helped to a corner of the campsite to take a pee by her equally obliterated daughter as she was too drunk to make it to the toilet.... nice. A sleepless night ensued due to the continuous music from somewhere next door and we woke early, cooked up a breakfast and swiftly left.
Parque Nacional Lauca
The plan for the day was to make a trip to the famous Parque Nacional Lauca situated 160km northeast of Arica comprising 138,000 hectares of altiplano (land between 3000m and 6300m above sea level). We wanted to make it Lago Chungara, one of the world's highest lakes at the foot of the dormant twin Payachata volcanos and to spot some Vicuna's, Guanacos and Llamas and Alpacas en route. The park's altitude, well above 4000m in most parts, meant we probably couldn't stay up the top long but as we'd come from a fairly high altitude in Peru we thought we'd be OK for the day.
The scenery driving up the mountain was stunning and as we entered the Park only got better. As the guidebooks testified, we saw 100's of animals included the rare sighted shy vicuna's who are now E-J's all time favourite animal. The altiplano landscape was incredible with snow capped volcanoes and massive wide open spaces.
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We made it to the lake at 4515m just as the weather was starting to close in and managed to take a few photos. The altitude was getting tricky and E-J was starting to feel sick and headachy so we started the drive back down. After about 1000m at breakneck speed, MG was forced to cut short and slam the brakes on to avoid hitting an endangered vicuca... A few minutes later we smelt the unmistakeable smell of burning brakes... a problem with the ABS combined with the emergency stop had overheated them and after a couple of calls to Eddie at Frogsland in the UK, we settled down for a roadside lunch of soup and bread in order to give the brakes an hour or so to cool down. The remainder of the journey was spent achieving the tricky task of driving downhill for 2 hours without the use of brakes and using a slightly dodgy and worn out gear box which served to give MG immense satisfaction as he managed it...
Iquique
We made it to a petrol station in Arica by 5pm, stocked up on chocolate, biscuits and the local Red Bull type drink called 'Battery' and decided rather than stay in the campsite another night we'd push on through to the next major town along the Panamericana - Iquique.
Nearly 4 hours later, extremely tired and agitated from way too many sugary foods, we made it to Iquique. Arriving anywhere in the dark is always a pain and this place was in no way an exception. The task ahead of us was to navigate our way through an extremely busy city on a saturday night, find somewhere cheap to stay and find a secure place to park the car. Not an easy task.
Both a bit grumpy and very tired (MG from driving hard, E-J from concentrating on the road just as hard) we began the hunt. After several bad calls, getting stuck a few times in one way systems and general bad luck, we finally found an underground car park. Ignoring the guard who insisted it wouldn't fit, we drove in anyway and pulled down the roof tent as far as it would go in order to get it through. After that it was time for some food before the room search... A glass of wine and a pizza later we went to check out a recommended hostel a few blocks away. Possibly one of the worst we've seen which was also crazily overpriced we declined and kept on looking. Finally we found a decent place and fell into bed. The day had consisted of 13 hours on the road in total with only an hours break, including a mammoth climb from sea level to 4500m and back again... the longest day we've had in the car.
The following morning we paid a visit to the local Toyota gargage to see if we could get the ABS issue fixed... after a couple of hours and more than a couple of bucks later we left with a Toyota goodie back, another sticker for our car and a fixed ABS system. A quick visit to the local tax free shopping center 'Zona Franca' where we bought a new battery for E-J's video camera and we were on our way.
San Pedro de Atacama
2440m above sea level, this sleepy, laid back town in the middle of the driest desert in the world, the Atacama desert, San Pedro de Atacama is the tourist hangout of Northern Chile. It is an oasis of small adobe houses, has a pleasant tree lined plaza and a lovely 17th century church as well as unreliable electricity and water supplies. Our first night there was spent in a fairly noisy campsite with dirty showers and toilets so the following morning we moved to a lovely guesthouse with clean hot showers which kindly let us camp in their car park. The next couple of days were spent sorting out our trip to Bolivia which was to follow San Pedro, stocking up on water (40 litres on the roof and another 10 drinking litres in the car), petrol (a full 95 litre tank and 40 on the roof) and food (plenty). We also managed to squeeze in a trip to Valle de la Luna (Valley of the moon - Latin American call every place where flood and wind have left oddly shaped polychrome desert landforms this name) a popular attraction from San Pedro...
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We also backtracked slightly and returned to Chuquicamata, the world's largest open-pit copper mine which has served to make Chile the world's greatest copper producer and vastly improved the country's economy (Copper accounts for around 40% of Chilean exports). The mine produces over 600,000 tonnes annually and the magnitude of the pit is quite breathtaking. 4.3km long, 3km wide and over 850m deep it was a sight worth seeing. MG was very taken with the massive diesel trucks transporting up to 330 tons at a time up through the mine on tyres more than 3m high costing over 12,000 US dollars each.
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It was in San Pedro that we met Tim Bruce, an Englishman who having retired now spends the month of February every year travelling in different parts of the world. His 2006 trip was taking him to Easter Island, a place that unfortunately we were not going to make it to. He shared a lovely bottle of one of Chilean's best wines with us and we shared our chicken noodle soup with him. He then very kindly treated us to a dinner the following night and we exchanged travel stories and chatted about home and life in general.
Some pics of the town itself:
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