San Pedro round Two.

Feb 17-18 Arica to Iquique

We manage to get a relatively early start on the day, which allowed us to stop for breakfast at a large market area on the edge of town. The back  of the restaurant opened up to a huge vegetable market so we figured that the food should be fresh at least. The verbal menu system gets the best of us once again as the waiter rattled off the breakfast options and “completo” sounded like what we wanted. What we got was a large hotdog bun, small wiener, and lots of condiments piled on. Mmmmm tasty, we do not eat hot-dogs in Canada never mind down here but are not sure how to walk away without insulting the guy. They fill the gap until we can find something else down the road.

Some interesting sculptures south of Arica.

This backtracking has its’ advantages as we do not have to search for a hotel, we just go to the same place we stayed before and hope they have a room. The Andina Hostal does not let us down and we get a nice room with a shared bathroom at half the cost of what a private bath would cost. The shared bath is not our first option but at this point it was our only option in lieu of going out and finding a different hotel. It was hot, so we decided it would be okay to try. The ride from Arica to Iquique was enjoyable even though some parts were clouded in ocean mist. This salt water cloud is killer on the bikes as anything and everything corrodes if the bike is not washed at the end of the day. I figure that one night would not be to critical as we plan on doing oil changes the next day and a good wash afterwards.

Armando, our Colombian friend shows up at the hostal and we enjoy the evening visiting and getting to know each other a bit. He is an electrical engineer who is on his way to Bahia Blanca in Argentina to see his family. His ex-wife and three boys moved there when she remarried to an Argentine gentleman. We made plans to meet the next day for lunch after we changed the oil in the bikes and Armando finished some gift shopping for his boys. We were successful in getting the oil changed and bikes washed, we were also a bit surprised at the cost of synthetic oil in Chile. $30CAD/liter seemed a bit crazy but the alternative is engine damage and that would cost alot more in the long run. I did the oil changes myself and used Sr. Jorges pressure washer to clean the bikes afterwards.

There is always a bit of oil spilled onto the skid plate and it was nice to wash it all off. He was busy putting together a bid for the supply and install of tires to the Chilean army so we did not get as many stories as the first visit. This was okay as we had to meet Armando for lunch anyway, but something got lost in translation and the lunch plan never materialized, we found out he was shopping most of the day and lost track of time.

"Thats right I'm cool, better than Dog of the Day."

Feb 19-20 Iquique to San Pedro

The miles seem to be clicking past rather quickly as we make plans to return to San Pedro de Atacama today. Armando will be riding with us as the plan is to meet him at the campground at 9am and proceed from there.  The joys of trying to accommodate another rider is that things do not always work out as planned. He is not ready to go when we arrive at 9:15 and requests that we go without him and he will catch up. We travel slow so this sounds like a viable plan, we don’t see him for the rest of the day and actually just bump into him on the street in San Pedro, somehow he managed to get ahead of us??

San Pedro is as busy as before, tourist season in full swing and the streets are bustling with people trying to get their tours booked. There are as expected a large number of travel bikes in town, mostly with Brazil plates this time. We manage to get a room for our first night in Hostal Mamma Tierra, which is probably the best value for dollar place in town. The rooms are cozy but very clean, the shared bathrooms and showers are also very clean and equipped with shampoo and shower gel, but by far the best little item is the buffet breakfast the next morning. We have read online that is very good but we will have to wait and see.

The balance of the day is spent looking around town and figuring out where we want to explore the following day. We also have to find alternate accommodations as Mamma Tierra is fully booked for our second night in town. As I said we bump into Armando on the street after supper, he is happy to see us and we get the impression that he is not used to travelling alone, sometimes there is too much solitude for comfort.

In any event the second day in town is spent riding out to Lunar Valley for some photos and in the process we find a cool little canyon road that winds its way along the Cordillera de Sal. It is a well travelled road so that ads a level of comfort and concern, there are many blind corner on the little one lane path and the vehicle traffic can pose problems. No worries we make it out without incident and Brenda gets to collect some sand from the Atacama desert for her rock collection. Aside from textiles rocks are about the only thing we can pack comfortably without worry of breakage.

We meet Armando for supper and after some walking around we pick a unique little bar/restaurant with a good menu. There is also a live band after 9pm which should be interesting. There are many tables reserved so we figure that either the food is good or the band is popular. Turns out that both statements are correct and after a tasty meal we are treated to some Andina Rock music. The crowd gets into it right of the bat, singing and clapping in rhythm to the music. One of the waiters is especially energetic and puts on a show of his dancing skills in between hustling food and drinks. We can’t help but compare the culture to back home, we experience similar things in Canada  but the ambiance is very different. The bar/rest has exposed adobe brick walls, thatched roof panels, broken up concrete floors connected by gravel sections. The best part of the decor is that no two tables look the same and the seating is a collection of benches, broken chairs and plastic stools.

A few yawns indicate that it is time to call it an evening, plus we have a long day tomorrow which includes a border crossing and a very high mountain pass.