Alone again

I'm in Copiapo, Chile. It's been a few days since I left Puno - twice :)

The infamous Insight fleximap of Peru showed a road leading from Puno to Tacna, near the Chilean border. What it failed to mention was the type of road. Ten minutes after turning off the main road to Bolivia I was bouncing over rocks and potholes and sliding around on gravel. I asked directions several times and was told this was the road to Tacna, so I persevered for some 50Km before deciding that all 450Km of road was going to be like that. I was worried about the already-repaired-once-and-quite-worn-now tyres and the battering the bike was taking, and as there were no alternate roads, I turned around. I was almost back to the main road when the bike slid off into the deep gravel at the side of the road. Trying to climb back onto the road, the bike stuck fast. I was stuck with the front wheel on the road, the back buried in deep gravel and the bashplate under the exhaust grounded. The rear wheel was so deep the bike could stand up on it's own without me on it. At almost 4000m altitude it took me maybe a minute or so of struggling to free it before I was heaving for breath, much to the bemusement of a farm hand nearby.

He eventually wandered over, looking somewhat reluctant, and offered to stand behind the bike and push whilst I gave it some throttle. No dice. Our combined efforts just resulted in some wheelspin and gravel spraying everywhere. Another guy turned up and between the three of us we freed the bike, and I was able to ride up onto the "road". I checked the bike over and the chain was very dirty, but other than that all seemed ok. I'd hardly been able to understand a word the two guys that helped me had said, but holding your hand out rubbing your fingers and thumb together is universal, seemed their assistance came at a price. Thinking back to all the people that have helped me out of kindness made it easier to give them a few Soles with good grace.

I was now pretty exhausted, thirsty, and it was 1pm. I'd been on the road since 9.30am and was a total of about 50Km from Puno, where I'd started, so I decided to go back and regroup. Rubbish Peru map 2, Frase 0. The hotel staff were mildly surprised to see the whacky Englishman reappear, when I'd said hasta luego to them that morning, I'd meant it as "goodbye" ;)

The Insight Peru map went in the bin as I found that my Bolivia map had the relevant sections of road on. It showed the road I had taken in the map key as "cart track". I found that I had two options, either to head to the Bolivian border and then cut south, or go through Bolivia into Chile. I decided to try cutting south before the border.

The following day I left Puno, again, and took the same road out to the Bolivian frontier. Leaving town I got caught up in some sort of demonstration, complete with loud hailers and banner waving. An inauspicious start to a long day. This time, however, my road map proved accurate and the road south from the border with Bolivia was a good one. In fact, it was an awesome one. From the area of lake Titicaca at about 3800m, it climbed into the Altiplano. I was a little concerned about fuel, as since leaving Puno there were very few fuel stations. As the road cut south I knew I was approaching the Altiplano, which is desert to all intents and purposes, and I knew there would be no fuel. So I had to fuel up in the last town. This turned out to be harder than it sounds.

There was one fuel station in town. It had only 84 octane unleaded, the combustible equivalent of evaporated milk as far as my bike was concerned, but it was petrol and I needed it. Unfortunately, the pump managed three dribbles into my fuel tank, and then it was dry. The lady happily charged me three Soles, but I now had to risk crossing the Altiplano with enough fuel - just enough, if careful - to make the 300Km to the next town. The Altiplano itself was amazing, the road climbed and twisted through real desert, yellow and red sands and salts, dry lake beds, some Alpaca farms, some small lakes with Flamingoes, lots of wind driven dust devils. All at altitudes up to 4800m. However I was trying to conserve as much fuel as possible, and had one eye on the fuel gauge the entire journey. At one point I came across a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, it had a petrol station but it had long since closed. My fuel gauge was on the last segment, I had a gallon of fuel to get me 80Km. It was going to be close.

About 20Km from the town I was trying to reach, the road started to descend from the Altiplano and I started to relax that I wouldn't be on my own in the middle of the desert, out of gas. Until the realisation struck that the town on my map may not have a fuel station, or like so many others that morning, it might be shut too. I pulled into Torata with the fuel gauge flashing at me, the bike running on fumes. There was a petrol station, but as feared it was closed. I got off the bike, banged on a couple of doors, no one home. There was a fuel truck parked out front and I found a driver in the cab. He told me there was another fuel station out of town on the main road, maybe 4Km away. I figured I could get there, but the next town was 45Km away so this was my last chance. Fortunately, the out of town garage was open and I could breathe again :)

From there the road dropped into coastal desert all the way to Tacna. The sun was setting but I knew both the Peru and Chile borders were 24 hour crossings, so I pressed on to Chile. Leaving Peru was not too difficult, I had to fill in another form for the bike which had to be copied, then obtain a passport stamp and after checking that I was actually leaving with the bike, I was free to go. Chilean immigration was the model of efficiency, a helpful customs official guided me through the stamps I needed on the bike permiso, three of them, then my luggage was all x-rayed. If I thought they were tight on me, there was an SUV full of surfers crossing in front of me, when I arrived they were being searched and when I left, the car was being pulled apart and searched with torches. Nothing like stereotypes ;) But after the painless crossing I only had about 20km of riding in the dark to reach Arica.

When I got there, rather than try to find my way around in the dark I pulled into a petrol station and asked for the hotel I had Googled earlier. A kind lady in the queue introduced herself as Cynthia, and volunteered to lead me to the hotel in her school bus. I jumped on the bike and followed her, noticing as I did that I had lost a handlebar end off the bike somehow. The handguard was flapping about. No idea when that happened, or how. Hotel located, I thanked Cynthia for her help and she wished me a pleasant journey. I liked Chile already :)

The next morning I was awoken by booming surf and realised the hotel was on the beach. I wondered idly if the surfers had cleared customs, and put their car back together ;) Leaving Arica I knew I had a long day again to get to Antofagasta. I had seen a sign the previous night indicating that Santiago, where I planned to get new tyres, was 2085Km away. Ouch. I hoped the tyres would last that long :)

By now I was used to riding across desert, and it was just as well because all of northern Chile is desert. The Atacama, driest place on Earth. I rode more than 700Km into Antofagasta, hardly seeing another soul, and certainly not any trees or birds. Just sand. The boredom of riding enormous distances with nothing to see was offset by the Km signpost game, which I invented. Basically the distance to Santiago was shown on Km posts every kilometer, and from 2008 downwards I tried to think of something that happened on that year in history. I sang a bit. I waved at the occasional passing truck. I yawned an awful lot. The wind was vicious and constantly from the west, forcing me to ride with the bike at an angle and my neck was taking a real battering trying to hold my head still. The day's excitement came from trying to outrun a very large dust devil that was converging with the road ahead. It was really a small tornado, a twisting column of sand rising into the blue sky. I passed it within about 20m, and as I went by was buffeted by very warm winds compared to the cool wind in the surrounding desert.

Just before Antofagasta I crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, and managed to completely miss the monument there. It seemed like I'd only just crossed the equator, but it seemed centuries since I crossed the Tropic of Cancer, let alone the Arctic Circle. I got off the bike with a stiff neck and sore butt. Sitting in a comfy chair to eat was painful, I couldn't picture doing it all again the next day.

Leaving Antofagasta on Thursday morning was tough, and I laid in too long. I knew I had to shorten the day slightly so decided to try for Copiapo, just under 600Km away. I'd parked the bike next to another VStrom the previous evening, it had Brazilian plates. When I got to my bike I found the owners had left a little sticker on my fuel tank, wishing me a happy journey :) When I left I was straight back into the desert, the towns of Arica and Antofagasta on the coast are surrounded by nothingness. A little south of Antofagasta is a sculpture called "Mano Del Desierto", desert hand, picture at top. I thought the sculptor would have done a better job if the hand had been doing a Vulcan salute. At least drivers passing south on the long, dull drive would get a laugh ;) I was saddened to see that the hand is covered in graffiti, some of which had obviously been put there by fellow travellers. What makes people think their journey is so important they have to scrawl about it in indelible pen on someone's art work??

The day was spent much as the previous one, passing through an almost Martian landscape of reddish rocks and sand, in the howling wind.

Crossing the Tropic of Capricorn has sort of hammered home how far south I am, after all it crosses Australia, the other side of the world as far as the UK is concerned. And there is still a long, long way to go.

Frase.