Day 73. Saturday 9th November. Coranzuli, Argentina to San Pedro de Atacama. Chile. Miles 244 or 392k’s

What a day!!!

Yesterday late afternoon, while getting he speaker out of my luggage box, I found my bottle of shampoo had leaked through the toilet bag and over a pair of trousers and all over a raincoat!!! It’s such concentrated shampoo that it takes ages to wash out. This was achieved with the help of spring water which pours into a rough concrete trough. There were bubbles all down the mountainside!! The late sun and wind soon had the garments dry again.

This morning dawned a lovely calm day again, and we were packed and off by 10.15am. When loading the caranex on the roof, I found a bolt had fallen out of one of the roof rack brackets and lodged between it and the roof. I’ll have to remove the sand tracks to reinstall it.

As Jen said yesterday, we are headed for Chile. The sat-nav set for Paso de Jama, because that was the only option presented. Well, it lead us on a merry chase. After spending much of the day on dusty gravel roads, some badly corrugated, we made it to a sealed road, Ruta 52, but it immediately sent us left, instead of right! Again, Jen could not find us on the iOverlander route we should have been on, but could see we were miles off it, but roughly going in the right direction!

We have learned not to assume a road goes on straight, after cresting a hill, as one could have ruined us. On cresting, it turned sharp left and we just made it around and not over, into the abyss!

Reaching Ruta 52, decided to continue on the 5 k’s to the town of Susques, to buy some badly needed supplies. Eggs, apples, tomatoes and potatoes.

The Argentine – Chile border

The border is in the middle if nowhere. No towns either side, but is very efficient. Both countries sharing the main building, so processing of passports and customs is simply a matter of shifting to the next window. However, the customs lady wanted to see what we had in our fridge. She grabbed the tomatoes, eggs, apples, blueberries, banana, onions some of which we had only just bought!!! I managed to grab one of the big apples, and ate it in front of her, probably grown in Chile. We just earned another valuable lesson. Chile, like NZ, does not want to put it’s huge fruit export market at risk of imported disease.

With a 90 day visa we were on our way. It’s 3pm and a 112k drive to San Pedro de Aticama. Again, the scenery is luna like. Strong winds have smoothed the landscape to a velvet sheen.

Beautiful Border Collies with their eyes’s on something.

From an elevation of over 4000m San Pedro lies 2000m down in a valley. There are warnings to check your brakes. How anyone can check their brakes, defies understanding!! On the long decent there are regular gravel traps so that if your breaks do fail, you can steer into one of these traps. Well, that’s the theory. In practice they are poorly designed and a big truck is likely to turn over in the attempt.

There is debris all along the drive down. A double decker bus sat burned out at the end of one of the gravel traps. No doubt the driver decided he did not need to use his gears to stop the speed build up, and the brakes caught fire! Part way down, a hill, littered with the remains of a truck and trailer and it’s contents. Perhaps the driver opting for it’s arrest, rather than a gravel trap?

San Pedro.

It seems it’s a tourists mecca. Why, we have yet to find out. There are certainly young back packers everywhere. many from Europe and other. It’s nearly 5pm and we have needs to fulfill. We have no money, SIM card for phone, or place to stay. The fuel needle is deep into the red, we need diesel.

Which first. Money. we asked a local for an ATM. “Down there by where those people are standing”, she said. The place is one giant dustbowl. Defying a sign indicating no vehicles allowed, there are vehicles parked along the roadside, we venture down it into a paved square. Jen walked back to join the queue at the ATM. There are people sitting and children playing in the square. A willow tree providing shade and beauty. Waiting for 20min I decided to walk back and see how Jen was fairing. The ATM was complicated, with little English direction. A young German backpacker assisted.

Returning to Poki, there were two policemen writing things down!! Clearly, we shouldn’t have parked there and we were being written a ticket, in Spanish! What we do with the ticket, god knows. No doubt when we leave the country we will be presented with the answer. By now it’s 6pm and we have some money, but no SIM card. The policeman directed us to a shop for that. Next, diesel. The tank absorbed 70L, meaning there was 5 left. Now some accommodation.

Accommodation.

With wifi Jen found a hotel down a dirty dusty track. “Sorry, were full”. But have one room left for US$250!! We are directed to another. By now it’s getting dark. We would love to escape the town and head for the wilderness, but decide against it. The next hotel the Diego del Almagro, has a room and we take it for US$105. There is a Veteran Car Club rally group staying as well.

A Brazillian chap was intrigued by Poki and wanted to photograph it. We got chatting about his car collection and our association with the Rotorua Veteran Vintage Car Club. He had a son living in Auckland for a number of years, and had visited NZ.

The best thing about the hotel, it has wifi and we are able to catch up with friends and family and of course, the blog.

Sport.

Rugby. Despite being written off by most pundits, The All Blacks defeated the No1 ranked team, Ireland by 23 – 13. The new coach is starting to build a good team.

Again, despite the odds, Austraila’s Wallaby’s defeated England. This is great for Aussie and world rugby. Again the new coach is building a competent team. Ironically, the same coach that previously elevated Irish rugby.

Cricket. T20

The Black Caps were beaten by SriLanka. England beat the Windies and India defeated South Africa.

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