I spent the second morning in San Pedro de Atacama exploring Valle de la Luna, an easy 16 km out from San Pedro and a very impressive desert valley, including impressive rock features and various dunes. The valley was almost empty, and when I stopped riding the absolute silence was eerie. I enjoyed mountain biking in the desert without my luggage!
San Pedro itself is a very pretty but touristy town, with not much more than 2000 people. It's the base for trips to some of the most beautiful scenery in Chile, so it's popular. It's almost car free in the centre, and a lot if people seem to do their errands on bike.
The next day I got up early and started off for Calama, 100km away. My plan was to cycle to Calama and then take the bus to Arica, near the frontier with Peru. I started off riding through some spectacular desert scenery, even more spectacular for the dawn light.
I had a friend with me this time! A golden retriever was following me out of town, and wouldn't be persuaded to leave me. I tried to shoo it away gently, but it just interpreted this as playtime. Eventually it ended up following me 15 km out of town, and I was getting worried as it was after all in the middle of the desert. So I had to share a bit of food and water with it, and then I decided to flag down a lorry going the opposite way and asked the driver to take it back to San Pedro. We carried a reluctant dog into the back and quickly shut the door before it decided to jump out again. I believe the dog was stray, lots of people abandon puppies when they grow up. But the dogs here are a lot friendlier then Bolivian ones.
An hour or two later I decided to be a lazy cyclist and go back to San Pedro too, the road had been uphill all day and there was a monster of a headwind; I decided I´d had enough fun!
That evening I took an overnight bus to Arica, the town furthermost north in Chile, on the Pacific coast. Chilean buses are very comfortable (National Express take note) and I slept really well. However they did try and charge me the ticket price again for taking my bike on the bus, the fact I managed to negotiate the price back down a long way means it was probably a bit of a scam.
I woke up as dawn was breaking and the road descended into Arica through the clouds, the desert above Arica was cloud free, but in Arica I think it was the first time I´d seen a cloudy sky since the UK.
Did a bit of sightseeing in the morning- spent a little time on the beach with the waves crashing onto the beach. Its great to smell the sea again! Then I went up to the large rock overlooking Arica. Its a great viewpoint, but its got a lot of military paraphanalia scattered all oer the top as it was the site that the Chilean army defeated the Peruvian army in the War of the Pacific. There was a very nationalistic military museum celebrating the event at the top too. You´d think they´d be a bit more sensitive to the feelings of the Bolivians and the Peuvians given they nicked the whole coastline.
My chain broke again on the way up that hill, I was just tackling the steepest bit when it snapped, sending me flying onto the pavement. I´ve owned some rubbish bikes but this one...
The Spanish here is very quick, its difficult to get used to after the slower Bolivian accent. They leave a lot of endings of words too.
The next day I took a 10 hour bus to La Paz, which winds its way up to 4500m from the coast. As Arica is in the Atacama the road took us through some desert scenery and then finished up high in the Andes on the Bolivian/ Chilean border. It was snowing up there, but it wasn´t as cold as it was when I was in the far south of Bolivia. It was a nice bus journey but I was tortured by about 3 America saves the world movies with non- stop gun battles.
Its good to be back in La Paz, I really enjoy this city. I´m staying with Gloria and Rene again for two nights, and then I´m off to Lake Titicaca in the morning for a few days. I´m cycling but not taking any of my camping stuff, hopefully this will make the ride a bit more pleasant.
I spent the day today doing organisational stuff and relaxing. I cycled over to the bike shop to get a new chain, and tried to bargain the price down as far as possible as it was the same guy I bought the bike from. I pointed out all the faults on the bike by way of arguement but didn´t get more than 2 pounds off the price...
I really enjoyed cycling around La Paz this morning, I can really feel the difference in my lungs compared to when I was here before. Plus La Paz has such an amazing background in the mountains, and lots of interesting markets on almost every street. However I did get told off by a policeman for not wearing a hemet (fair point but somebody stole it) and also for not wearing kneepads....
San Pedro itself is a very pretty but touristy town, with not much more than 2000 people. It's the base for trips to some of the most beautiful scenery in Chile, so it's popular. It's almost car free in the centre, and a lot if people seem to do their errands on bike.
The next day I got up early and started off for Calama, 100km away. My plan was to cycle to Calama and then take the bus to Arica, near the frontier with Peru. I started off riding through some spectacular desert scenery, even more spectacular for the dawn light.
I had a friend with me this time! A golden retriever was following me out of town, and wouldn't be persuaded to leave me. I tried to shoo it away gently, but it just interpreted this as playtime. Eventually it ended up following me 15 km out of town, and I was getting worried as it was after all in the middle of the desert. So I had to share a bit of food and water with it, and then I decided to flag down a lorry going the opposite way and asked the driver to take it back to San Pedro. We carried a reluctant dog into the back and quickly shut the door before it decided to jump out again. I believe the dog was stray, lots of people abandon puppies when they grow up. But the dogs here are a lot friendlier then Bolivian ones.
An hour or two later I decided to be a lazy cyclist and go back to San Pedro too, the road had been uphill all day and there was a monster of a headwind; I decided I´d had enough fun!
That evening I took an overnight bus to Arica, the town furthermost north in Chile, on the Pacific coast. Chilean buses are very comfortable (National Express take note) and I slept really well. However they did try and charge me the ticket price again for taking my bike on the bus, the fact I managed to negotiate the price back down a long way means it was probably a bit of a scam.
I woke up as dawn was breaking and the road descended into Arica through the clouds, the desert above Arica was cloud free, but in Arica I think it was the first time I´d seen a cloudy sky since the UK.
Did a bit of sightseeing in the morning- spent a little time on the beach with the waves crashing onto the beach. Its great to smell the sea again! Then I went up to the large rock overlooking Arica. Its a great viewpoint, but its got a lot of military paraphanalia scattered all oer the top as it was the site that the Chilean army defeated the Peruvian army in the War of the Pacific. There was a very nationalistic military museum celebrating the event at the top too. You´d think they´d be a bit more sensitive to the feelings of the Bolivians and the Peuvians given they nicked the whole coastline.
My chain broke again on the way up that hill, I was just tackling the steepest bit when it snapped, sending me flying onto the pavement. I´ve owned some rubbish bikes but this one...
The Spanish here is very quick, its difficult to get used to after the slower Bolivian accent. They leave a lot of endings of words too.
The next day I took a 10 hour bus to La Paz, which winds its way up to 4500m from the coast. As Arica is in the Atacama the road took us through some desert scenery and then finished up high in the Andes on the Bolivian/ Chilean border. It was snowing up there, but it wasn´t as cold as it was when I was in the far south of Bolivia. It was a nice bus journey but I was tortured by about 3 America saves the world movies with non- stop gun battles.
Its good to be back in La Paz, I really enjoy this city. I´m staying with Gloria and Rene again for two nights, and then I´m off to Lake Titicaca in the morning for a few days. I´m cycling but not taking any of my camping stuff, hopefully this will make the ride a bit more pleasant.
I spent the day today doing organisational stuff and relaxing. I cycled over to the bike shop to get a new chain, and tried to bargain the price down as far as possible as it was the same guy I bought the bike from. I pointed out all the faults on the bike by way of arguement but didn´t get more than 2 pounds off the price...
I really enjoyed cycling around La Paz this morning, I can really feel the difference in my lungs compared to when I was here before. Plus La Paz has such an amazing background in the mountains, and lots of interesting markets on almost every street. However I did get told off by a policeman for not wearing a hemet (fair point but somebody stole it) and also for not wearing kneepads....
No comments:
Post a Comment