Riding away from our hostel in Antofagasta, Hostel Herbe Suite to visit the “Hand in the Desert” I am feeling as excited as a schoolgirl. I have wanted to see this large-scale sculpture of a hand located in the Atacama Desert since we arrived in Chile and I just can’t wait.
We leave Antofagasta early as we have a massive day of sightseeing and riding planned. When we get to the “Hand in the Desert” I can’t believe I am looking at a massive hand in the middle of nowhere. It’s so random…
Never the less it looks magnificent and even the truck drivers with there families in toe want to have a look which amuses David and I immensely ….. Then it’s time to get back on the bike and head off for another 200km’s back through Antofagasta to the “Tropic of Capricorn”. It is the center of latitude that contains the sub-solar point on the December solstice, so in other words it’s the southernmost latitude where the sun can be directly overhead. Pretty cool!!!
So then for the final leg of the journey for today, riding out to Calama. Calama is a mining town and is known as a getaway to the Atacama Desert. Just north, Chuqicamata is a vast open-pit copper mine. Its a good two hour ride from where we are and all is going well. The plan is to wild camp at the Shell Service station as the reviews on iOverlander sound pretty good. David is a little skeptical but we will see. So we head off for Calama again taking the coastal route. There is something quite calming about starring out into the water and watching the waves crash up over the rocks as we ride past. I really like it.
When we arrive in Calama its very dusty and extremely busy. We head out to our arranged campsite and realize its not going to work. The Shell service station is very open, close to a main road and noisy. Not to mention allot of trucks, machinery and beggars. We ride around looking for alternative options but don’t really feel very safe about camping here so we make a group decision to head out of town towards Chiu Chiu , a village near Calama. Riding out towards Chiu Chiu the wind has picked up and we both feel it on the bike. It gets quite crazy and David starts to feel a little unstable riding. Our heads and necks are going from side to side and David is concentrating so hard to keep the bike on the right side of the road. I can feel the wind pushing the bike towards the middle white line of the road, thank god there wasn’t a great deal of traffic at this time of day. Going back and forth trying to find this road that would lead us into the quite town of Lasana, 40km northeast of Calama. Finally we get it right no thanks to Maps ME and the Garmin who are suppose to be directing us and the wind is picking up even more. We arrive into the little quite hick town with no electricity trying to find a camp spot. We ask a couple locals if it would be okay to camp here for the night and nobody seems to have any issues so we start to put the tent up. The wind is so bad by this stage it becomes a hard and trying process to put up the tent and the fact that we have been riding most of the day, tired, hungry and cranky we start to yell at each other . Finally we get the tent up using all the tent pegs and tent strings to keep it from flying away. Then off course the wind dies down…. After a few visitors checking that we aren’t going to murder the small amount of 20 people that consist of this town throughout the night we have some packet chicken noodle soup and bread for dinner get changed, watch a movie and hit the sack.