1500km down 1500km to go

I looked up twice. The second time it was gone . . . I could swear I saw a tractor trailer coming down the road but . . . I looked around feeling a little strange but there is nowhere to hide a tractor trailer in the rolling dry brown expanse of sand. I see trucks loom up in the shimmering distance rounding the curvature of a baked earth growing from dots to produce hauling double trailer monsters that give a honk, wave and leave me in a swirl. Me and the wind's roar.

I thought the Peruvian Atacama desert was dry and expansive but Chile is a step beyond. Pedaling across a desert sea. The bitch of it is I never really liked deserts that much to begin with. Deserts are nice to visit for a long weekend but I am 1500km down and have another 1500km to go. I am weary of sand and watching out for twisters big enough to knock me over and rip shit off my bike.

My ball cap is pulled down to block sun, sand, and the horizon. The view does not vary rapidly and I find it best to not look. I concentrate on the side of the road looking at garbage . . . soda, beer, cheap wine, liquor . . . I guess I know how other people cross the desert. The liquor bottles are always empty . . . not the appropriate drug anyhow, I have hard enough time maintaining a line. But what is? Hallucinogens are out, I am already seeing things, maybe a little crank to rage against the endless press of the wind holding me at a maddening slow pace. I turn off and let my mind wander the shoulders of the Pan-Americana. Chile is a bit of a culture shock, perhaps a harbinger of my return, in that it is a more wealthy and consumer oriented culture . . . not without its dissidents. People own private vehicles, more packaging, more fashion, non returnable bottles, wood and scrap metal lay by the side of the roads. There is no scrap metal in many places because it is worth money and wood is fuel . . . but then again you need people around to pick it up. Some days I see more human figures than humans - giant statues in the distance or large geoglyphs of geometric patterns, animals, and humans. If someone told me a bunch of hippies pulled up in a bus last week to pile rocks on the hillsides I would have said "oh cool," but they are a thousand years old. Built along ancient llama caravan routes crossing the desert. They are set on the side of a dry river valley that harbored some of the only green I would see that day.
I pass more ghost towns than living towns, the remnants of saltpeter mining towns from the late 19th century to the mid 20th century spread across the Atacama. Saltpeter was used to manufacture sodium nitrate fertilizers that fueled agriculture around the globe . . . mildly ironic for a place where nothing grows. Humberstone was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site - the bathrooms still work but otherwise the incessant sandblasting will grind everything back to dust. Dust to dust. The usual collection of crosses adorn the roadside corner pullouts.However, some of the roadside shrines are quite large and are more appropriate to call a chapel - some are larger than the homes in Peru's pueblos jovenes and will make a nice camping option. I pulled off next to one for a seat and wind break, only after eating my orange did I turn around to look inside.The shrine was impeccably maintained for a young man that died on the road. However, in many places if you drive off the road you are going to have a bumpy ride across the desert, there is not much to hit . . . unless you run into a concrete shrine of course.
Small chapels to saints appear like circus tents in the middle of nowhere with an eclectic collection of offerings expressing hopes, fears, desires, thanks. The chapel below is dedicated to Saint Lorenzo the patron saint of miners and this region was the site of the recent mine collapse trapping 33 miners of 33 days before they were all rescued. The shrines provide a welcome respite from the sun, wind, and sand.After 3 days pedaling across the desert I look down on the city of Inquique narrowly hugging the coast penned in by large sand dunesand beautiful beaches on the Pacific Ocean.
My next 400+ kilometers will be along the coast passing endless beaches and caletas, small fishing villages, and promises to be more pleasant than the open desert plateau. Until then I am sitting, writing, eating, and socializing by the beaches.