Three Days in the Atacama

Three days in the Atacama desert region began with the ride southwest to Antofagasta, a port and resort town. The journey was broken up with a visit to a railway museum in Baquedano. The museum is not curated and is tricky to find. A fascinating hour was spent wandering around a substantial steam locomotive depot, with several old locos still at shed. It was as if one day it was decided just to stop using them and they were left in place. Baquedano became a rail town in the late 1800’s to support the nitrate extraction industry and survives today as an active rail community still supporting mining, but now it is all focused on copper.

Antofagasta is at the heart of the northern Chile mining industry; a 4 day heavy equipment exhibition started on Sunday. It is also a coastal resort town. Seeing a sign, ‘pulpo parilla’, I immediately took advantage of the marine location; it was delicious and beat cuy hands down.

The next time the bike sees the Pacific will be in Patagonia, though the next ocean will be the Atlantic, my journey generally heads east from here.

The Mano del Desierto, the hand in the desert sculpture, is about 50 miles south of Antofagasta and was the motivation to make a return trip to the coast. It is a motorcycle adventure rider icon, a picture of the bike (and rider if possible) in the palm of the hand is on many bucket lists. Check.

Chacabuco was developed as a self-contained and walled mining town and is designated a national monument to the nitrate industry, the original source of wealth for Chile. It ceased operation in 1940 but was again put to use in 1973 as a concentration camp for political opponents of General Pinochet. It is on the way to San Pedro de Atacama and tweaked my curiosity.

Like the Baquedano rail museum Chacabuco does not appear to be actively curated, though there were some signs describing the site, in English too. The theater was quite grand in its time and evidently hosted Caruso back in the day when being in nitrates must have meant coining it.

 Apparently, the Guggenheim brothers were investors in the Chilean nitrate industry; think of that the next time you visit a gallery.

30 years after closing it must have been quite a desperate place to have been shuffled off too as a political prisoner in the hope you would be forgotten. One prisoner, Autor Orlando Valdese, left a permanent mark on the site, as did others, though with less artistic talent.

The Atacama desert carried a green hue to my surprise, a thin carpet of vegetation, some of which was in bloom. The area around San Pedro de Atacama is quite desolate, though the town has greenery. 

It is a young person’s town, hostels, cheap pizza restaurants and tour operators abound. The unmade streets, dusty in the gusty wind, add a rustic charm to the place and reminded me of some towns in the southwest USA. 

A not-so-cheap courtyard restaurant served up a good dinner, washed down with a couple of  beers of Patagonian origin. Chilled out is not a bad place to be.

 A couple of additional notes; during the three days I crossed the Tropic of Capricorn twice, once heading south and today when heading north. I will cross it again before this leg of the journey is over. El Burro has now surpassed 8,000 miles since leaving home in January.

Oh, and the wind was still blowing up a storm over the salar north of Calama. It must be the time of year. It is gusty now and the airborne dust is obscuring the volcanoes, I'm hoping it will be settled by morning.

Tomorrow a 300 mile haul to Jujuy, Argentina; country number 6 on this journey. Another salar to be crossed, paved this time.

T2