Day 16 San Pedro de Atacama to Arica, Chile

Day 16 San Pedro de Atacama to Arica, Chile

As yesterday was a rest day we had chance to catch up on many jobs which needed doing.  San Pedro was a peculiar little town, step back 200 years, tiny little windy streets and not a square metre of tarmac anywhere. The filling station was an experience in itself, almost impossible to find hidden away down a back lane.
 We went out for pizza in the evening with Jon and Chris, Richard and Nicola.  Back at the hotel our laundry hadn't turned up by 10pm so we liberated it, unclean.  This is starting to cause problems but Peter is pretty deft at washing his boxer shorts, I just have to find a way of persuading him to do mine too!
There were very few highlights crossing the Atacama Desert, first the biggest opencast copper mine in the world called "Chuqui" with vast spoil heaps the size of mountains (production 29 million tons p.a.)and then we visited a meteorite crater at Quillagua about 250m across.  This is officially the driest place on earth and looks the part.
We did a couple of regularity tests, one of which was a bit silly, very complicated and over terribly rough gravel surfaces, our front suspension bushes are on the way out and making horrible noises, we are unlikely to get to Rio without replacements.  However we have a cunning plan involving some nylon mudguards and a garden hose.  Watch this space.
Chile is turning out to be mildly disappointing, I assume there are better bits than we have been through today.  There is an oppressive police presence, they are everywhere, trying to catch us speeding and offering "help" by insisting on escorting us through the towns.  This is in sharp contrast to Argentina where the police were almost non existent.  We will be going back into Argentina later in the trip which is just fine because it's a wonderful country.
Tonight we are staying at the Hotel Panamerica which is on the beach, next to the Pacific Ocean and it's a fantastic sunny evening.  Guy Fawkes night, which Peter and I of course don't celebrate as we went to the same school as him, will be a bit different this year, and the cocktail party starts at 7.30pm. Tomorrow Peru.