|
|
||||
Trans Americas 2009 - The Blog
The Just One More Mile story of Paul's Trans Americas 2009 motorcycle expedition.Wednesday, 28 October 2009
Deserts, Ghost Towns and the Coast...
As a result of the clocks going forward 2 hours, I overslept, waking up with a start at 6.30am, when I was turning over in my sleep. It was still a little dark outside, the dawn still breaking, and it was unusual to be up before the sun for a change. After a hurried shower and a quick packing session, I loaded the bike and went to grab some breakfast, just cereal and toast and jam. By the time I was ready to leave, most of the group including my usual riding buddies had gone, so I tagged on the back of Richard & Karen and headed back towards town to try and find the road leading back to the Pan Am. This proved a bit challenging, as we missed the turn, then when Richard stopped to refuel I carried on, riding round the one-way streets of Arica trying to find the elusive Ave 18th September, wondering if it was only there on that particular date. I found it eventually and was soon on the Pan-Am heading south once more, with my MP3 player cranked up loud as it's a long day's riding today...
The road went up into barren desert-like hills before dropping into a wide, flat desert. Riding along alone through this deserted landscape, singing to myself with not a care in the world was wonderfully relaxing. There was not much to break up the monotony of the ride and whole day I only stopped three times, once for fuel and twice to wee...
At one stage I was a little bored so took my camera out of my pocket whilst riding along, so that you can see what my days look like... welcome to my office...
The only point of real interest on the journey was the deserted mining town of Humberstone, now a ghost-town museum. I stopped to have a look round, and was soon joined by others from the group, as the town had been marked on the route notes as worthy of a stop. It was a bit odd, the buildings no worse than many we'd seen in Peru, but obviously having had much better days. It was an ideal spot for some photography, though, as ruins and relics were everywhere...
From Humberstone the road headed towards the coast once more, dropping down to the coastal town of Iquique. Above the cliffs there were around 50 paracenters, circling high in the air picking up the thermals and uplift from the cliffs and the huge sand-dune that was just behind the town. I found my way through the town to the coast road, riding out of town with the ocean smells filling my nostrils and the bright blue and green of the ocean drawing my eyes from the road. Once clear of the town there was still over 200 miles to go, along the road that hugged the coast. It was a pretty desolate landscape, with the hills to the left little more than rocky sand dunes and to the right the ocean crashing against the rocks...
I finally arrived at the town of Arica late afternoon and rode by the coast, watching people enjoying the beach whilst at the same time keeping a watchful eye on the traffic and trying to spot the hotel. It was at the south side of town, a fair distance from the centre, but it looked great. A Radisson, non-the-less, and very nice too. With the bike parked in the underground car park I went up to the room they'd given me, only to discover it only had a single king-size bed. So I went back to reception to change rooms, as Jim and I are not that close, and was told he was also in a “single” room. So I went back and quickly made the room my own, showering and washing some clothes and spreading my stuff around to make it hard for anyone to move me out should they realise their mistake. After chatting to Tracy I went to the bar to claim my welcome drink and was told by Julia that there hadn't been a mistake, the hotel had run out of twin rooms, so I had a room to myself for the night... bliss!
As a result of having some real peace (not that Jim's noisy, but just being alone was so pleasant), I broke my cardinal rule and ate in the hotel. The food I had was OK, although I swapped my crab pie for Aaron's vegetable lasagne as mine had crab shell in and he didn't like his (I thought it was delicious, just some veg layered with cheese). At least the bottle of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon kept up my reputation for choosing a good wine...
With dinner over, I went back to my peaceful room and tried to find something to watch on TV (failed, all in Spanish) before deciding to just get a good night's sleep...
The road went up into barren desert-like hills before dropping into a wide, flat desert. Riding along alone through this deserted landscape, singing to myself with not a care in the world was wonderfully relaxing. There was not much to break up the monotony of the ride and whole day I only stopped three times, once for fuel and twice to wee...
At one stage I was a little bored so took my camera out of my pocket whilst riding along, so that you can see what my days look like... welcome to my office...
The only point of real interest on the journey was the deserted mining town of Humberstone, now a ghost-town museum. I stopped to have a look round, and was soon joined by others from the group, as the town had been marked on the route notes as worthy of a stop. It was a bit odd, the buildings no worse than many we'd seen in Peru, but obviously having had much better days. It was an ideal spot for some photography, though, as ruins and relics were everywhere...
From Humberstone the road headed towards the coast once more, dropping down to the coastal town of Iquique. Above the cliffs there were around 50 paracenters, circling high in the air picking up the thermals and uplift from the cliffs and the huge sand-dune that was just behind the town. I found my way through the town to the coast road, riding out of town with the ocean smells filling my nostrils and the bright blue and green of the ocean drawing my eyes from the road. Once clear of the town there was still over 200 miles to go, along the road that hugged the coast. It was a pretty desolate landscape, with the hills to the left little more than rocky sand dunes and to the right the ocean crashing against the rocks...
I finally arrived at the town of Arica late afternoon and rode by the coast, watching people enjoying the beach whilst at the same time keeping a watchful eye on the traffic and trying to spot the hotel. It was at the south side of town, a fair distance from the centre, but it looked great. A Radisson, non-the-less, and very nice too. With the bike parked in the underground car park I went up to the room they'd given me, only to discover it only had a single king-size bed. So I went back to reception to change rooms, as Jim and I are not that close, and was told he was also in a “single” room. So I went back and quickly made the room my own, showering and washing some clothes and spreading my stuff around to make it hard for anyone to move me out should they realise their mistake. After chatting to Tracy I went to the bar to claim my welcome drink and was told by Julia that there hadn't been a mistake, the hotel had run out of twin rooms, so I had a room to myself for the night... bliss!
As a result of having some real peace (not that Jim's noisy, but just being alone was so pleasant), I broke my cardinal rule and ate in the hotel. The food I had was OK, although I swapped my crab pie for Aaron's vegetable lasagne as mine had crab shell in and he didn't like his (I thought it was delicious, just some veg layered with cheese). At least the bottle of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon kept up my reputation for choosing a good wine...
With dinner over, I went back to my peaceful room and tried to find something to watch on TV (failed, all in Spanish) before deciding to just get a good night's sleep...
posted by Paul # 23:53 
Archives
July 2009 August 2009 September 2009 October 2009
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]