Trans Americas 2009 - The Blog

What a difference having a room to yourself makes. It's not that Jim's noisy or a bad room-mate, but the quality of sleep that comes from being alone cannot be equalled.... I slept like a bear in winter, waking to the sound of my alarm dragging me from yet another blissful dream...

With a couple of hundred miles to cover across the Atacama desert to a remote mining town used as part of this year's Dakar rally (which came to South America due to political troubles in Africa), I hooked up with Nick and Al and we left together heading away from the hotel and back towards the Pan Am. We stopped for fuel before riding back into the desert, with nothing but sand either side of the road leading to rocky brown mountains. After around 40 miles or so we arrived at one of the iconic images of the trip – the strange hand statue in the middle of the Chilean desert – and a great photo opportunity...





After the usual round of photos we rejoined the road and continued on our way through the desert. It's not the most exciting riding, rolling back the miles with the scenery changing only slightly, but there are always things that grab your attention. This time it was the shrines. On this endless, perfectly straight road, with no perceivable hazard except intense boredom, were a large number of roadside shrines. They varied from simple dog-kennel like wooden structures with a cross on top to more elaborate miniature cathedrals, some with flags flying, most with flowers carefully placed outside, some marked with rows of half-buried truck tyres to create a sort of aisle leading to the shrine. And there were lots and lots of them, spread along the length of the road. Puzzled, at a rest stop I asked Kevin about them, and apparently they mark someone's final resting place, as a result of them being killed on the road. Now this seems very odd, as the road is really simple, just a straight line in the desert. No loose gravel, sharp bends, potholes, complex junctions, towns or villages, or even errant animals wandering across the road (the desert being almost completely uninhabited). Seems even when there are no external hazards, some drivers are intent on having accidents...

Sadly, looking back at my photos I didn't stop to take a picture of one of the shrines, the intense concentration needed to negotiate the road preventing me from thinking...

Finally, though, we did leave the desert road and head up towards the mountains again, passing through a little village where we stopped for fuel for bikes and van-snacks for the rider (and the local dogs, who appeared with their begging eyes at the slightest rattle of snack-wrapper). From there it was a short trip up a large hillside to the town of El Salvador and our hotel for the night. A complete contrast to the luxury of the Raddison, this place was essentially a maze of metal portacabins in the desert heat (no air-con) with basic rooms and basic facilities. I loved it immediately, and set about doing some washing, which I hung out on the “patio” outside our room, confident it would dry quickly in the heat. After a short meeting to discuss the following day's long dirt ride to the Chile/Argentina border and the formalities, Nick, Simon and I went in search of an ATM and to suss out the local restaurant situation for dinner. Only we found the ATM in a supermarket, which led to us wandering round and me suggesting that as they had all the necessary ingredients we should have a picnic instead. This seemed to be well accepted, so we loaded up with bread, cheese, ham, pickles and wine and went back to the portacabin hotel where we took the furniture onto Simon's patio and laid out our feast...





After such a long time on the road, and endless meals in restaurants, it was a really welcome change to be able to eat something so simple. It was also dead cheap, costing around $17 for the 3 of us, including 2 litres of rather good merlot... and a sensible way to prepare for the following day, as we were all done and off to bed at a very reasonable hour...