We just completed 12 days and 760 miles of riding through the world’s driest desert.  When we started on this route we imagined high temperatures, blowing sand, and the potential for days without water.  We were also very worried about supplies and road conditions, since the major towns were severely damaged by flooding a mere week earlier.  In spite of our worries, we sincerely enjoyed this challenging and desolate stretch of road.  The temperatures were bearable, the wind was almost always at our backs, and we never had to carry more than one day’s worth of water. Oh, and we hit 12,000 miles!

In the Atacama desert.

In this update we will share our journey from the lovely city of La Serena through the flood-ravaged towns of Copiapo and Chanaral.  In Copiapo we had to ride in streets coated in a thick layer of mud, and in Chanaral we saw the destruction that flash floods are capable of.  It’s been a wild ride, but let’s start at La Serena, on April 1.

The excitement began before we even left town – there was a 5.5 magnitude earthquake that shook us out of our beds at 5:20 am.   We both awoke with the motion, but Jason was much faster to realize what was happening.  He shouted ‘doorway!’, and we leaped out of our beds to huddle together in the doorway.  Doorways are a bit more structurally sound than ceilings, so they provide a bit more protection in case the building falls down.  It was over quickly, but we were a little out of sorts.  That was scary!

As we left the seaside city we had lots of climbing to get into the higher valleys of the desert.

Tendrils of fog creeping over the mountains.

We spent most of the day coated in a thick layer of marine fog before emerging suddenly at the top of a climb.  Suddenly we were in the real desert.  We hit 12,000 miles and decided to camp in the soccer field of a small town (with permission of course!).  It was a good introduction to the desert.

Big desert roads.

Morning visitor at our soccer field camp.

The next day we once again awoke to another earthquake.  This one was only a 4.9 magnitude, but we still got woken up.  We weren’t as worried this time though, as we were quite confident the tent wasn’t going to collapse around us.

From there it was just long, straight roads through the desert with the occasional long climb.  We were very lucky with road construction, and had one half of a divided highway all to ourselves for well over 50 miles.  It was a dream bike path through the desert.   Something that we really noticed these past days has been the true vastness of the desert.  It is so big, and so stark, that it messes with our sense of scale.  Sometimes we can’t tell how far away things are, and what we think are small rock are in fact distant boulders the size of a house.

We saw a surprising amount of pick up trucks, cars, and firetrucks draped in Chilean flags and driving north.  They were all packed with emergency supplies like food, water, toilet paper, and clothes.  These folks were driving themselves to the north to help the disaster relief.  It was surprising and uplifting.  Chileans are no stranger to natural disasters, and seem to jump at the chance to help each other out.

Firemen driving supplies and volunteers north.

After 3 days we came to the big city of Copiapo.  This is a city that powers the entire region with the money from copper mines in the hills, and about a week ago it was hit by a flash flood following torrential rains in the mountains.  When we arrived we were blown away by the amount of mud still coating everything.  The main road was barely passable and coated by a thick layer of mud, and oftentimes standing water.  The side roads?  We didn’t even dare explore them, but we would occasionally see earth-moving machines pushing small floods out of them and onto the main road.

Because the sidewalks and bike paths were impassable, we were forced to ride through the muck in traffic.  At times the mud was 4 inches thick, and at times we were riding through standing water.  Needless to say, when we finally emerged we were dirty, and our bikes were coated in filth.  Luckily, just a short ways out of town we found a gas station with a car wash. That’s right, we took the bikes (and ourselves) to the car wash.  2.5 hours later we were clean and back on the road.

The fun wasn’t over yet though.  We had two more mostly uneventful days of desert riding:

Nothing here. Just sand and rocks.

Next we reached the town of Chanaral.  This town had been built, really, in a place that should have been left free of human settlement.  It was at the outlet of a wide river valley draining a vast stretch of high-altitude mountains.  When the flash flood reached the town it came with massive force.  Large trucks carrying toxic waste from the nearby copper mines were turned over and over again, eventually coming to rest (ruined) in the mud.  Houses were swept away.  The main highway vanished and was literally washed out to sea.  All that was left was a new inlet where seawater crept closer to what remained of town.

There is supposed to be a highway here. Excuse the power lines.

An alternate route had been created for traffic, so we could sneak through and witness the destruction.  It took us longer than expected because there was so much to see.

Ultimately, we were happy to leave this area behind and head into the wide and isolated desert.  We loaded up our bikes with over 30 pounds of extra water and headed back into the hills. There were still scattered areas that had seen flood damage, and a surprising number of huge puddles in the desert, but for the most part the next section of riding was punctuated less with sad disaster areas and more with unique desert highlights.  More on that in the next update!

An alternate road we didn’t take.

Beautiful, stark camping spot in the desert.

More road damage – this is Chile’s main highway!

You might be wondering why it has been so long since we last updated.  Well, the reasons are two-fold.  First, we were travelling through comparatively dull scenery and we couldn’t imagine filling an entire update with the following:  Tree farms and traffic.  Eventually the tree farms and traffic ended, but then we found ourselves in an internet void for many days.  Now, we’re back on the interesting back roads of Chile and tonight we have internet!

Let’s see, though.  Last time we updated we were just heading towards the coast.  As we neared the Pacific we began to see more and more plantations of perfectly lined up Eucalyptus and Oregon Pine trees.  The coastal road was rarely actually along the coast, and mostly wove through the hills a bit inland.  We did spent a few nice nights in campgrounds near water, listening to the crash of the waves.  The ocean here is not for swimming, but many people come here to surf.

Those trees are in perfect lines…

Way too much chaotic construction like this.

Finally, a couple trees that escaped the clear cuts.

Yep, that’s me pushing!

One of our favorite days was mostly accidental.  We had planned to take the coastal road, but were low on gas for our cookstove so decided to take an inland route because we knew we’d find a gas station.  We bit off more than we could chew with this route!  There was a very steep, mostly unexpected hill.  Even though it was paved it was still too steep to ride and we had to resort to pushing.  The descent was just as steep, and we even saw a truck at the bottom with crazy smoking brakes.

We ended up at this really charming town full of artisans and government buildings.  We also met a hilarious Australian kid of about 12 who was living there for a year.  He told us he was taking care of his grandparents there for a year, and that the town had a lot of legends about witches.  He informed us that he just tries to live his life without worrying about witches.  He also wanted to know if we had been to his favorite American city of… wait for it… Miami.  Obviously, this kid was a riot.

We spent a night in the surfer town of Pichilemu, which was most interesting for its super-scary grocery store donkey ride (see picture) and its 6-way intersections.  It seemed that at every stoplight we could turn most anywhere, but the road straight in front would be one way the wrong way.  After Pichilemu we headed back inland for a couple of days, and we were really happy we took this route.  From not-so-exciting and kind of busy coastal road we went onto a beautiful, low traffic roads through arid scenery that we call ‘Scenic Western Country’.

On this beautiful road we spent one of our scariest nights of the trip.  Near the end of a day’s riding we entered a valley with a forest fire.  It was a pretty sparsely populated area, so there were no hotels or camping areas.  We asked about a safe place to camp at the police station, and they told us to just ask a local.  There was a mini-market next store, so we got permission from the family running it to camp next to their house.  That night the wind changed direction after dark, and blew the fire towards us.

Left: Firefiighter blue. Right: Forest fire.

The entire neighborhood came out to watch the smoke and flames near their houses.  The fire reached the hills directly behind us, within a 10 minute walk.  We could hear the firefighters yelling, see the flames, and our eyes burned from the smoke.  The ash fell like a bizarre snow.  The young son of the family stood with us to watch the fire, and he was so sweet and scared that he talked non-stop for about an hour.   Luckily for the whole neighborhood (and us!) the fire stayed up on the hill and didn’t venture into the valley.  Even so, it was a restless night.

We spent a peaceful couple of days with my cousin in the surprisingly secluded valley of Tunquen.  It is so secluded (and internet free) that we actually couldn’t find him!  No worries, we camped on the beach, watched the sun set, and drank the bottle of wine we had brought him.  The next day we headed into the big city to drop off our bikes at a shop and finally met up with my cuz.  We had such a super-relaxing time that we neglected to take photos… oops!

Restful cabin where we spent a few peaceful nights.

Now, we are once again heading into the unknown.  Right now we’re in the semi-desert hills and mountains to the north of Santiago.  We’ve got a few more days of ‘small’ climbs (6,000′) before  we’ll be tackling our first high altitude pass into Argentina.  The pass is gravel, and tops out at over 15,000′.  Neither of us have been that high in our entire lives, and now we’re going to pedal our bikes up that high!  We’ll keep you informed – the scenery promises to be absolutely stunning.

A lot of photos didn’t make the cut for the narrative above.  Here are a few:

This kitten really wanted to share our meal.

Our bikes got some new parts at this bike shop on the coast.

A nice bit of riding.

There was dirt too in this section.

A typical Chilean snack: mote con huesillo. It is some sort of soft grain with peach and syrup.

Of course, puppies.

As we said in the last post, riding through the gentle farmland and along the pretty lakes was just a bit too… easy.  For this reason we looked at the maps to see what we could do to spice things up a bit.  There were a couple dashed lines around and through some national parks in the mountains, so that’s where we decided to go.  There were more direct (and more paved!) routes through this area, but none of them called to us in the same way.  Into the mountains we went!

We set off from the tourist town of Pucon.  You may have heard of this town because it’s been in the news recently.  One of the big, iconic volcanoes we rode past erupted just a few days after we were out of the area, and all the town’s residents were evacuated.  Here is a picture (that we didn’t take) of the dramatic eruption:

The same volcano a few days earlier.

So we set off from Pucon heading due East, towards the Chile-Argentina border.  There is a town there that is mostly composed of Mapuche people: the original inhabitants of the area.  It was a really lively town, with tons of Argentine tourists and a lovely plaza.  When we stopped to ask for directions the folks at the municipal building warned us that we would need a four-wheel drive vehicle.  They laughed when I told them we were on bicycles.

Jason on the bridge over a deep ravine.

After the pavement ended we began to climb up a steep river valley.  At times the river was a deep canyon, and various bridges crossed it to connect small farmsteads.  We ventured out onto the most impressive of these bridges, and it was terrifying.  We didn’t even make it halfway across before we were too scared to continue and gingerly made our way back to firm land again.

A section of incredibly steep road.

That night we found a great camping spot: in a cow field next to the river.  As we cooked dinner various cows and horses wandered by to check us out, but nothing bothered us.  It was one of the quietest nights we’ve had in a long time, in spite of the little dog that barked at our tent around 2 am!  We were grateful to the dog though, since when we went out to chase it off we saw the most spectacular stars.

View of the river at our wild campsite.

The next day we climbed up and up into the mountains.  We went three hours without seeing a car, and it felt like our own private nature preserve.  I (Daisy) found an insane beetle stuck on its back in the middle of the road.  Once I flipped it over I could not believe how awkward it’s giant mandibles made it.  We later learned it is called a ‘ciervo volante’, or stag-beetle.  Jason found a Chilean tarantula just down the road.  Around here they call them ‘little chicken spiders’ because they are known to be calm and friendly.

The lizard was half the size of the spider!

Here are some of the more macro vistas we saw on this day:

Ominous clouds as we start into the national park.

After this great loop in the mountains we spent a day on pavement to get to our next gravel road.  This one ran through a national park containing a massive volcano and its lava flows.  It was only a day’s worth of riding, but it was beautiful.  It was surreal to climb up black lava dunes, eat lunch overlooking a green lagoon, and ride through a high forest of Araucana trees.

We reached the top of the climb and began to descend.  At this point the road surface deteriorated and it was full of loose rocks and corrugations.  When a car came to pass us I moved over to give it some space, but I hit a loose spot and fell down while moving quite quickly.  Luckily I didn’t fall into the truck, but I did fall on top of a sharp rock that dug a deep gash into my knee.  It was only about a centimeter long, but it was full of little volcanic rocks.  The cleaning process was awful!  We had to use our water filter to squirt clean water in as we attempted to flush out the rocks.  When that didn’t work all the way I resorted to picking the rocks out with tweezers.  Yuck.

In retrospect, I am insanely lucky that this is the worst injury I’ve had on this entire trip.  Jason’s worst was the sting ray.  In both cases, we had less than a day’s worth of pain / discomfort before being back on the bikes at full strength.  Now, you probably need cheering up, so here’s some pictures of a couple more puppies we met this week!

Since the volcanic road we have been on pavement, climbing over hills and mountains on our way to the coast.  Not too much exciting has happened – we are just trying to put in the miles to get to another family visit and then on to Northern Chile.  Oh!  One more milestone to mention: 11,000 miles!