North to Arica – 4/28/2013
Apr 29th, 2013 by rallyadmin
We’re on our way to Arica, the last major city in Chile. We leave the coast and drive back up to the desert. Soon it’s same boring ride north through the desert.
It’s hard to explain just how empty the Atacama really is. At least when we were in Kazakhstan, there were some plants and animals. It was hard to believe how the animals survived but we saw herds of camels and, in some places, herds of cattle. There were even golden eagles, lots of golden eagles.
Here’s there’s nothing. No plants or animals. No occasional group of scrub plants leaving off some unseen subterranean water. Nothing. And it goes on for hundreds of miles.
The only thing that breaks the monotony is the rare traffic and the signs at cross-roads pointing up a gravel road to an unseen mine just over the horizon or behind the nearby hill line.
The good news is that the temperature is cool, in the 60’s to low 70’s. We’re at between 3,000 and 4,000 feet so that helps but this fall in the Atamaca. In the dead of summer this place must be unbearably hot. Thanks for small favors.
Some time during the drive, we come upon a mine that is actually on the road. Dust, equipment and overburden or tailing piles. Miles of tailing piles, in perfect straight rows. Obviously, there’s no requirement to restore the land to original pristine state and, to be fair, the pristine land that hasn’t been mined looks nearly identical to the tailing piles. Just less precise. Put a few geoglyphs on the tailing piles and you’re pretty close to “restored original state”.
While we’re driving along we see occasional geoglyphs on the hillsides. Geoglyphs are drawings on the ground that are created by removing or arranging rocks in to forms. We see straight lines, circles, strange figures, even figures that are probably representations of humans.
We we get to Huare, we get off Ruta 5 and take a right to see a major geoglyph, the Giant of the Tarapaca. This drawing is said to be the largest drawing of the human form anywhere on the planet. It’s about 15 km east of Ruta 5 and the another km down a gravel road.
The figure faces to the west on a low hill and is flanked by lines and a couple of circles. No one seems to know what the figure represents but they do know it dates from about 900 AD. Whatever it’s intent, it’s very imposing looking out over the surrounding empty, flat plain.
We drive around the hill. The north sides has some major dunes laced with small windrows. But there are only geoglyphs in one place on the hill. A very quiet, almost surresal spot. Back to Ruta 5 and continue north.
We finally hit some road construction. Until now, the road has been perfect. Very little construction and in nearly perfect condition. Just what the Cherokee needed after Kazakhstan, Siberia and the Australian Outback. And, of course, the dreaded washboard bumps.
We slow down and, with John driving, creep along. Even the 18 wheelers are passing us. All but one, that is. He’s got a flatbed loaded with ammonium nitrate, one of the two components of anfo, ammonium nitrate fuel oil. By itself, it’s not explosive but it takes care to transport and washboard bumps are not water the flatbed driver wants. It’s used when combined with fuel oil as a mining explosive and there’s no doubt that there’s a big market here.
As we creep along, every time we hit a series of washboard bumps, we hear a clanging sounds that we’re we’re hearing Australia but could never locate. We stop and tighten everything that could be making the noise and start moving again. The sound is still there.
We stop again and check the shocks and the shock mounts again. We check the springs. Even though the noise seems to be coming from the right rear, we look up front. Nothing. Finally, I crawl under the car and really search.
I notice that a cross member that the right rear shock is mounted to and is welded to the ladder frame and the bottom of the body has broken it’s welds loose from the body. When the shock absorber takes a hard hit the body bounces against the cross member and creates the clanging sound. Another search for a welding shop. We’ve been here before.
Fortunately, the detour that we are on ends and we get back on good pavement again. The ride goes on. The day gets later. We get closer to Arica.
We cross over the high plain of the Atacama and then start to drop down into a canyon. A huge, broad canyon that turns out to nearly 4,000 feet deep. We go down for miles with the gently sloping walls of the canyon slowly enveloping us. We are headed west into the late afternoon sun and the sunlight makes the dark gray of the canyon slopes almost purple. It’s just beautiful. And again, not so much as a blade of grass on the walls.
At the bottom of the canyon, traffic is stopped. And, looking at the line of cars, buses and trucks, the road has been closed for some time. We stop and turn off the car. Out and down the road asking people why the road is closed.
A Chileno man who speaks English explains that the road is closed every day between 2 and 5 in the afternoon for construction in the pass up ahead. The road leaves the bottom of this canyon and climbs back up 4,000 feet to the plain on the other side. In the climb, the road is being widened and rebuilt. He says that we’ll start moving again shortly.
We take that news with a grain of salt. In Chile, “soon” is a poorly defined word. It means many different things – none of which are what we think the word means. We settle if for the wait. At least, the holdup is scheduled and not a rockfall or accident.
And about 5:20 the traffic starts to move. About 2 km until we stop again on our way up the bottom of the first climb into the canyon. This time, however, the wait is only for the southbound traffic to clear the road. They started to move first and the work areas has a number of one lane sections. Then we start up the hill.
The going at first is slow. The 18 wheeler are slow to get moving after being stopped on the uphill grade and they courteously wave the auto traffic around. We’re moving and making good time again. Until the next construction area through which we keep moving but end up behind 18 wheelers on one lane stretches of road. They go slow. We go slow. They can’t wave us by.
But we finally leave the 25 km construction zone and continue on to Arica. There 2 more descents into and ascents out of these deep long canyons. (The poor Cherokee probably climbed 25,000 feet today.) Just as it’s getting dark, we make it into Arica.
We’re trying to find one of a couple of recommended hostals. We’re following the GPS which takes right to the first one. John get’s out to check for a room. They have one (of course, the season is over here) but they don’t have parking and the area seems dark and kind of sketchy. We pass on this one and start off looking for the second recommended hostal.
The GPS finds the address but the route takes us right past the town center and what appears to be the main church. There’s some do going on and they have the streets blocked off. The GPS keeps trying to find an alternate route but either the streets are oneway, the wrong way, or are blocked. We take a left, head down a street and nearly run into a hotel. Fine, this will do.
They have a room. They have a parking space for the car right in front of the front door under a street light. They have breakfast in the morning. They have free wi-fi (are you listening Eurotel – Santiago?) And there are restaurants just a couple of blocks away. Sign us up.
We check in, drop our bags, wash up and head out for dinner. The dinner (pizza) is not very good but the Crystal beer is great. Who cares? We’re done for the day.
We decide that we may stay in Arica tomorrow. We need to find a welding shop. We want to find somewhere where we can recharge the Freon in the air-conditioner (it’s working but it needs more Freon). We need to do an oil change. We need to do laundry. And this looks like a nice enough place to spend a day.
Tomorrow, a rest day (kind of.)
Obi-wan