After the excitement of the Blue whale sittings we headed out along a lovely coastal road through desert. The north of Chile is primarily desert. Lots and lots of it.

We stopped at a town with a large wooden church built in the 1860's by English carpenters in Chile to help build the railway. That night we camped in amongst some eeiry animal shaped rocks by the side of the highway. The desert area is quite scenic but all the towns seem dirty, dusty and run down. One such town was Chanaral. It was so bad we thought it must have been affected by a landslide or tsunami as there was cars and even a tanker half buried in mud in the riverbed and buildings with mud and debri inside. We looked it up on the internet but all it said was that 'it is an unspoilt coastal town not often visited by tourists although the sea is contaminated by the local copper mine. We stopped for diesel and then headed out. We could only think that they must have had a flood.

The National Parque Pan Azucar was our next destination. The road through the Parque ran in a semicircle of off the main Pan American highway. What we didn't know was that just about halfway round it was closed. The road had been washed away, so we had to retrace our steps back to the 'unspoilt coastal town' of Chanaral. The coastal desert scenery of the park was well worth the drive. One beach, with gloriously white sand, was about a quarter of a mile deep and a mile long. With not a person in sight it was lovely.

To avoid the Pan American highway we took another side road down to the coast. Again we saw evidence of a disaster and came to the conclusion that the area must have experienced a flash flood that shot down from the mountains to the sea.

We finally arrived at Chile's third largest town Angastofa. Our plan was just to pop in to stock up at Jumbo and Lider supermarkets, the last before we cross the border. We could not find any hotel that could a accommodate Arthur so drove out of town and camped in a layby. Copec camping has ground to a halt as it seems that the further we are away from Santiago the worse the petrol stations are becoming. Next morning we filled Arthur with goodies from the supermarkets, filled up with diesel and headed inland. The sun shone and with not a cloud in the sky the temperature was well up in the thirties. Believe it or not I was starting to crave a bit of rain, even snow.

The guide book mentioned a large train museum, en route, full of abandoned engines and carriages so we had a look. It basically consisted of an area around an existing train line with a lot of old and rusty carriages and some impressive but rusty engines in the remains of another circular engine shed. There was no museum as such so we just wandered around by ourselves. It was more of a train graveyard that museum. No health and safety concerns here, it's every man for himself.

Continuing on through more desert we passed several abandoned, and now in ruins, nitrate extraction towns. It had been a flourishing business before the Germans had made it chemically around the time of WW1. It has revived a bit as it has now been found that natural nitrates are better fertilisers than chemically made ones.

A railway line running by the side of the road occasionally came alive with a large and very noisy engine pulling lots of carriages some carrying slabs of copper (from the nearby copper mine, the largest open copper mine in the world) and tanks full of sulphuric acid (a by product of copper extraction).

The altitude started to rise and we decided to camp before driving down to our destination San Pedro de Atacama. We ended up on a side road in amongst a lot of wind turbines. Next morning we dropped down to San Pedro which sits at 2500 metres in the middle of the Atacama desert near the Bolivian and Argentinian border. On the way down we stopped to take a photo and Arthur ran over a large bolt and got the fastest flat tyre I have ever seen. After a quick tyre change we finally made it to San Pedro which is a very touristy town. Obviously our first port of call was a vulcanisation workshop to get the puncture fixed.

Our plan was to spend a few days in a nice hotel to get acclimatised to the high altitude before we cross the border which will take us up to 5000 metres. We soon noticed the altitude and felt a little breathless. Our hotel seemed nice but we soon decided we would have been better staying in Arthur. The room had no insect nets on the windows so we had to shut them making the room rather hot. Some insects had obviously managed to sneak in so till 1.30 in the morning we were up and down swating mosquitos. At this point Peter went out to Arthur and got our mosquito nets and one of his favourite purchases, an electrified tennis racket which he proceeded to use with glee to fry any mosquito that he could find.

San Pedro sits in the Sala de Atacama which is an area of the Atacama desert. It was at one time below sea level but tectonic activity pushed it up and pulled it apart leaving a giant basin surrounded by mountains of sedimentary rock. Rain has eroded these mountains and washed out the minerals including large quantities of salt which has resulted in the formation of one of the largest salt lakes in the world and some amazing scenery. We had visited the area before but liked it so we booked to go again. Whilst admiring the rather large sand dune I had a rest and Peter walked to another viewpoint. Whilst sitting on a rock I felt the earth move. I thought better of exclaiming 'earthquake' to those around so kept quiet. A few minutes later a guide from another group shouted to some tourists ' did you feel the earthquake'. Few I wasn't going mad. Peter was upset that he missed it and only said it was because he was walking and as I was sitting I had a much larger surface area in contact with the ground - cheek.
We also splashed out and booked a private tour across the border to visit the Reserva Nacional Eduardo Avaroa in Bolivia. We had thought about driving there but after the trip we were pleased we had decided to give the driver a rest. The roads around the park are just tracks some very rocky. In addition there are a lot of them and no signs anywhere.

The Reserva which has four volcanoes and many lakes claims to have some of the most beautiful and unusual scenery in Bolivia and we certainly would agree with that. The only drawback is that you seldom drop below 4000 metres so by the end of the day you are very breathless and have a headache. One lake, Lago Verde is a lifeless because of its arsenic content. Not one to swim in! Another, Lago Colorado is bright red because of a certain algae that thrives in it.

Tomorrow we head across the border to Argentina