We must have been the oldest campers on the site by far and
the sleepiest. During the night there
were constant voices and low level music.
Joan marvelled at the young people’s capacity to sit up so late, but
remembered at university she had always been a bit of a party girl, galavanting
till five and then at her desk by nine. (Levels of productivity, probably low!)

We slept till 10.20 and would have slept more if the day
ahead hadn’t been so long. We ate
breakfast on the beach. The sand is
impossibly white here. We switched on
Kevin’s mobile and Patricio had WhatsApped us to ensure we were OK.

Next we headed north again on the Ruta 5. The road initially ran along the coast, with
lots of tiny settlements occasionally scattered along the way. The long beaches
were deserted. It was noticeable that
there has been considerable investment in infrastructure such as new bus stops
with solar lighting. The roadway was new
too.

At Chanaral the road turned inland and began once again to
climb up to the desert proper. For the
most part it was one carriageway each way.
The road mainly ran on a plain with earth hued outcrops to the west and
east. There was no vegetation now and
clear blue skies above. This felt like a desert. We had expected the road to be “ripio”, that
is, unpaved and dusty. But it was
tarmacked and went on for miles and miles.
There was a brief respite at Aguas Verdes for petrol. There was no water to be seen.

Alongside the road there were the occasional signs of
mining, and dust roads leading off into the hills. Also, since Copiapo, we have seen new pylons
being constructed – hundreds of kilometres of them. They are spaced about 250m apart and their
component parts can be seen like giant Meccano sets in a long line across the
desert. Teams are erecting them in
different stages of construction. The
amount of steel required is mind boggling. Along with the new surfaced roads,
it feels like slowly the desert is being tamed.

It was with some relief we finally saw the Hand of the
Desert. We knew this meant that there was
not far to go now. Patricio has asked us
to get some shots of the motorhome in rugged places for their website. We turned off the road to the isolated
sculpture. Though it was deserted when
we turned off, by the time we were ready to take our photos a motorbike, 4X4
SUV and a lorry had turned up. We waited
for them to take selfies and leave before getting our pictures.

Then it was past some chemical works and a turn down to the
beaches of Antofagasta. Wow, had it
changed? We recall Antofagasta as a
slight dusty outpost town with wooden facades peeling with paint. Gloriously multi-coloured and a bit faded, it
had a slightly Wild West feeling about it.
But here was a new city of glass and concrete with designer bars and
towering hotels. We remember the old
ruins of a Bolivian silver refinery, Huanchaca, sitting on the edge of town on
a hillside. Now it is barely visible,
hemmed in by new development.

After failing to get into a supermarket underground car park
due to our height, we decided to look for a campsite. Our guide book is out of date and the ones
described seemed to have been cleared for new development. Eventually much further down the coast at
Huascar, we found one of the many places where you can hire a shaded table, BBQ
and parking place for the day and have a family picnic. We guess these are for families who don’t
have gardens of their own. You can hire these during the day. We asked a guy on the gate if we could park
for the night and he said yes. It was
pretty run down, but as we had a motorhome, it wasn’t so important. There were families playing music and cooking
meat. Before settling down, we went to a
supermarket for provisions and then found a spot to stay overlooking the shore.
By then, all the day-picnicers had gone and we had the beach to ourselves.

Dinner was a mushroom and asparagus pasta, cooked on the
single ring stove we have. A lass came to ask for payment. It was $20,000, double the rate we paid at
Bahia Inglesa – but we guessed they thought we could pay it!