We woke reasonably early and ate breakfast on the beach.
Despite being the most expensive place we have camped so far, there was no
running water in the sanitary blocks.
The place was deserted, except for a few dogs and two tabby
kittens. It must be hard to eek out a
living here.

Today we were heading up to San Pedro, an adobe built town
high up in the mountains where many tourists, ourselves included, go to see the
salt flats, volcanoes and the El Tatio geothermal field which has geysers.

We rose out of Antofagasta and joined the Ruta 5 north. It
was recently surfaced and you had to pay a toll – definitely a change since we
last visited. We crossed the Tropic of Capricorn and saw a modern geoglyph on a
hillside. The road seemed full of red
pick-ups connected to the mining trade. We passed several old nitrate oficinas, now
reduced to a few standing stones. There
were also now new mines with huge slagheaps.

Where we turned off the Ruta 5 to head towards Calama, we
took a detour to the old nitrate town of Chacabuco. Like Pedro de Valdivia and Humberstone, it is
deserted. It was declared a national
monument in 1971.

Self-contained and miles from anywhere, it was home to 7,000
workers when it was open. It was
considered modern in its practices but still shut in the 1940s. It is closed to visitors on Mondays and
Tuesdays but we found the caretaker who let us in and showed us some old books
about its history. The dark side of
this place was that it was used as prison camp to detain political prisoners
during the Pinochet regime. There were
pictures of Salvatore Allende and a photocopy of an account left by one of the
detainees.

Whether as a nitrate worker or as a prisoner, it was a hot,
inhospitable place to be.

The main part of the town was based around a square with a
theatre, administration block and store.
A wrought iron bandstand stood in the middle of the square.

Once looked after by the state, the ownership of this site
was transferred to a not-for-profit organisation in 2003. Vulnerable to seismic activity and lack of funding,
the whole town was cracking and tumbling down.
It was sad to see. With an
entrance cost of only £2 per person, it is hard to see how this place could
sustain itself.

We still had a long way to go, so we hit the road again and
headed to Calama. It was a long way and
eventually we saw it, a grey streak on the landscape. Here we tracked down a supermarket and
hardware store. Then it was an hour or
so driving uphill to San Pedro.

San Pedro has very narrow streets and adobe walls each
side. It was milling with people. We had researched campsites and with the help
of Google maps managed to find the one we had chosen. It was closed. So we found another which looked closed but
we could see behind its security gate and there were people there. It was open but it wasn’t geared up for
motorhomes, only tents.

The proprietors said we could pitch up in the car park and
they would find an electricity lead to hook us up. Next to where we parked was
a dining area with fridge and cooker, great for backpackers. It seemed quite a
community and English was the common language though we seemed to be the only
native speakers. The other guests were swapping stories and playing music. The
facilities again were basic but clean.
Kevin and I have come to realise that Chilean camping is not quite
Camping and Caravan Club standard and we may have to get in touch with our
inner hippies to relax here – if we can find them!

Dinner was a disaster.
It was meant to be spinach and cheese empanadas (pasties) and tater
tots. The wave “oven” warmed things but
didn’t brown. The tots stuck to the
bottom of the thin pan and were reduced to a scrambled mess. The oven melted the plate Joan was keeping
things warm on. (The cooking and utensils kit is very cheaply made. For example, orange juice on a plate pock
marks the plastic.)

Night fell, but it wasn’t so cold and was comfortable for
sleeping. The camp had quietened down
too.