km 7.557: Lost @ Atacama Desert

The bus races down a whole two kilometres of altitude from the high mountains of the Andes. On the 40-kilometre descent over the gentle flanks of the Licancabur volcano, I drop my trousers and wiggle bare-bottomed in the face of altitude sickness. Everything changes! The Chileans are so fed up with the high mountains that they have moved the border control 40 kilometres behind them, right at the entrance to San Pedro de Atacama.

Thick air is great! Dogs that don’t look – or act – like Resident Evil! Sun, heat and no rain – we haven’t had that for weeks! Chairs worthy of the name. Toilets with loo paper! On castors! Cutlery made of stainless steel instead of punched metal, and porcelain instead of plastic. Spices! Good wine! Even the dirt is cleaner in Chile. Goodbye misery! Culture olé!

There’s often too much for me. Rarely too little. Bolivia in particular always managed the latter. It was like a test: how little can you do with? Account, taste buds and comfort said: damn little. Chile replied laughing out loud: “Don’t worry, we’re going to change that radically!”. And it’s right. Prices are rising by a factor of two to three, all ATMs charge €7, and smoking is generally prohibited even in outdoor seating areas.

San Pedro de Atacama has just 3,500 inhabitants – and 10,000 tourists. This is the front line of tourism. Charly shoots with a strict public alcohol ban and a curfew from midnight. The GIs in the bar right next to my dorm counter with decibel compression (“Shorter? Then louder!”) and acoustic torture (“You thought the music was crap last year?”). I enjoy the battle. You’re fighting for more than just survival here. You can grin at battles like this. I change hostels anyway.

Web design work is the purest holiday after the last few weeks. I work on various homepages in bed for ten hours, then the bumblebees in my bum start buzzing again. The wonderfully lateral-thinking pirate Max from Georgia feels the same way.

We hire mountain bikes and set off for the Atacama Desert at 15:00 in 30°C temperatures. The green valley of the San Pedro leads northwards through red rocky landscapes. An old rocky mining road continues 250 metres steeply uphill through an old tunnel from the 1930s.

On the other side, it goes down again just as far into the open Atacama Desert. The road leads through a red canyon. Deep sand repeatedly slows you down on the fast descent, almost jerking you over the handlebars.

The way back is exhausting. The rocks on the side are rough and you can’t make any progress at all on the deep sand in the centre of the canyon. We work our way up, panting.

There is only this one canyon. Isn’t there? Where is the rock in the centre of the descent? Did the horse and tyre tracks really reach that far up? Is this the right way?

Fear spreads. A little later, panic. The sun will set in an hour. There is little left of the two litres of water. The Atacama is the driest desert in the world, it gets very cold at night and the route is already technically demanding during the day.

My mobile phone still has some juice left, and luckily Maps.me knows these trails. We actually drove three kilometres up the wrong canyon. This route would have taken us an unfeasible extra 25 kilometres plus a few more metres in altitude during the day. We turn back, find the right canyon and make the ascent to the tunnel below the old pass just in time for sunset.

The technically demanding descent along the rocky old mine track is the purest exercise in relaxation after the previous panic. We reach San Pedro de Atacama in the dark. The hire company thinks we have covered 46 kilometres in our five hours. I don’t quite believe that. But it was pretty good.

I’m rarely scared. Panic today. Nevertheless, the trip could never have ended in a film à la “Into The Wild”. In Chile, even in the desert, where you see four people and no cars in five hours, cycle helmets and safety waistcoats are mandatory. Safety is a good thing…