The Hand of the Desert

That morning we should have been celebrating being out of the garage, but Boris had messaged us the previous night demanding money. He wanted to charge us just under £10 a day, for 34 days. This was somewhat of a shock as he had told us that he didn’t want any money when we had brought it up on the very first day we arrived. We did realise we had been there far longer than we had initially said and had been using their water and electricity, so it was only fair that we paid something. We told him we were happy to pay something, but were unsure why he was charging us more than the other travellers, especially as they had only gone to his garage because of us. He told us it was ‘our way of thinking’ that was at fault and he had never agreed that anything would be free. Things soured somewhat.

We regretted leaving the previous night. We should have stayed and said goodbye properly. I think this was partially why he was charging us like this; he was angry. That was on us really, we shouldn’t have left like that. After so long though, we were desperate to get out. Things had also been less to our liking over the last 10 days or so. Boris seemed less friendly, the police had arrived looking for him and his drinking and clear drug-taking was more obvious. The Venezuelans living on site weren’t happy about it, but there wasn’t really anything they could do. It created a slightly tense atmosphere and we got the feeling he just saw us as ‘the lazy rich gringos’ sitting in his workshop day after day, not doing a lot. In a way it was true, we didn’t do a lot. We were often so tired from being kept up into the small hours of the morning that we didn’t have the energy to do much useful. Mejillones itself was also not a useful town. They had some very basic DIY shops and not a single car parts shop. This meant that any projects we did want to do, we couldn’t get hold of the right materials for. The other alternative was a pricey and long journey into the city, which didn’t really seem worth it.

Still, we felt bad. At least if we had left in person we could have discussed the money face to face. We decided that we would drive back and pay him. Due to a bit of a communication error, when we got all the way back there no one was at the garage. They apparently were in the city that day. So we left the money he had asked for, drew a line under the experience and this time left for good. I made a mental note to get any agreements like this in writing in the future as we headed once more back to the city.

We stocked up at the market once more and got ready to leave for good. Our initial plan had been to recross the border at San Pedro and enter Argentina there. We decided, however, that we were in major need of a visit to Decathlon and so we opted instead to drive around 1000km down the coast to the capital, Santiago. This was going to be a bit of an expensive endeavour with the cost of fuel here, but we could also visit the very nice beach of Pan de Azúcar as we didn’t quite feel we had got our money’s worth with beach visits in Chile yet.

Our first spot to truly wild camp in nearly six weeks was El Mano del Desierto. Located just an hour south of Antofagasta, this is a popular spot to view the stars and take photos at night. Sitting a short distance off one of the main roads south, this huge concrete hand rises up out of the desert floor. It’s possible to camp directly at the hand, but we heard it can be a popular local hangout at night, despite being in the middle of nowhere. We drove on past it, down the hill, and tucked ourselves away a little further from the road noise.

The wind was intense. It blew our chairs across the sand and howled around the van. Aimee and Lexi were not impressed. Aimee hid inside, but we couldn’t find Lexi. She always takes a little while to get back into the swing of things after long periods off the road and so we wanted to check on her. We walked out into the desert, unable to hear anything over the howling wind. Lee even got his bike down and began to cycle around. We couldn’t see her anywhere, in the van or under it. I checked underneath in case she had climbed on top of the gearbox to escape the wind and while I didn’t see her, I did see the puddle of oil forming under the clutch. Not even 24 hours back on the road and it was already leaking oil. Still, there was no way we were going back now as we didn’t have the time even if we wanted to. Right then, we were too focused on finding the cat.

In the end, after a rather stressful hour, I climbed up the spare wheel and spotted her on the roof. She was curled up under the paddle of one of the kayaks, so we couldn’t see her from the ground. She was totally oblivious to us running around in a panic below. We would clearly need some practice using their trackers, as if we had just made sure it was charged before we let her out, we would have saved ourselves a few extra grey hairs.

As the afternoon wore on, the wind dropped and we walked over to see the hand. It was indeed popular; a constant stream of people arrived to take their photos. We decided we’d drive up to it in the morning when it was quieter for ours and instead went back in the night to try and get some in the dark.

The next morning, we managed a brief window to get some photos of Ruby too. Then things started to get really busy and despite wanting a few more photos, we decided it wasn’t worth the wait and headed off. We had a long drive down to reach the national park. We had decided that while we wouldn’t normally drive this distance in one go, we would push on and then enjoy an extra day at ‘Wild Love’, a beautiful-sounding free spot on the beach where the desert meets the sea.

We filled up with fuel in Taltal and continued onwards. The coast road was not the easy drive I had expected it to be. I assumed that following the coast it would be pretty flat, and at times it certainly was. However, it is not possible to follow the coast all the way and at points the main road diverts inland and in doing so begins to immediately climb into the foothills of the Andes that sit nearly directly on the coastline. It’s a formidable sight, seeing the blue and black hills rise sharply almost out of the sea and it was also quite the climb up and back down on several occasions.

After nearly six hours, we pulled off the main road in the small town of Chañaral and headed back up the coast towards the park. It is possible to turn earlier and drive down through the actual park, however we would then have to pay the entrance fee, which seemed pointless when we weren’t going to stay in the park. We would most likely run into problems as the national parks in this country do not permit the entry of pets. So to make our lives easier, we drove around the outskirts and entered from the bottom, to camp just a couple of kilometres before the park entrance. We parked up on a large space that had clearly been flattened by some kind of digger; I’m not sure to what end. To one side of us the black jagged rocks poked up from the barren earth and the mountains dominated the backdrop. To the other, a vast empty white sandy beach stretched away for miles before plunging into the royal blue of the Pacific Ocean. It was certainly picturesque, and even better, it was all ours.