Back to Santiago

After returning from the Uyuni trip to the hostal they only had room for one night so I decided to start the trip back next day. I also decided I wanted to return as quickly as possible to get the ride through the Atacama desert over as quickly as possible.

So on the first day I skipped Antofagasta and rode straight to Taltal, a distance of 520 km. It was a long day and I arrived mid afternoon. Next day I rode all the way to La Serena, even further than the previous day and I was finally out of the desert!

After filling up in Taltal two vicious looking dogs ran after me as I was leaving the pump and one jumped up and bit my thigh. Not through my pants but enough bite pressure to rupture my skin. I stopped after a while and applied some first aid. Ouch!

There are a lot of dogs everywhere in Chile and they love to chase motorcycles. And especially at petrol stations there seems to be large vicious looking dogs. Even as you ride along in towns at speed around 50kph dogs will chase you and you could have a bad accident. Luckily that didn’t happen.

The ride to La Serena was long and arduous. There are long distances between petrol stations and at one time I misread the map and had to go back 30km to fill up. Motorcycles don’t have the same fuel range as cars and you’re often worried that you’ll run out of gas. Quite the nightmare in the hot arid Atacama desert, with very few cars along the road, if you were to need help.

Well, I made it to La Serena without too many problems but I had screwed up with the hotel booking and spent some time trying to find the place. In the end I found another hotel with safe mc parking off the street. Of course, then booking.com complains that I didn’t check in and wants to charge me. What a palaver!

So after 1150 kms in two days I took it easy the following day to Los Vilos where I stayed for the next three nights. Relaxing and preparing for the last stint to santiago and the flight back to singapore.

The last day of riding went without problems and I arrived back at the hostal right after lunch.

The following evening I bordered the flight to Houston with onwards connection to San Francisco and Singapore. The San Francisco to Singapore flight is the longest united airlines flight at 17 hours the stewardess told me. That is a very long and boring time. 😭