After lengthy delays and problems (that I shall not bore you with!) and after paying WAY TOO much monney , 4 long weeks after my arrival in Chile, I was in San Antonio (the main port of Chile, not far from Valparaiso) to unload the Roamer from it's flat-rack and drive it away.
2 forklifts are used to raise the Land Roamer and slide it out of the flatrack container.
There are only a few centimeters to spare at each end of the container!
First priority was to go to a garage for an oil change and finish the installation of my diesel space heater as it will get cold, up the the Andes mountains.
Finnaly, on 27 May 2023 (just a few days after my birthday, turning 71 years young!), I was able to drive North of Santiago and start my overland journey in South america!
Why drive North and not South to Ushuaia? Because it would have meant arriving there in winter, definitely the WRONG season!
The following pictures are (mostly) in chronological order...
The Mano del Desierto is a large-scale sculpture of a hand located in the Atacama Desert, about 60 km to the south of the city of Antofagasta, on the Panamerican Highway, at an altitude of 1,100 meters above sea and level
The sculpture was constructed by the Chilean sculptor Mario Irarrázaba. The piece references the human rights violations perpetrated by the Pinochet regime, its exaggerated size is said to emphasize human vulnerability and helplessness. The work has a base of iron and concrete, and stands 11 metres tall, the sculpture was inaugurated on 28 March 1992.
Chacabuco Mining Town was first established in 1924 by the Lautaro Nitrate Company Ltd, to take advantage of the nitrate mining boom going on in Chile at the time.
However, the mines there were short-lived. The American depression in the 1930s alongside the invention of synthetic nitrate by the Germans meant that by the 1940 northern Chile’s nitrate industry was on its last legs.
The impact of the demise was dramatic. What had been almost 50% of Chile’s Gross National Product fell to almost zero. As a town, Chacabuco had only survived 14 years. As the mines closed, the workers left for opportunities elsewhere. What had once been a bustling community of over 5,000 workers and their families became abandoned. Facilities such as the theater, library, pool, and sports center and of course all the houses, fell in to ruin. Chacabuco became a time capsule of Chilian life in the 30s. So much so the government declared it a national monument and began protecting it in 1971.
During Pinochet’s regime, part of the city was turned into a prison and torture camp for those that opposed his rule. This was generally the intellectual class, so the prison was full of doctors, lawyers, artists, writers, professors from all over Chile. Approximately 1,800 prisoners were held there during its two-year use. The vast majority never made it out alive.
After the prison closed, Chacabuco was again abandoned and left to the elements. It remained this way until the 1990s when preservation attempts finally began.
San Pedro de Atacama is located east of Antofagasta, some 106 km southeast of Calama, it is a popular tourist destination. There are various activities for adventurers in the area: trekking, climbing, archaeological sightings, amateur astronomy, exploration tours in natural landscapes and even sand boarding in the desert. Because of its altitude, a brief period of acclimatization may be required.
