San Pedro De Atacama

January 15, 2010
Friday

I made it to San Pedro De Atacama this morning, and found myself a place to stay for the night because they told me in town that it gets filled up in a hurry in the afternoon. Once I was settled, I decided to take a ride to the Geysers of Tatio about 53 miles away in the Chilean Altiplano. It was a nice ride at first as the road was a hard packed oiled surface. The farther into the Desert I went, the road became a typical Chilean dirt road, something I have ridden many miles on. About 50 miles into the trip, I suddenly encountered a deep section of sand on the road that caught me by surprise. The bike suddenly began to swerve to one side, then the other, and it was then I realized there was no saving this. The bike was going down, and since I was headed in the same direction, I followed close behind. Once the cloud of dust settled, I could see….this wasn’t good! Right away I saw oil spilling from under the bike. There’s only one place for that to come from, so I shut it down quickly. As I stood the bike up, I could see a substantial hole in the right side cover of the valves. It was at this time that the possibility of being stuck out here in the Atacama Desert for quite a while became evident. I took stock of my physical condition, and found no broken bones, although I had taken a pretty hard hit. I looked back in the direction I had come, and saw a debris field the likes of the Titanic. One of my saddle bags was ripped off the side of the bike, as well as both directionals on the right side. As I looked back, to my horror, I saw my expensive Nikon camera lying in the sand in the middle of the road. As I picked it up I could see that the lens had pulled away from the camera body. The end of that lens. Well, to make a long story short, after composing myself, I took out my S.P.O.T. Emergency Locator Beacon that I carried for this very possibility, and hit the 911 button to summon help. The cell phone was of absolutely no use out here, and since S.P.O.T. relies on satellite communication, it was my only hope. Last year in the Dakar Rally that ran thru Chile and Argentina, one of the competitors died in a very similar incident. He spent a few days in this very same desert, and didn’t make it.
By a stroke of luck, after being stranded in the Desert for about four hours, a pickup truck came by. I explained to the gentleman what had transpired, and right away he said “We’re going to load the bike in the truck”. Guillermo, as I later found out owns the same kind of bike, and was on vacation with his family. Well, they all got out and proceeded to unload the back of the truck to make room for the bike. After a lot of work, we managed to load the bike, and headed back to San Pedro De Atacama. On the way, we encountered the police that where responding to the message sent by satellite to the emergency center in the USA. The Emergency Center contacted authorities here in San Pedro and the police responded.
Today Guillermo is going to take me to Calama, the nearest city, to try and rent a pickup truck to take the bike back to Santiago for repairs.