Big waves and into Santiago

NP Pan de Azucar to Santiago

We left the national park Pan de Azucar and continued along the coast for a few kilometers before we got on the PanAm again and just flew down the 4 lane highway with a short stopover in Vallenar, where we found a really nice hotel.

La Serena is a really nice colonian style town and again we found safe parking and a real nice hotel just around the corner of the central plaza where we stayed for the night.

We continued our long stretch of days on the PanAm. Riding was very relaxed. Not too much traffic, the broad lane of the PanAm, an enjoyable landscape. Nothing to get overly excited about, but after all these eventful days in Bolivia we almost enjoyed not to “have to stop and look at something”. We just rode. You can let your mind fly away, think about the journey, about the country, about friends, family or just keep your mind busy by calculating how much time you would need to the next exit/town/gasstation when riding at different speeds (something I did a lot and I can proudly announce that I became the master of “I-will-be-at-the-next-exit-in-X.XX-minutes-at-the-momentary-average-speed-of-Y-km/h-sort-of-calculation”).

After we had enough of long straight roads, we decided to make a little detour via Monte Patria. It turned out to be a pretty road with some lakes, lots of curves and very little traffic.

We did not want to arrive late in Santiago and so we decided to find a place somewhere at the coast for the night.

And we found a pretty one: Pichidangui turned out to be a little village on a fantastic rocky coast. The deep blue ocean breaks its waves powerful on the black rocks of the coast. The setting sun added some warm color to the scene. And the birds contributed their squawking noises to the thundering sound of the breaking waves. It was a mind-blowing scenery.

On the road the day before we had to stop on a construction site. I chatted with the guy standing in his car behind me and he told me his friend owns a hostel where lots of motorbikers go. He marked the position of the hostel in my navigation (Case Matte 33° 26’22” S ;70° 37’43” W). So we looked for the hostel and drove up and down the road in Santiago until a young guy put his head out of the fence and asked if we where looking for a hostel. It turned out to be Christian, the owner. A motorcyclist himself he decided to start this hostel. For whatever reason it does not have a sign outside, but it is a fantastic place. Safe parking, a kitchen for use, a fantastic roof terrace, fast internet… everything we wanted to have.

He made some phone calls for us so we could get our bikes serviced at BMW.

The next two days we walked around the city, had fantastic meals, even a german Weissbier, had our bikes serviced (it turned out though they did not check the bearings on the steering, so we had to get this done a few days later in Osorno; grrrr).

It was a relaxing time there and a little break from all the riding we did in the past week.