IQUIQUE, CHILE: A CITY WITH AN OPEN MIND.

             Atacama Desert begins right at the Chile-Peru border and heads down south.  The road comes down all the way to Santiago is Route-5 (Ruta CH 5) While I was cycling down south from Lima, Peru, at times, I was also looking at the map. And there was a question I always asked to myself” what about the Route-1 which later begins at the shorelines of Pacific Ocean and crosses 3 port cities of Chile? Should I continue on route-5 and just ignore these three beautiful cities without stopping by? The only hard thing to do was after coming down south on route-5, take the route 16 and switch to the coastline route-1. This was only 50+kilometers route to get onto route one. If anyone really looks at the Google Map, then one can see clearly the route-5, then later route16 which connect you to the coastline route-1. Basically on route-5 down south when you see Humberstone town area, you will see the junction 16. You’ll take that route to west to the coastline.

       Route-5 began in Arica. As I left Arica cycling in a hurry finding the route-5 then pedaling hard out of the city limits, I was still thinking and asking to myself what really I should do about route-1 later? I finally decided to change the routes later when I get to the route 16. I really wanted to see the cities of Iquique, Tocopilla and Antofagasta. They were on my mind. And this route-1 was following the coastline of Pacific Ocean which I was a fan of it since I left Lima, Peru. Pacific Ocean had one of the best coastlines through Peru and Chile. Ocean color was clear blue and the water was pure clean. Despite some parts of the coastline rocky in both countries, still, these both countries and its coastline had miles and miles sandy beaches as well. It always made me wonder why the Chilean government never builds a road straight down from Arica to Iquique following the coastline. Was it because of the landscape? Was it because of rocks, stones and hills? Military secrets? Or is it just plain hard and impossible to prepare this area for a road? We may never know the answer, but instead of taking the route-5 all the way inland following the canyons of Atacama Desert, coastline would have been much better. Later down south, everyone have to switch back to route-5 anyways as route 1 ends.

     Starting to cycle at Atacama Desert right after the city of Arica wasn’t easy at all. Route-5 all of a sudden began climbing and the altitude began getting higher. I will get into the subject of Atacama Desert with details in a later blog; however, it’s important to mention about Atacama, at times to let everyone know that this desert wasn’t flat. There were so many hills, mountains, and canyons. Actually it is bicyclist’s nightmare! It just wasn’t easy at all. It took forever to climb up to some of these hills and mountains. Up and down, up and down was the rhythm of the music I was playing every day.  And did I mention about the weather? Day time is in the 80s F and the night time is in 30s F extremely windy. Amazing and an intense temperature drop between day and night. And it is always windy until 4:00 PM in the afternoon. Then it gets better. This is also where I learned to carry lots of water and food with me. But it really didn’t matter: I was still running out of water and food. There weren’t any stores or houses you can go knock on the door. Of course this wasn’t a problem until I pass the city of Antofagasta later where hundreds of kilometers there is nothing, which I will come to it when I switch to a new blog Atacama Desert.

    After several days of pedaling hard and losing lots of weight, I finally arrived to the junction where the route-16 was separating to the west and connecting to the city of Iquique. I was very excited to arrive to a seashore city which I was really looking forward to swimming and resting. The minute I thought I can get comfortable, I found out the hard way. As soon as I turned to the right toward the west on route 16, I was up against a wind…I’m not sure how to describe or explain its power. Basically all of a sudden my speed dropped to 4 km an hour. I could have walked faster than that. For at least 30 km I was cycling extremely slow and hardly gaining any kilometers. Finally as I turned a bit to south-west, wind began to shift direction and it started to push me from back. Now, I was smiling and feeling much better. Anyways, that same afternoon at around d 5:30 I arrived to this beautiful city Iquique. The way to approach this city was from the top of the mountain coming down for at least 30 minutes on a bicycle at speed of 60 km an hour. Yes, those who watched my you tube video can easily tell about the speed from my head cam camera which you can play this video right here.

   Iquique really got my attention from the beginning. I think it had a lot to do with its population. Highly educated, able to speak other languages, friendly and outgoing population was in Iquique indeed! Over the years, from traveling to many different countries, experiencing many different cultures, meeting with thousands of people from all kinds of background, gave me an advantage to be able to tell the difference about people, cities, towns and countries as well. It wasn’t that hard at all to see the difference clearly in Iquique. Finally it was great to speak English to locals and understand the place better. My terrible Spanish was also getting better.  At least I was still trying to learn the Spanish language and I wasn’t afraid to get into conversation. But here in Iquique, locals were really into learning English and they always wanted to speak, get into conversation and use their knowledge what they learned from their university.

    City center and central area where people shopped, dined, used necessary government facilities or made payments to certain offices were all so closer to each other. Sidewalks were so crowded that at times I really had a hard time or stop completely for a few minutes as I was walking with my bicycle. It was a never ending crowd which people walking back and forth in every direction. In a way, it was great to see a lively crowd who were really into shopping or doing whatever necessary for them. Most of the youngsters were on a line at the ice cream shops. I just couldn’t count the numbers of ice cream shops. There were so many in every street multiple and competing against one other. Weather was perfect! Not cool and not too hot, just comfortable enough to wear sandals, shorts and short sleeves which I really enjoyed after cycling the Atacama Desert heat. Of course Atacama Desert wasn’t ending yet; actually it was just beginning which took me 14 full days and nights to cross it. Not to mention the difficulty I had with high winds and finding food and water in middle of nowhere. But for now, I was enjoying the city of Iquique.

My first night in Iquique, I stayed at the beach camping out in the open. No one bothered me including the police. In fact I was extremely tired from cycling against that wind that I really didn’t care what happened at the beach. I set up my tent, took all my panniers and bags off my bicycle including my bicycle and brought them back into the tent. I always had to take the front tire off to be able to take my bicycle into the tent. My tent was spacious enough to sleep two with all the gears I was carrying. But tent itself designed for only one person. It was extremely water proof and had two doors. I loved that tent as it served me in an excellent way which made me survive fanatic weather in Patagonia later weeks. My second night locals invited me to stay at their house. I met these several students at a café while I was using this café’s WI-FI internet access to get connected with friends. Ricardo and his friends were really interested in talking English. So we did all afternoon and all night as we spent the entire afternoon at the café and the evening at this sea food restaurant. It was great meeting with them as they really gave me a historical background and knowledge about Iquique communities. We basically touched and talked about every subject related to Chile, politics and traveling which are a never ending subjects which also we love talking hours and hours. At the end of the night, late hours, I was getting ready to go back to set up my camping area again, but Ricardo and his roommate from university invited me to sleep over at their house. It was really nice of them to invite me over. But isn’t it strange or weird enough for people to invite others to their place to stay overnight which you just met? Well, for many people it may be strange. However, as an extreme traveler, for me, this wasn’t a strange or weird thing at all. Over the years, by traveling 96 countries, this type of invitation by others happened to me hundreds of times and I wasn’t a stranger to this type of behavior or hospitality. Actually, in reality this was an experience I had about people and their background which I learned from traveling. It was very easy for me to tell so much about them including their psychology or their stability no matter how they acted or pretended. There was no way of hiding it from me even if they were the best actors. I talk to you 30 minutes, I really know you. You can hide anything you want to hide. What you are hiding in inside of you, I already knew it. So there was no way for me to accept any invitation from unstable, psychologically disturb, person with bad intentions or a thief who was trying to lure you to his or her trap. I was always ready for these types of people. But I knew from the beginning that Ricardo and his roommate were super nice and they were completely clean minded who were trying to be hospitable as a host. And to the contrary, they were able to see my character and my personality easily as well. I’m one of those who show everything on his sleeves. Nothing is being hidden inside. All and everything is out in front. Anyways, the friendship I built with Ricardo and his roommate Veronica still continues up to this date. And in two weeks (March, 24, 2015) they’re coming to visit me in New York. This time I will be hosting them and let them stay at my place. I love that! What a great friendship we built by keeping in touch after I left Iquique.

   I really loved the city of Iquique and will always return there to spend more time in the future. But this route-1 wasn’t done yet. I was on my to another mysterious port city Antofagasta via the city of Tocopilla which was situated by the Pacific Ocean between the cities of Iquique and Antofagasta. I’ve heard so much about Antofagasta and I was looking forward to it