09/27 Who would have thought riding through the driest place on the planet would make you thirsty. I’m not sure what prompted me to bring an extra 5 liters of water plus my 3 water bottles but I’m sure glad I did. My map said there were 2 communities along the way–Cerrillos and Barros Arana. Neither one exists which left zero options for getting water between Calama and San Pedro de Atacama. It’s only a 60 mile ride but it was hot (95F to 102F all day) and heading toward San Pedro it’s uphill for the first 39 miles. Of course the typical strong headwind was blowing full force the whole time.
Saw a lot of touring motorcycle riders on the road. They are always pretty cool and 99% of them wave. If there’s one thing I really like about Chile it’s that very few people honk when they pass. I ended up camping before San Pedro to take advantage of some nice views of the Valley of the Moon heading down from the pass at 11,253 feet. I woke up this morning and thought my right arm was gone. I don’t know how the hell I managed to fall asleep on it so badly but I panicked for a second when I got up because I couldn’t feel it at all and it was trapped under my body so I couldn’t even see it. 
I’m here in San Pedro now after knocking out the last 15 miles which consisted of a nice downhill, a fairly decent climb up and then another short downhill. On the last hill I came so close to breaking my top speed record of 44 mph but I ran out of downhill and topped out at 43.5 mph. 
I had half a bottle of water left thanks to conservation efforts like not washing my dishes after breakfast and using almost none to brush my teeth.
The town is smaller than I thought but I like it (5000 peeps or so). Lot’s of gringo/as running around. The roads are all dirt excpt by the main plaza. There are hippies of course and stupid dogs but they are all sleeping on the sidewalks because it’s hot (the dogs; not the hippies). The dogs will wake up later and bark all night I’m sure. I’m staying at Hostel Miskanty. Every place here is pretty expensive. This place was $29 US a night but I got her down to $23 if I stayed for 3 nights. There’s a private bath, hot shower, wifi and enough room for my bike. Looks like I can get some Argentina pesos here which will save me from the stress of not having any cash leaving Chile.
This is a good place to stock up for the ride to Paso de Lago Sico and then on to Salta. Should take about 10 days or so to get there. This will be another section that will require some good food and water planning. It’s unpaved, there are a couple passes over 15,000 feet and there are very few populated areas along the way. If the road is washboard I’m turning around and taking the paved option.
I took a day off in Calama to relax but I ended up spending hours and hours trying to get the wifi on my laptop working. It worked on my iPod Touch but for some reason I couldn’t get it to connect to the hotel wireless. It connected fine to an open connection the night before. Turns out it was just their wireless not working. It works fine here in San Pedro. Argh.
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