Heading for Chile

December 12th and 13th, 2011

I left Puno and headed generally towards Chile. I know most Overlanders at this point head for La Paz in Bolivia, but I was feeling like some beaches. The road had lots of entertainment.

That is still Lake Titicaca in the background, my route took me along the coast for a while.

I probably shouldn’t have spent so much time taking pictures, since as I rode I got higher and the weather got worse.

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That would be snow. It was snowing worse, enough for me to start to worry some, but by this point it had stopped, and the road was in pretty good shape. Good place for a picture. The other side of the pass was pea-soup fog (which I didn’t take a picture of, since what would be the point?), not the best riding. I thought a few times about looking for wild camping, but had constant visions of out of control trucks, somehow careening uphills and around corners, or the fog burning off and the seclude spot I found being not very secluded at all. And then I would keep riding.

Eventually I reached Moquegua and found a hotel. Most of the ones in town didn’t have parking so I ended up out on the edge, but the view was nice.

The bike was due for service, and the food was really good, so I asked about staying another night in the hotel, but they were out of rooms for the next night and I had to pack up in the morning and ride on.

I reached Tacna but early afternoon, and honestly felt like I had been riding all day. So I decided to stop, found a hotel (again, parking was an issue. Does no one travel with cars or such in Peru?) and went for a walk around town.

This fountain –

was designed by some French guy named Eiffel. I guess he did some tower thing in France too, but I haven’t see that yet.

He does like his naked ladies though.

Tacna apparently also has a really cool train museum, which I found out about several days after leaving. I had even walked near it, but not quite far enough in the right direction.

In the morning I did the valves on the bike, packed and hit the road. I wasn’t far from the border and reached it without any problems.