Day 19 – Saturday, February 14, 2026

I greeted the rays of the morning sun and drank an excellent cup of hot chocolate at the visitor center, paid by EU taxpayer money.

We had an energetic and enthusiastic tour guide, who told us many interesting things about the European Southern Observatory. There are four large telescopes, each of which weigh 23 tons and are 8.3 m in diameter. Impressive.

Also cool was to see the top of Ojos del Salado, with 6,893m the tallest active volcano in the world. mpressive was the staff's quarter with a swimming pool and huge plants, it his served as the scene of a James Bond movie. While I enjoyed the tour, the thought of getting to the next gig town, Antofagasta, loomed in my head. What came out was a typical Balazs-like solution.

There was a German lady, Annette, who came to the tour with a relatively small car. There was also a Chilean family with three children with a large car. Here is what happened: my bike itself fit in the car of the family, however, the children had no space. So I asked Annette to drive thr children and myself; with the family leading the way; we were sort of a convoy, no, in a desert, t is called a caravan.

Faith, seems, was with me, as this was an especially unfriendly patch of road. I had so far enjoyed riding in the desert, but here, the atmosphere changed. Moreover, I thought that dropping from 2,400 meters would be all downhill, but no, they were huge inclines. Riding there would surely not have been fun.

The family was really nice, they made sure I get to a bike shop that was still open on this Saturday afternoon. The father also helped me reassemble the bike and put on my stuff. Many many thanksa.

I have never been to a bike dzore where the manager was so patient, empathic and welcoming. Understandably, with Sunday a day off, my bike would be ready earliest on Monday. This meant I had two days of idling time in the city. I booked a nice hotel close to the beach, but made a mistake of it being rather outside town. So I took buses to get around, which was quite adventurous. As Instagram implies a limit on the size of the text, more about Antofagasta in a later post.