Day 21 – Monday, February 16, 2026

For full disclosure, I am enclosing a pic of my previous dinner, in Peruvian restaurant, with Austrian prices - but was worth it. All this under the watchful eye of this eagle - they are all over the place

I had a bit of a restless night - preparing Plan B's, Plan C's, etc, should they not manage to fix by bike. Check'-out time from my hotel was noon and by pure coincidence, a few minutes before twelve, I got a joyful message from the bike shop that it's time to roll!

I literally jumped on a bus that pulled in right in front of the hotel and a quarter of an hour later, I re-met (is that a word?) my bike. A huge thanks to Katari Bike Shop in Antofagasta!

There were some errands that I could have easily taken care of in the morning (food - and more importantl - water, sunscreen, replacing my lost sunglasses, changing money, etc.), so it was only around 3 pm that I left town.

Antafagosta did not show its prettiest face. There were grey clouds above town and it was an incline I had been dreading since I arrived two days prior. Worse, the road led me through a slum of sorts - something similar I had seen close to the airport in Santiago. Here a man in a car decided to be my bodyguard, he was driving slowly behind me, telling me where to turn (and where not to).

The town ended abruptly and I was in an unfriendly, greyish desert area. It was steep uphill, to about 600 m of altitude. From here, there was a drop - but also winds of orcan strength started howling - and I reached a huge flat yellowish desert. Noteworthy was seeing that the clouds all got stuck in the mountains - they did not dare to enter the flat desert.

So now I am back on PanAmerican Ruta 5, heading north and again there are two-by-two lanes.