Day 23 – Wednesday, February 18, 2026

The alarm of my neighbor woke me at 5:30, the walls were paparthin and as quite often, the only windwo opened to the corridor. I really dislike that - no fresh air, no idea how the weather outside is. I guess all the other guests were mine workers (they are driving red trucks and there are zillions of them all over Chile). I listened to him getting ready with his morning rituals, it was not until 8 am that I got ready.

Not sure what the source of the water is, but there seems to be plenty of it - there was a well-kept park right in the middle of this settlement and it is flanked by food trucks - preparing breakfast and to-go snacks for the mine workers. Here I got a large sandwich to go.

Green park - for me, rather surprising

Yummy breakfast

The ride at first was painstaking. The scenery was quite dull, there was quite a headwind and the road had an incline I do not like. Mind you, I ldo like climbing, Mr. Road, if you want to go up, do it properly. This kind of "just-a-small-gradient-you-won't-evrn-notice" is something I detest, but my watch was showing how the altitude kept increasing.

Then there was a change - the road became honest to me, showing its true colors, if was indeed an uphill ride.

At around 2,100 meters, a miracle happened - it levéllel out and from there onward it became a fun ride.

Couple of noteworthy things: I stopped at a restaurant - even though I wasn't particularly hungry - and got a good omelette.

Yummy breakfast

I needed energy

Soon after my snack, I heard a loud explosion - and saw smoke rising. Must have been from a mine.

BANG!

Then, before a turn, came a landscape like on Mars. No coincidence; remember the museum in Antofagasta: I learned that the Mars rovers got their training in the Atacama. I was quite impressed with what I saw.

Quite Mars-lie

Just as I was about to continue, there was aa turn and got a glimpse of a turn in the road ahead. After the turn, was a very straight patch of road, leading eastward into infinity. That is all good, but at te edge of infinity was a majestic, snow-clad mountain range, sort of floating in the air. Wow, that was a sight for royals!

This is one of my favorite pics!

Now I was nearing the town of Calama, at 2.250 meters, Chile's mining capital and one of the driest cities in the world. A must-do here is a visit to Chuquicamata, a huge open-pit copper mine, the largest in the world.

One piece of large equipment

Now this visit is free (similar to my visit to the Paranal Observatory), but you have to be registered by sending an email. I did this two days prior, but was told all tours are full for the foreseeable future. Hmmm. Being turned away is no fun and somemthing I usually do not accept.

I tried rectifying the situation. I noticed there was a visitors center in Camala - and rode directly there. A lady guard was (wo)manning it, she was no help. Then I thought to look up the headquarters of Codelco, the state-run company responsible for the operations of the mine. It was a large building with two entrances, I tried going to both, but the guards would not let me talk to anyone inside. At my third attempt, a lady guard told me she would go seek someone. After some wait, Out came a gentleman from the Hunan Resources department and with the help of Google Translate, I explained the situation. He then started making some calls - and this was the very person who wrote the rejectio mail in responseto to my initial request. She , however, said "we will be able to squeeze you in tomorrow!". There you go! So at 10:30 am the following day, I am visiting a huge copper mines!

This operation of getting approval to the entrance took me around two hours. Looking back, taking these two hours into consideration, plus the half day spent at the time, was not particularly worth it - more about that later. At that time, though, I was really pleased with being persistent.

I found an so-so-la-la hotel close to the start of the tour (the visitor center with the lady guard), then rode into the center of town. It was this organized chaos that many of us know from developing counties - and array and web of shops, street food, clusters of different services. As an example - one street had about twenty barber shops next to each other (a bit like in Meidling in Vienna...). Here I got a quick hardcut. It is a fun town...

A mining town

Steet food

My plan was to start riding towards San Pedro de Atacama after the visit to the mine. Back then, I had the feeling I am running out of time - spending three days in Antofagosta, now the mine the following days in Calama, then San Pedro de Atacama is a 100-km detour each way (200 km altogether) - and Lima was still over 1,800 km away from Calama, so minimum 18 days, provided nothing comes in between and I can cover 100 km a day. Now this was Day 23, if I visit the mine, it goes to 24, thee days for San Pedro makes it to 27, plus the 18 for the ride is 45 - and I only have 50 days,taking into consideraiton I´d need to arrive in Lima at least a day prior to the flight, to pack my bike. So there was some reserve, but not a whole lot - there would be still a border ahead, the famouns Nazca Lines...Hmmm....Still, I was aware, but not in any sort of alarm mode.