In the Atacama Desert you can find a lot of high mountains, which can be very hard for cyclists. But the famous Valle de la Luna, the "valley of the moon", very close to San Pedro de Atacama, we visited at a half day trip with the unloaded bicycles. In the front left you can see some visiters walking on the ridge of a huge dune. I was really in sorrow, that they would destroy the beautiful shape with their steps. But when we left at night as one of the last visitors we could see, that the wind yet had removed all the tracks and formed again the perfect line. (mi)

The fascinating shapes of the landscape in Valle de la Luna were formed by erosion (wind and water). The rocks here were mostly from a sand-salt-mixture. Therefore very fine structures were built within the last thousands of years. At sunset you can see them very good. (mi)

As incredible beautiful the Atacama Desert could be at some places, as boaring it also could be when you will cross it by bicycle. Normally I am inspired by this case of empty, wide landscape. And also Markus had a lot of ideas in the Altiplano in Bolivia and Peru. But in the Atacama Desert that somehow doesn't work. Finally the emptyness just bored us. (ma)

In the middle of the desert we suddenly met these little puppy. After padding him a little and giving him some water he obviously didn't want to leave us. We looked around: some trees far away, some ruins on the other side of the road, and furthermore only desert far and wide. What shall we do? Has our little friend an owner, who lives hidden somewhere? Or is he just hopeless alone in the desert? After thinking a while we decided, that there must be a little water around the trees and so live should be possible here. We left him behind and probably he is the only friend of his owner out here. But the sad view of the little one and like he followed us for a while broke my heard. (mi)

"What is that?" we wondered, when we discovered the confusing wooden constructions a little beside the road in the plane. Only after coming closer we recogniced the graves. The climat in the Atacama Desert is so dry, that the wood lasts forever. The cemetary must be about 100 years old like we could read on some of the crosses. At that time lots of sulfur mines have been around and so many little villages were developed just in the nowhere. The childrens grave of Rebequita (see left) for shure is younger. Unfortunately it was opened like some of the others and robbed. (both mi)

Camping wild at night isn't completely the recreation you need after a whole day of cycling in the desert. At about noon the headwind started that much, that cycling in our direction was nearly impossible. Once we barely excaped from a thunderstorm. So many lightnings we've never seen before. And out here we would havn't had any protection from them. (mi)

Just on the last kilometers before Antofagasta we had another flat tire. And again the wind blew so strong that I only thougt about getting out of this desert! Unfortunately it hasn't been a normal flat tire but a manifacturer problem, like Markus found out later. The poster on the right was an advertisement for German quality. Freely translated: Economy power with German quality! (both mi)

How happy we were when we reached Antofagasta and met again Miguel, the teacher we met first at Papa Pandas in San Pedro de Atacama! The three of us prepared a colorfull salad and heard his Janis Joplin CDs. How recreating after the hard stage in the desert! (mi)

Actually Antofagasta isn't a very attractiv city. But downtown and especially the main plaza is made very nice. When I saw this fresh green I decided: Let's go to the green South of Chile as fast as possible! Markus also had seen enough of the desert and so we took the bus to shortcut the next 1000 km. (mi)