Motorcycle Explorer December 2014 Issue 3 | Page 90

I got up early on the morning of 7th of December 2009 in San
Pedro De Atacama Chile and found myself messing around, in the
same way that I used to when I was studying for a big exam. I’d
go and buy new pens, new notebooks, a ruler and even some
highlighters. I’d lay them out on the desk in an orderly fashion. I’d
get my text books and put them all within reach, and then go
make myself a cup of coffee. Actually I was doing almost
anything except what I should have been doing which was
studying. That morning I was moving stuff around on the bike,
and generally looking around the bike checking stuff, in reality I
was time wasting. I guess my subconscious mind didn’t really
want to go and do the 40. I’ve seen people doing the same thing
just before it was time to leave for a hike up a mountain. Sam
Gamgee once said, “It’s the job that’s not started that’s always
the hardest” - with that in mind, I gave myself a mental kick in
the bollix for stalling, then quickly packed up and left San Pedro
de Atacama heading east for the border with Argentina, a little
over a hundred miles away. If you come this way, remember to
clear customs in San Pedro De Atacama for Chile, if you don’t
they’ll just sent you back at the border crossing.
The first thing you have to do is climb out of the valley in which
San Pedro lies, up into the Altiplano of the Andes. This part of
the world is located smack bang in the middle of the driest
desert on Earth, the Atacama. Some of the weather stations in
the area have never recorded any rainfall, ever! Not surprising
then that the martian landscape which surrounds the area has
Volc