Happy Birthday TamTam
We left La Serena at around 12pm today because we decided to have a lazy morning. Breakfast, a walk on the beach and a lazy pack up and leave. We had a Loooooonnnng ride of 675km to TalTal today so it really was a day of pushing quite hard and didn’t stop to take many pics.
Our days ride…
The ride along the Chilean coast as we head North has started to become distinctly drier and it is obvious that the landscape is becoming desert as we had anticipated because we are headed for San Pedro De Atacama which is in the middle of the desert.
The ride of yesterday and today has taken us from altitudes of sea level to 3800m and back so it is playing havoc with our systems.
Some might question why the long rides? Well, the ride up the Argentine side would have put us in Atacama by Friday the 22nd with an average of 400km days which are nice and manageable. The decision to come back into Chile coupled with the idea that we should get to Atacama a day early in order to rest and enjoy 3 nights there (versus 2) has resulted in having to go a little further each day and quite frankly, pushing hard and fast through the desert is not a bad thing as there is not much to see, do or stay.
That said, TalTal has proven to be a surprise. A coastal town that is VERY cute. we stayed at a great little place called Hotel MiTampi. When we arrived at 21h00 the owner told us she had no rooms available and was very sweet in phoning around for us and directing us to other places, however, when she saw the disappointment and exhaustion in our faces she called a guest that hadn’t shown up yet and because they didn’t answer she gave us their room…BONUS!! The hotel is clean, warm, comfortable and the owners are SUPER helpful! We went for dinner at a great restaurant called Las Brasas where we gorged ourselves because we hadn’t eaten since breakfast. TalTal is definitely worth a brief visit on route North!
