Weather-beaten and pretty tired I headed to the borders. I had approximately 10 days in and around the Bolivian salt flats. I was over exposed to rain and sun, my eyes were not completely healed, I was eating bread and bananas for the last 3 or 4 days and the bike was in a proper mess.
I had drunk all the water I had left and now I needed 5 or 6 hours to the borders. You deserve it! In the borders I asked for ATM and the guys there almost laughed.. I had no Chilean money, I used my last SOS dollars to pay the hospital just before exiting Bolivia, and I had only a bag of 5 little breads left that a truck driver had offered to me.
Almost desperate and with no plan I started cycling through the little village alongside the rail tracks. Almost unbelievable, but utterly true. After the scarce, without fridges, and even without bread mini markets of rural Bolivia, I found a place where I could pay by card and eat properly! I was very happy and the first beer was followed by a second, and at that very second I saw the first guys in Chile that would invite me at their place.
More beers and a football match and some facts about Chile, that I had no idea. Chile is the most developed country in all Latin America. This country is more advanced than Greece. The following day I woke up and I was determined to make km and reach Calama. It was downhill from m to m , so I was optimist.. From the wind started to blow furiously and it was just heart breaking to realize that I was facing only headwinds.
I was in downhill slopes and the bike was not moving an inch on its own. For 7 hours I had seen just one village and less than 10 cars, but I was extremely lucky once more. One of the guys that I met the previous night in the borders was going to Calama and he offered to take me there! Hell yeah, I am coming! The ugliest place of Chile, as they told me later, but for me it was Paradise transformed in a city at a high altitude, surrounded by lots of mines. People from all Chile and Latin America go to Calama to make money.
