23rd March Iquique - Antofagasta

Another long drive. We underestimated these long distances. 5 hours in the desert...same brown color, nothing...absolutely nothing to see. We pass the time with Spanish vocabulary and desperately looking for something worth seeing. Even a blade of grass would be a welcome change. Occasionally, there is a truck stop on the highway. But they look so uninviting that we don't want to stop. The small towns along the way are shockingly poor. I have never seen anything this poor before, not even in Africa. Everything here looks rundown and littered. Some people live in tents (it gets really cold at night) or in tin huts. Often, you can see accommodations made of wood that defy description. It's hard to imagine that families probably live there. And among them are so many dogs. However, I have never seen a dog being mistreated or not being fed. We haven't seen any nice houses or well-kept towns so far - and that says something after driving 5500 km.

In the evening, we arrived in Antofagasta at a very nice hotel. You don't find something like this very often here. We are getting more used to it and plan our route based on the accommodations 😊. Finding a hotel while driving past is almost impossible...