2017-06-10 Day 55 Sat


I spent an hour and a half in Vicuna’s hospital as they don't have doctor surgeries. Interesting procedure. Yes I have an urinary infection. So off to the pharmacy for antibiotics.

Heeded north to the Agua Negra pass. 45 km away. Very interesting place very little vegetation, but lots of grape vines. Some are covered in a very fine white shade cloth others have cloth vertical as a wind break. Some look very unloved others were fresh plantings.

Amongst the vineyards were plantings of citrus, probably oranges.

A herd of horses were being mustered down the main road. Not sure if they were freshly from the wild or farmed.  A few km's further on, a large herd of goats were being driven down the road. One young lady was on a very small frisky mount! Their mounts appear to have quite a large part of donkey in them.


We arrived at the border guard 125km before the border and dirt road to find that the road is closed for maintenance until December. What a disappointment. So back past Vicuna and turned right onto a loop road which would take us most of the way back to La Serena.

As we passed through the little village off the main road we noticed lots of sand and road works. It looked like a lot of water had come down recently. As we drove further it became very evident that lots of water had wrecked havoc on the road. Parts of which had been completely washed away. As there is mining here the mining equipment looked like it had been assigned to getting the road passable. And it was for the trucks. 

We got to a stop sign and found out that the road was closed further ahead and trucks were coming out full of rubble. The guy indicated that this destruction had occurred in one day 3 weeks prior. Amazing stuff.

On the way out we meet a truck and I misjudged the fence. A small piece of back rear window frame is now in the locker awaiting silicon to put back together.

We finally found a camp on the south side of Vacuna – La Sarena road up a narrow well used road.

Found out why it was well used. Just after we had made camp just before dusk about 6 trucks came through. One truck and one ute beeped at us. Some of the truckies are really friendly.