I've made my mind up that I have had enough of Northern Chile. The landscape is monotomous and this Maria Elen is a dump. Though the people are nice; like the young woman with the little girl in the chip shop last night that asked me to join them at their table rather than see me sit and eat alone. While inquiring where Is from ecetra, she had to keep breaking off to tell the little girl to eat up instead of sitting with a chip half raised between finger and thumb while staring up at me in astonishment. The matron who owns the residencia is nice and well-meaning too, but quite crazy. Perhaps a result of having lived here all her life. She brought me a three litre bottle brimming full of pure drinking water shortly after I arrived, and told me to call this morning at her house before leaving, telling me there would be freshly baked bread on the go. But this morning she wasn't at home, and there weren't any neighbours around I could ask of her whereabouts. Perhaps she'd gone to mass: she seemed a devout catholic. After gazing at the front of the neighbours' house again, I pressed the door-bell a forth time and again heard it ring inside but with still no sound of anyone stirring, so I turned away and got going having wasted enough time.

The plan was to ride back to Calama today and tomorrow ride to San Pedro, then from there across the mountains to Salta, riding with the wind this time hopefully. There was that long sixty-kilometre uphill from the Panamericana to tackle though.

Around noon while on the abovementioned stretch, slowing against the increasing gradient and oppessive heat, I saw a truck parked on the shoulder up ahead. Nothing unusual as trucks pull-over and park all the time. But I saw the driver flag down a car, bend towards the driver-side window and a bottle was then passed out to him, before the car came on. It struck me that he'd broken-down. Minutes later on reaching the truck, the driver told me about the radiator overheading and could I help by giving him water. I handed over a two litre bottle which I hadn't touched yet. It was only a drop in the ocean of the trucks' radiator but perhaps soon a car would come along with enough water for the truck to be driven to the COPEC filling station at Chuchatta. Meanwhile while riding away, Is having my doubts over the amount of water I'd given away as the other bottle I had had only a small bit in the bottom, and there were twenty nine kilometres to Chuchatta and the COPEC shop and a cold drink. It was going to be a thirsty ride; or, would've, because I'd hardly ridden two kilometres with the broken-down truck still in sight behind me, when along came a white pickup truck which passed and swung in to a halt on the shoulder. The driver got out and helped me into the back with the bike and trailer, then I climbed into the rear of the cab, shut the door and the truck drove on. The driver, Luciano and wife Marcia in the front passenger seat told me they lived in a city on the coast and were on the way to Calama for a few days to visit family; then proceeded to fill me in on local information as the truck toiled up through twists and turns between round hills, eventually passing through the gap and began downhill towards the Chuchatta mine. Luciano pulled over and got out to take a photo. Then Marcia set her camera to movie mode and was filming through the window on the road onwards. Before long the road turned a corner and the mines' great heap of spoil was behind the truck as it rolled down the sixteen-kilometre straight towards the first warehouses and out-of-town stores of the city.

It was stifling when they let me off on the avenue a little after three. The cement pavement was boiling where my un-coupled trailer sat. I was burning too so hastily coupled up the trailer to bike and set off towards a COPEC sign which stuck out a block or two ahead. The air-conditioning pumped out refreshing cold air in the cafeteria when I entered and shortly, I sat on a stool at a window-ledge savouring a cold coke. I had a coffee then and remained there over half an hour looking out on the forecourt before cycling back to the sports-complex campsite; where, I placed the tent on the same spot as last Friday.