Introduction to the Desert

James >> After another sluggish start to the morning we headed off bound for a national park with a name claiming it is the home of Chinchillas. This meant a drive up the coast before turning in land.
Along the coast we faced a lot of, as Kathryn describes them, 'upsy downsies', meaning long slow hills followed by long down hill stretches. The coast was fairly spectacular with occasional big cliffs. We drove through a town called La Ligua. By through I mean we drove from one side to the other, realised we were going the wrong way so turned around and drove back the opposite direction.
About lunch time we pulled off at a town called Longotoma, whilst Kathryn disagrees we followed the sign towards the town centre, this took as around a loop. The only retail we saw was a restaurant, other than this the 'road' (a dirt track decorated with expansive shallow puddles) looped around some flower farms and that was it… So we stopped at the next town, a town not even on the map, for lunch where we saw two men get into their wet suits and take to the water spear guns in hand, not sure if they got anything but it was fun to see. The town didn't have any paved streets but did have a couple of shops.
Not long after lunch we turned inland. The change was sudden, the landscape became very dry, littered with cacti and then the hill climbs started. They were a long way up very steep roads. We settled into second gear for a slow (around 20-30 km/h) trip up the hill. Unfortunately the road makers put a large gutter on the side of the road to make if difficult to pull over to let people past, but oh well.

From the top of the hill we looked out at Snow capped mountains in the distance, and starting to descend the mountain pass on the otherside, vast Avacardo farms. While the Tomato seems to be a Chilean staple, Avacados seem equally popular. Having passed so much barren land, it seemed bizarre to see the lush greens on the hills boardering the river flats. We arrived at an inland city called Illapel. There was a lot of activity in the towns one main street (also the way though the town). We stopped and bought a spade as we were planning on a 'wild' camp tonight (travellers must be tidy with the oblutions). We drove on past the Las Chinchillas National Park (the gate was closed) and found a lovely spot on the side of a road just past a dried up creek bed to camp.