Further into Chile

I bid farewell to Arica a few days ago in pursuit of something different.  I'd say bigger and better but that would be setting a bar that would strictly contradict the notion of going with it, no plan: that's the plan.  No set bar: bar achieved.  Unfortunately my surfing for the first part of the trip officially came to a close yesterday morning as I hit the town of Tocopilla and headed east into the Andes.  By this point I know Kombi pretty well.  Her likes, dislikes and so forth and so on. Three things really hurt Kombi:  wind, heat, and altitude.  The Atacama is the epitome of all of these combined.   
This headed into the Mountains of the Atacama desert is going to be something.  The Atacama is the driest desert in the world and I found that out kilometer by kilometer yesterday.  Kombi and I struggled through the second mountain pass in first and second gear on three cylinders for about two hours.  Every 5 kilometers or so she had to take a break, so without question(without a choice) we sat on the side of the road for 20 or so minutes and relaxed.  I got a lot of reading done and Kombi got to take naps on a stretch of road she's probably never seen before.  Win, win I suppose.  We finally made it into San Pedro de Atacama at about 10 pm and stumbled around town on little to no fuel to find a hostel and gas.  I'll have to take some pictures of this city as it is entirely different than any other town I've been to thus far.  I've attached a couple of photos but I'm also posting another group of photos from "the road" in Chile.  Happy new year guys.  Talk to you soon.