3-19-10 Tocopilla, Chile

Mark was looking at the map in the morning when we saw that the road we'd be taking would skirt along the lenght of a decent-sized salar (salt flat of sorts). This was also the same area that the Paris Dakar Rally was run this year. They stopped doing it from Paris to Dakar as there were angry spear chucking locals en route...The map was poor but we could see that there was a dirt road leading off from our main road about 40 miles from the end of Iquique, where we were staying and thought it would be fun to check out.
We got some water and topped off the bikes and set our odometers to zero so we'd know where the turn was. Sure enough, at 40 miles, there was some random, unmarked road leading into the hills. There were some semi trucks on it with loads of salt from a salt mine down the way. On the tight corners there were always little piles of salt from it spilling out of the truck.
We made it to the salt mine where I asked a trucker how to get through the salar. He kinda paused and said that it was a hard road with lots of bumps. No problem, right? So he pointed us to the proper little track (as there were many) and we set off. The little track was just that, a set of tracks from a few previous 4-wheeled vehicles that skirted along the edge of the salar. Up little hills and down little valleys. Nothing too difficult. We then hit a section of 'bug dust' or 'moon dust' as we call it in the mining indurstry. It's bascially really fine, powdery dirt/sand, the consistency of powdered sugar. So, we both cut through it just fine, but I wanted to go ride through it again as it's kinda fun. Well, some might have called that poor judgement. I hit the powder going faster than I had the first time and the front of the bike got a little squirelly. The dust is deep and the tires sink in to the point that your wheel works like a rudder on a boat almost, strange feeling. In short, I got tossed off the bike. I humped the bike back to vertical and putted out of the bug dust, turned around and repeated the same process, crash and all, this time pinching my foot betweent he earth and my pannier. No damage to bike, sore foot.
We then kept riding and were a little uneasy as to the random little roads leading here and there as we didn't exactly know where to go. Mark's GPS had conveniently stopped working not long ago so we had to rely on our MAN-STINCTS, which were flowing strong this day (not to be confused with Man-Stinks). Basically, there was the ocean, then just inland was the main road heading south, just inland of that was a mountain range, and we were on the more inland side of that mountain range. We knew we had to go west to get out so we tried to go west when possible, which was not often.
We started getting into the foothills above the salar, just under the mountins and had a great overlook of the salar which looks like coral. Lots of big chunks of salt that are all weathered and, well, coral looking.
We thought we were going just fine and would pop over the mountain range when the trail dove towards the salar again, leading me down the steepest hill I've ever been on with that bike. I putted down nice and slow and didn't fall once.  Mark did great as well.
Just a few minutes later we realized we'd kinda dropped off into a bowl, and to get out, we'd have to ride up something as steep as what we'd just ridden down. Riding across the salar isn't an option as the salt chunks are the size of basketballs and are sharp.
I must say, it felt great to be out there. Yes, we were somewhat lost, but I knew I'd find a way out. I always do. We had some water with us, not a lot, and we knew the general direction we needed to go, we just didn't know how to get there. It was one of those times when I was bouncing between being in and out of my comfort zone. I knew I'd look back on it and smile at the time, and yes, I'm smiling about it now.
We found a few spots with steep shutes leading up little ravines to higer elevation and, hopefully, salvation.
The shute we chose had a slight bend to it, hooking to the left then right and had some larger rocks on it. Mark went first as his bike is lighter with better tires. He snaked his way up it and made it without incident.
Next was my turn. I started a ways off from the base of the shute, revved the engine a few times and dropped the clutch, launching forward and shooting a rooster-tail of dust behind me. The back tire started fishtailing a bit but I was able to stay on. About a third of the way up the ramp the front tire hit a grapefruit-sized rock, bouncing the tire into the air. When the tire landed back on the ground I was pitched sideways off the bike, which same to rest on its left side, still running. Mark slid down the hill and helped me stand it up before riding it down again. I chose a slightly different path this time and was able to get some good speed coming up the ramp until the rear end started sliding around, and I crashed in the same manner as I had in Panama, with the bike swinging around and coming to rest perpendicular to the slope.
I tried it again, a different approach yet. This time I started off going slow and was able to slide my way about half-way up before starting to spin and slide again. I was able to keep the bike upright when Mark came over and pushed on the back of the bike as I crawled it up the slope. I made up the steepest part of the shute then accelerated before jumping up onto a little plateau at the top. What a great feeling.
The trail kinda ended at the top so we took off over the rolling dirt-dunes in the general direction needed before hooking up with another little track in what was almost a slot-canyon, really narrow with banked turns everywhere which was really fun until I rode a little too fast on one, ascended the side of the canyon then fell back into the canyon with my bike upside down. It took us about 5 minutes to get the bike stood back up again but we eventually made it.
We kept going until we hit a little trail that was carved into a cliff overlooking the ocean. We could see the main highway beneath us several thousand feet, all we had to do was creep down a steep rocky trail for a few miles before hitting the bottom, we'd made it, so happy to be back at sea-level.

That night we wanted to camp out so we rode to the next town where we found a pirate-like ship in a playground, we thought it would be a good place to hole up where when we saw a circus tent set up nearby with midgets so we asked them if they thought it would be fine if we slept in the boat but were told that there were a lot of drunks around. We then inquired if we could sleep in the circus tent, but they said they'd be working all night taking it down so we hit the road. We found a little road next to some army base of sorts, threw down our bags and fell asleep looking at the stars.