The Atacama desert part 2 (Antofagasta to Iquique)

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After waiting in Antofagasta for 2 weeks for a package from home we eventually got back on the road to head to Iquique. From Antofagasta it's a 410km coastal road to Iquique, with the Atacama desert on one side and the Pacific on the other. The road hugs the coastline the whole way, never more than a couple of hundred metres from the sea, so we had some nice views of the coast while we were riding. On the first day we discovered that Jake's rear rim had a massive crack in it, which gave him a puncture from the inside. We gaffa taped the rim so that he could carry on riding and prayed it would last to Iquique which it did luckily! We arrived in Iquique early on the fifth day and found a bike shop to get Jake a new rim. Iquique is famous for surfing and has a really nice beach about 100 metres from our hostel so we decided to stay a day to chill out before we got going towards Bolivia. The next stretch is a road across to the Bolivian border which cross near the Coipasa salt plain. The Bolivian border is at about 3800m though so we have to climb up to it from sea level which we're expecting to be pretty tough!

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