Straight from the start this morning, I wanted to set a high pace. Cruising at 140 – 150 km/h the cool hours of the morning would be well spent. By around 11:00 I already had 220 km’s behind me. Time to fill up on gas. Not that I was in dire need of fuel, but the next fuel station was 188 km’s away. Better be safe than sorry. However this is something that puzzled me somewhat. In a country with such vast distances, one would expect more fuel stations, closer together.
By lunchtime I reached the coastal town of Chañaral. When I filled up and went to buy some lunch, a disturbing metal grinding sound, coming from the front sprocket area of the motor, caught my attention. It got me worried, because I could not come up with a theory as to what it might be, other than maybe the nut holding the sprocket in place could have come lose…..
After I finished my sandwich and drink, I started the bike up again and the noise was gone. I haven’t heard it since.
The road continued along the Pacific coast for some 100+ km’s with some amazing views. Also with some annoying detours, but that’s all in the game I guess.
I kept the high pace and therefore decided to push my destination for the day forward.
Here’s where one of the preparations proved to be a good investment; partly due to having reworked the seat and making it firmer, I could bear the pain in my butt and keep riding.
901 km’s later I finally arrived in a beach resort town, named La Serena. It reminded me a lot of the Costa del Sol in the South of Spain.
Today was not only the longest one day trip of this holiday, but the longest that I ever did on a motorbike!!!!
When I took my bike gloves off, I noticed that I have blisters on my hands from holding the handlebars firmly while hanging in the wind !!!!!
I could also really do with a good neck massage. 😉
Riding through town slowly, looking for a hostel (couldn’t find the camping) I was addressed in Dutch my a gentleman who, according to his own testimony, studied in Belgium when he was a much younger man. Thanks to him I was directed to a cheap hostel with room to put the XTZ inside.
Before I got there, I turned off the engine to talk to someone and couldn’t get it started again: no electric pulse again. Again I had to take of all the luggage and look for the fault. This time it was de + of the battery that came lose. It was fixed easily. 🙂
Tomorrow Santiago will be my destination. From today I did make a few photo’s:
xtztravels 
That’s the only true bikers way to fix things, just go have lunch and hope it’s gone! 🙂 (Either that or use tie-raps).
I finally found this site, so from now on I’ll be following you closely. Have fun!
Gr., Joost
901 Km, nice driving Wim! :}
I hope you do check the front sprocket nut regardless of making a noise or not.
Thanks Robbin. I plan to do that today 😉
Wow! I didn’t realize you actually prepared the seat for this trip. I thought you mentioned you couln’t make it in time. Well, it is a blessing isn’t it?!
1600 km’s in 2 days. Very respectable!!! 🙂
Yep, that it is. Maybe I could have made it even better, but for now it suffices. I will change a few things with respect to luggage next time though. I will safe money for these:
He gozer, hoop dat je wel het een en ander nog gezien hebt zo onderweg. Kon je wel alleen van je motor komen of heb je een afstapsteun ofzo. Je hebt iig een aardige slag geslagen in de route. Heel veel plezier komende kilometers.
Groet Ben
Haha, nee het ging wel…. alleen m’n nek zit een beetje vast.
Ik ga mij toch voornemen om iets vaker te stoppen voor foto’s want daar komt nu wel wat minder van…..