smelly site

Reluctantly left the border town of San Pedro at 2pm, looking forward to great pavement and looking back on a barren desert and the snowcapped volcanos and mountains of Bolivia. Rolled into Calama, and decided to service the bike. New fluids and filter only took about half-an-hour, but trying to convince the girl at the shop that I was excited to camp in the desert took another hour or more. She knew plenty about motos, and seemingly more about the Chilean attractions one shouldn´t miss.... Camping in the desert wasn´t one of them. I felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of sites and conviction with which she spoke, but peculiarly satisfied with what I have already explored/discovered/experienced. After failing to convince me to stay in Calama for the night, I motored out to find a site to camp. In retrospect, she couldve been right... By the time the sun had started to set, I wasn´t finding much to block the gusting winds from butchering my tent, so I set up behind the only windshelter I could see. Beautiful sunset illuminating everything in a desert red glow. Not-so-beautiful piles of poop equally illuminated everywhere around the shelter. It seemed that the only area for a guy to get out of the wind and camp was also the only place for commuting traffic to get out of site of traffic to pinch one out. In the desert, there isn´t much to hide you from the traffic... or the wind. In my case that night, less wind = more poop. I think I will plan more time to look for a site out of the passing poop route next time, or just deal with the wind.