The sand doesn’t stop at the coastal road - or the dunes - or the mountains.
It stretches for a thousand kilometres in every direction.
The Andes rob the air of its moisture and the best the endless beach can achieve is a coastal fog.
We drove through the desert for hundreds of kilometres. Somehow, people have gained some purchase in this inhospitable terrain and small communities subsist where the occasional aquifer surfaces.
And then the endless flat sand ended suddenly.
Rocks began to appear on the side of the road and within 10km they had swollen to ravines that soared above us. We had begun the descent to the Pacific Ocean and when it came it was without ceremony. We rounded a final corner and the ravines were gone and the ocean stretched for 12,000km with little between us and New Zealand.
We drove for 100km along a pristine beach with sets of breakers crashing onto the shore with what would have been monotonous regularity but for the fact the last time we saw the ocean, it was the Atlantic in Buenos Aires.
The ravines returned as we hit a towering cliff top road that snaked around azure bays and through endless tunnels in the rock.
We overtook lorries, four at a time on the climbs, during wide arching bends that afforded sufficient visibility. Eventually when the cliffs petered out, we arrived at Puerto Inca, a small beach cove with a bar and a few rooms.
Miriam, another Dragoman truck, was there already and Izzy and TJ greeted their counterparts like water in the desert.
Miriam was packed with single girls.
Apparently, some of them were collecting notches on the bed post quicker than was respectable – at least, if that is possible in a tent.
The sexual tension was also becoming palpable on Cindy and a solution was required – urgently.
It came to me in a flash. There was 4kg of fresh chicken in the fridge and a cursory glance at Miriam’s cooking pot revealed a surplus of teriyaki beef. If I threw the chicken out, the single boys would need to muster all their charms to persuade Miriam’s girls to share.
The rest would sort itself out.
I dumped the chicken in the nearest bin, blamed it publicly on Sophie and sat back to watch my machinations fall into place - except they didn’t.
The hungry crew reacted badly to the disappearance of the chicken and it snowballed into a general rant about the non-functioning fridge – and then the cab speakers which weren’t working either.
The boys wouldn’t talk to the girls.
We ate cold vegetables for dinner.
TJ had warned us about the strong undertow in the bay and I considered taking a night time swim.
Instead, we sat around the camp fire in the darkness. The speakers were forgotten. The chicken was history.
We all agreed that it was off anyway.
The vegetables probably did us good.
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