INTO NORTHERN CHILE TO VALLENAR

Hello everybody. Circumstances have prevented me from posting here on the Atacama Viajero blog for several days, but today presents itself as a perfect time to bring this journal up to date. I am writing this from an internet cafe in Vallenar, Chile, which is about 670 km north of Santiago.
Vallenar is perhaps best known as the home base for people who come here to experience the so-called "flowering of the desert," which takes place in the arid lands of this extension of the Atacama Desert in the austral spring. Well, currently it is late summer here, and the only flowers blooming around Vallenar are in the gardens here in this town of some 43,000 people. Specifically I stopped here for a day to deal with a very mundane but necessary task: getting my laundry done - which meant dropping my dirty duds off at the local Lavanderia, where they will wash and dry those clothes while I spend my day doing whatever else there is to do - like fill in this blog. The clothes will be ready to pick up this evening at 8 p.m.
So now I should mention my activities for the past few days. I left Santiago at around noon on Monday, heading north on the Panamerican Highway (Chile Ruta 5), with my first stop being the city of Quillota, in the heart of the Avocado-growing district 125 km north of Santiago. There I met up with my old friend Marcelo, whom I had met last year up in San Pedro de Atacama. I was his guest for the day there at his father´s house, and thoroughly enjoyed the hospitality of his family during my visit. Monday night was spent savoring some fine Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon with Marcelo, his father, and his cousin while enjoying some spirited conversations about politics (both Chilean and American) and also about music (especially the music of the great Chileans Violeta Parra and Victor Jara).
Then on Tuesday I headed out to the coast to connect with my friend and agent Andrés and his family, who were vacationing in a cabaña on the outskirts of Maitencillo. By coincidence, it was Andrés´birthday, so we did some good celebrating as well as visiting the rocky shores of the Pacific as well as the beautiful cove that is one of the trademarks of the exclusive resort town of Zapallar.
Then yesterday I bade farewell to Andrés and got going on a concerted push northward, putting in about 560 km worth of driving to get north of the big resort of La Serena and finally to here, where I am comfortably settled into a very clean and comfortable hotel known as Puerto de Vega. Tomorrow, with my suitcases filled with clean clothes, and well-stocked with food and water, I will venture farther north, past Copiapó and the generally-acknowledged southern edge of the real Atacama Desert, and on to the Parque Nacional Pan de Azucar (click on the map to enlarge and you will see it on the coast just above Chañaral), where I plan to camp for one or two nights. I´ve not visited Pan de Azucar before, but feel I need to since everyone raves about it´s special mix of desert and ocean coastal scenery. Hopefully I can get some photos posted of that once I am again able to stop into an internet cafe. Too bad I cannot upload photos here - thus just the map.
Anyway, stay tuned. There are plenty of adventures pending here for this Atacama Viajero!