 Ready for take-off! Look at that, hey! How amazing! Oh wow. What is this place? Hi, I'm Lavi. And I'm Oli. And this is our hero, Bumblebee. Together, we are attempting a Guinness World Record to become the youngest pair to circumnavigate the globe by motorcycle. Join us for season three here in South America. Here we are back at safe parking after leaving Bumblebee here for the weekend. And there she is! Woohoo! Yes! Missed you so much! But let's check if this is the right one. Yes! Yes! Good morning world! Welcome back to the channel. It's day number 298 on our circumnavigation around the globe by motorcycle. We're here in the city of Antofagasta, right in the middle of the Atacama Desert in Chile. Where it never rains! Where it literally never rains. I looked it up. Wow, look how many vultures there are here. Oh my God, many! So many! So we spent the last couple of days here catching up with some editing and also fixing our equipment. Our tent is on the blink to break down, but we can fix it for the next leg. And also we planned the next leg, which looks really exciting. So we are totally ready to hit the road again. So let me show you guys where we're heading today. So today we'll be starting off on the route of five before turning off here to the 25 up to Calama. Then we'll be taking the 23 down to San Pedro de Atacama. And then along the Salada Atacama, the Atacama Soul Flats to finish the day somewhere around here. Yes, the area we're heading to today is called the Los Flamencos National Reserve. So I've been really looking forward to exploring this area of the Atacama Desert. So I am super excited to get over there. So we have just about under 200 miles to get into this area. And it's already 10 o'clock, so better hit the road, let's go. There's the fishing port area of town. And I don't know what these like cranes are. There's a bunch of old cranes on the pier. Yeah. I don't know if that's like a historical thing that they're still using or not. Oh, look, it says Monumento Historico. I guess this is actually... Not in use anymore? No. Interesting. Oh, and look, there's some very old fishing boats. Cool. So this city actually has a population of nearly 400,000, which is absolutely crazy considering where it is. I mean, there's literally hundreds and hundreds of miles of desert in every direction around this city. And the whole place actually just occupies this narrow strip between the Chilean coastal range in front and the coast behind. And that is what we are about to cross and leave the city. We just stopped at this service station here on the highway and look at these cars that are here. Wow, look at that. Apparently this place is so remote that people can't even like get their cars to a garage or anything. They just take them to here and leave them. Look at that, there's a truck, there's another one. Crazy stuff out here in the desert. Racing the ore train. Cool, look at that. Over there is a mini tornado. Or a dust devil as they call it in Australia. Oh, I think it's disappearing. Come back. A whole bunch of abandoned buildings around here. It looks like maybe the remnants of an old mining settlement. It's really interesting. You can see here all over the place actually, abandoned houses, abandoned buildings. I guess there was a lot of mining towns all over the Atacama, look at that. This is a pretty ugly area of the Atacama. There is a lot of mines and sort of cut mountains that have been shaped into squares. A lot of machinery and a lot of rubbish around. Yeah, it's been like this probably for the last 70 miles. So it's not the nicest ride, but the road is nice. The nice, nice town up road. Yeah, I don't know exactly what they're mining here. But there's like a green tint on this pile over here, this big rock pile. So that might indicate that there's copper mine. We're just having our lunch break in the town of Kalama. We've done really well actually. We've done 143 miles already. So really good progress today, but now it's time for lunch. It's like a real motor kitchen at the moment here. I bought up this morning some potatoes. So we will have some boiled potatoes and we bought these things here. It's a fake crispy chicken patty. It's just soy protein mixed with vegetables. And then I will have as well what I prepared this morning, some cabbage. It looks really disgusting, but it tastes very good. That's actually a really tasty homemade road burger. Got a little bit of sweet corn in it. Little bits of carrot. Pretty good. Absolutely delicious. Look, they have trees in this desert town here in Kalama. But I always find these towns super interesting just to see like, there's people living here in the middle of the middle of nowhere. Yeah, and a lot of people as well. Yeah. Like it's not a small town, it's like a proper town. Yeah. With some graffiti. Some really beautiful graffiti. That's true. There's some big alpacas and flamingos. We're going to be seeing some flamingos, hopefully in the Los Flamencos National Reserve. I hope so. I mean, it's literally called Los Flamencos National Reserve. So there should be flamingos there. Oh, look, they have domino's pizza here. There you go. They've made it. Anyway, so now we have about 60 miles to San Pedro de Atacama. The bus driver. He was like, yo. Yeah, San Pedro de Atacama is pretty much the tourist center for the Atacama Desert. So there should be a lot of cool things to see in that area. Whoa, guys, look at this. Three massive trucks holding. These are the blades for a big, big electricity windmill. Look at that. Oh my God, they are so massive. They are so absolutely the biggest things in the world. When you see the, when you see them going in the air, you can't imagine that they are each of them this big. Hey, look at that. No, yeah. Whoa. Wow. They're so long. And you cannot imagine that they can be turned by the power of wind. Hey. I actually can't imagine that. Incredible. Oh, oh. The highway. Whoops. This one's the highway. Look, here's a whole bunch in action. The power of wind. 16,999.9. We just hit 17,000 miles on the road. Woo. Wow, that's a big view. Yeah, we are just coming up to a huge valley. And I think the town San Pedro de Atacama actually sits down in this valley. Wow, it looks absolutely crazy. Whoa, that's an absolutely massive view. Because it goes like down and it goes up. Yeah. Because it's over there. It's like hills and mountains and stuff. Yeah, well, that's the Andes Mountains behind. Wow. Ready for takeoff? Wow. Whoa, look at this crazy valley we just came into just before San Pedro. Oh my God. Whoo. What's going on here? That's epic. So I think they call this area the valley of the moon, the moon valley, Val de la Luna. It looks very, very, very dramatic. Dramatic. Whoa, look down here. That really is like a valley from another planet. And behind off there in the distance, that is the Salar de Atacama, the Atacama salt flats. And that's the direction we'll be heading today. Got some other bikers here stopping for the view. BMW GS, KTM. And we're about to stick our sticker. Our new sticker is that Nicos got us. Thank you, Nicos. Up on this Ruta del Desierto, Cordillera de la Sal sign. Yes. Yes. Stick it on. Stick it on. Yes. Lamiaroli, forever in the Atacama. Ah, good. Javier on the sign. Nice. Pleasure to meet you. Yes. Have a beautiful trip. Thank you. Where are you from, Javier? From Mexico. From Mexico. Oh boy. When will you be back? I'm going to Shuaia. To Shuaia, yeah? And then I don't know. Ha ha ha. Sticker from Javier's Instagram, El Muneco por el Mundo. That's gonna go right here. Yes. You're on the box. See you guys. What a cool couple. And he has been everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. Wow. Oh, whoa. First we were looking at the Moon Valley and now we are riding through it. Wow. Look at that, hey. How amazing. Oh, wow. What is this place? Absolutely stunning. Yeah, it sort of looks like people have sort of put piles of earth everywhere. Yeah, somebody was like with an axe, you know, hacking it. Yeah, chopping it all up into pieces. But this isn't a natural formation. This is not like a mining site or anything. This is how it formed. Look at this, it's crazy. Wow. Looks like the whole rock layers have been turned on their heads. You can see how the sedimentary layers have been literally flipped up. Amazing. Well, here we are coming into San Pedro de Atacama. Yeah, there's a river, but there's absolutely no water in there. But it is quite pleasant green here, actually. Yeah, this town has actually been around for centuries. It was based around an oasis. The first people to come here were called the Atacamenos. And their traditions of basket weaving and ceramic pottery, you can still see that here today in like the tourist shops and stuff. But now this town has a population of 5,000 people. And it's crazy because we're actually up at 2,400 meters above sea level here. Yeah, really high up. I mean, it's higher than the highest mountain in England. Yeah, by far. It's more than double, I think. It's interesting because this town actually used to be part of Bolivia after Bolivia got their independence. But there was actually a war between Chile and Bolivia. And Chile basically took this town at the end of the 1800s. And it's been a part of Chile ever since. But I love these walls. Look at these walls. Everything made out of the earth. It's really, really beautiful. Whoa, look at this gathering of people here in the center of the town. They're wearing really nice costumes that I can't wait for. It's just started. Whoa, look at these guys. Amazing. Crazy, eh? Amazing. So we just stopped here in town to come and visit the Meteorite Museum of San Pedro, which is right here. And the whole thing's basically in these massive geodesic domes, which is super cool. And in here we can see some locally found meteorites. We just went inside and bought some ticket and she said the normal tickets are sold out, but she has student tickets for us. So we're actually paid less. Students. Students of life. And it's actually really interesting because here on the sign above us at the front is the crater de Montarraqui, the Montarraqui crater. And this crater is actually very local to here. It's about 60, 70 miles away from here. And so the meteorites in here, I don't know if all of them, but at least some of them were found at this very crater in this area. Let's go to the universe. Gracias. Thank you. This one's like metal. Yeah. So in this clay contain two types of meteorites. This is chondrite and she contains all the elements of perium table. She's really oldest for that step at 100 million years. 4500 million years. Yes. Wow. Bye. And this is like iron, like veins. Byrona 74, another 30, it's 15 nickel. And another 15 is gold, silverware, all the metal. These were formed in the center of a planet and then fell as meteorites. And now we get to hold them. Wow. Crazy. Whoa. And this is the same composition like this one. So to hunt for these in the desert, you have to basically go around with a magnet and then these ones will like this, like this, right? Wow. Super magnetic. This one's been left on for an hour. No way. Goodbye meteorite museum. Bye bye. So I wanted to give an explanation of what was going on what they had inside whilst we were actually there, but the sun is setting super fast now. It is already 730 and the sunset is at 815. So we really don't have a lot of time. We've still got to ride about 30 miles over to a free camping spot that we've seen on Ioverlander. But that was a super awesome place. They basically had a collection of meteorites that had been found around the Atacama, around the local area. As you were going through all the different display cabinets, they were basically showing you about the different types of meteorites that exist. Some details about those meteorites and what they could discover from testing them. Yeah, it's pretty amazing because the whole museum is actually founded by two brothers and they have really a passion about going out in the desert and looking for meteoroids. Yeah, and everything that they found there is just incredible. So they had meteorites that were left over bits of rock from the formation of the solar system. They had meteorites there that were actually when two protoplanets collide and then parts of that protoplanet end up as meteorites. They had meteorites from the core of planets, meteorites from the middle of the planets, like the mantle, meteorites from the outer crust of planets. So through the collection of meteorites that they have there, you can really see into the formation of planets and the formation of the earth. So meteorites can tell us a lot. They also had meteorites there. I think they were called chrondites and they basically had almost like all the atoms inside of them. So they were basically like the building blocks for a whole earth and the building blocks for life. So they were basically talking about how meteorites, they give us clues into the origin of how the earth formed and how life formed on earth. So super incredible. Yeah, that was a pretty awesome visit, definitely. Yeah. And then at the end, we got to touch meteorites. We got to hold them. Yeah, that's actually the coolest part, hey? That is actually I think the coolest part. Yeah, we could hold them, touch them, play around with them a little bit and they're super heavy. So, but now we know what to look for when we have our strolls around in the desert here. Here, sunset, the sun is just above the mountains over there now, but my God, is it beautiful. Right, this is our turn over to the wild camp. Got a lot of corrugation. Yeah. And it is a little bit sandy. But yeah, we have to keep going a little bit more. Yeah, our tire pump broke as well. So we can't really play around with our tire pressure anymore. We have to sort of just stuck with what we have. Whoa, somebody's left some wood here. Wood here, hey? Whoa, we've got to watch out for nails on those. Whoa. Yeah, definitely. And somebody left some TVs here as well. What a spectacular little road. Look at the surroundings. Epic, man, absolutely epic. What a place to have a wild camp. Yeah. Absolutely unbelievable. Okay, a little less sandy now, a little bit more rocky, which is nice. That's good. Rocky is good, but what is going on here? Ooh, I don't know. Okay, should I just go through it? Yeah, I guess so. It looks like it's like wet, but there is no way to go. Oh, there's no way to go. Oh, no, there is. Okay. Whoa, it looks like this all got very, very, very wet. Yeah. Strange. Strange. Okay. Okay. Take it, we take the right track here, hey? I guess so. I can't see any roads here on my Maps Me. Oh, wow, we're even off of Maps Me now. Yeah, yeah. Oh, no way. It's still a good track, so we'll just keep going down this track and see what we can find. Yeah. Oh, cool. Oh, I think we're coming down to it here. It said it was down by the river, hey? Oh, bash plate. Yeah, I think we are. I think we're here. We are home. Ha, ha, I think this is it. Wow, cool. Look at this place. We're home. Whoa, look at the view. Oh, man. So this over in the distance is the Atacama Salt Flats. Towards this direction is all of the Andes Mountains rising up to like 4,000, 5,000 meters. That is crazy place. Wow. And we just about made it before sunset. So let's get camp set up real quick. Real quick. We've got the camp set up. Good evening, guys. We made it. Happy and alive. Wee. Yes, it's done. The camp is set up. The view is awesome, but it is getting really dark, really quick. So we will just cook up some dinner and then jump straight into bed. Yes, I'm so glad we managed to make it all the way over to here and get to this awesome area. So I'm super excited to have an exploration of all the amazing things that are in the Los Flamingos National Reserve. So, and from us today at the end, we did 240 miles. And we hope you enjoyed the video. If so, please give us a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel. Share the video with your friends and family. Comment below. And if you really, really like the video, then you can support us on Patreon. The link is in the description below. And we will see you next time.