To Fiambala

Overnight, the river moved closer to us and reminded us about camping riverside when the snow is melting. But, it did make it easier to do the dishes.

We wanted to get an early start, but were sidetracked when a goat herder came wandering through. He kicked up a huge flock of… green parrots? Hundreds of them – totally unexpected and cool sight to see. We followed the flock from tree to tree and listened to them squawk for a while before packing up the bus.

On the road west we spotted several more – four of them raced us for 5 kilometers or more at 30 mph. Speedy desert parrots – who knew?

This entire 220 km route from Conception to Belen is unpaved, which made for two days of fun driving. After Belen, we hit pavement and it was smooth sailing to Fiambala.  It’s not in any of our guidebooks, but we met some other travelers who raved about it. Sounds perfect.

And, we calculated our oil burn at about 1 liter per 6 hours or so. We’ll watch it closely and look for an opportunity to rebuild when it makes sense.