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teary. Then there was the downhill run off the mountain and to the
coast, through plains of wildflowers and cacti, and forest where birds
were singing. The desert where I nearly died just a couple of days back
seemed forever ago.
About 120 kilometres south of the town of Antofagasta, I passed
the European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory, perched
on a red earth mound. It is an awesome sight, and it's no wonder
that it cost more than $1 billion to establish. Its main telescope is
called, for reasons that are obvious when you see it, the Very Large
Telescope.
At the end of the downhill run, I arrived at the town of Paposo,
and then, after I'd run 90 kilometres, I found myself in Taltal, an idyllic
fishing village with sandy beaches on one side and a high mountain
range on the other. We parked for the night in a car park and, it still
being light—which has been unheard of since I've been running 90 or
95 kilometres a day—we cruised the town. On the beach, fishermen
were pulling fish out of the sea. I had a beer, which tasted very good. I
ran strongly today.
december 1
A rough, hot day. It began with a 45-kilometre climb into a strong
headwind and finished with another 45 kilometres of winding
roads, meandering east, west, north and occasionally south, around
mountains. Those final 45 kilometres actually represented about
11 kilometres of forward progress. Much of the scenery, now that I'm
back on the coast and out of the Atacama desert, is beautiful, but I'm
just too buggered and preoccupied by the logistics of the South Pole to
pay it much attention.
I don't want it to sound like I'm always whinging, but the fact is
that running 90 kilometres every day is a hard and relentless slog, and
the further I get towards the end, the more beat-up my body is, and
the more difficult it gets. Please don't get me wrong: some days are dia-
monds. But I'm still fatigued by my day lost in the Atacama desert and
night out in the cold. I'm sure that's why I lacked energy and felt dis-
pirited today. That stuff-up in the desert was a terrifying experience. I
don't think I'd have survived another day wandering lost in that heat.
We received an email today from a woman who works in the mine
