A slow start by the standards of this trip — a morning at the beach before the last stretch of Chilean desert, a drive that drops in and out of a series of dramatic canyons on its way to the final city before Peru.
The morning belongs to Playa Cavancha, Iquique's signature beach and one of the best urban stretches of sand on the Chilean coast — a sheltered cove close to the city centre, calm enough for an easy swim, with a boardwalk running along the back of the beach and a clear view across the bay to the dune-backed hills above the city. After weeks of high desert camps and canyon roads, a morning here with nothing more urgent than the tide is a fair trade for the miles still ahead. Iquique wakes under the characteristic coastal cloud that rolls in off the Pacific at night and burns away through the morning — the same pattern that shapes weather along this entire stretch of coast.
Deleting this waypoint is permanent and cannot be undone.