At Chanaral, we leave our bikes in a house of a friend and decide to go hitchhiking up to Iquique, mythic paragliding spot in South America, where a competition is held in 3 days from now.

Alto Hospicio, Palo Buque, are names famous in the paragliding world.

Onshore, Iquique is between the Pacific Ocean and a big cliff 700m high, starting the Cordillera of the Andes.

In the middle of the city a huge sand dune, “the Dragon”, a few hundreds meters high lets the Dune de Pyla like a sand castle for kids in my mind.

Of course the sea breeze gives the opportunity to fly smoothly and securely for hours every day of the year. I wonder why I wasn’t born there.

Hernan, from the Hernan Parapente School is the Manitou of the good paragliding spirit here.

Let the Flypark for pilots with a lot of money and talk to Hernan, you will understand that paragliding is not only for doctors or engineers... and get ready to party at night for flying anyway in the morning. The way I like!

He hosts us for nothing (while he runs a nice hostel for pilots) during the four days we stay there and gives to Nadège some courses while I enjoy the magnificent site.

Coming back to Chanaral and our bikes, we get ready for crossing for real the terrible Atacama Desert.