07-Oct-2004 -- My wife, twin daughters and I left our home in Arequipa on a beautiful, sunny Friday morning to go to Mollendo for seafood. The drive takes you through winding desolate desert mountains dotted with crescent sand dunes of the northern Atacama desert. The drive took 1 ½ hours.

As we reached the coast we regretted not throwing in our jackets, as it was quite chilly and foggy. We had a great lunch of corvina, camarones and mariscos.

We then proceeded to locate the confluence 17S 72W. We drove east from the coast up through the poor sections of Mollendo and found a trail that appeared to climb the hard red dune in front of us. We were able to find the confluence without much difficulty, (a 63 meters walk down a sand dune into a deep sandy canyon.)

Surrounded by dunes and fog, the resolution of some of the pictures was poor at best, and the North East and West photos were not suitable to be included. This was my first confluence find and the first in the Arequipa area. It was quite exciting. The altitude was 345 meters above sea level. The photo #3 is of the town of mollendo, taken approximately 60 meters from the point.