Iquisa Hostal San Pedro de Atacama

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In Chile you have to pay if you wish to use a public toilet. It costs two hundred pesetas and we immediately took against this as a violation of our civil rights. After that I started a list of things we saw that you could buy that cost the same as being allowed to urinate. If you only had two hundred pesetas to your name and were desperate for the loo surely you would have to think long and hard between paying for that or getting an item off my list. So far it includes a box ...

... br>I was looking for Quebrada del Diablo, 8km from town, and knew I was somewhere near where I had to turn right according to my hand drawn map but that was just after a river crossing and I was specifically told to turn right after 100m (there were surprisingly several river crossings I had to make) so I kept going until I saw a sign post indicating that I was not 13km out of town... After exploring that random area a bit, I turned back with 0,25 lites of water left, and ...

... Waz’s understanding of Spanish has become really good, and sometimes it was easier for him to translate then have Silvia do her Portuguese - Spanish - to broken English thing!

The tour itself was just breathtaking, literally - took your breath away, we reached altitudes of about 5000 meters and until you acclimatise it really leaves you begging for mercy. I won’t go into too much detail about the trip, its something I think everyone ...

... the stars look clear and bright all night long. We had a frenchman as a guide and he was unusually funny for a frenchman. First he gave us an overview of the night sky and picked out a few constallations. We didn´t know many of them because it is obviously the southern hemisphere so we don´t often see these stars, but it was fasinating. As he was pointing out a constallation we saw what looked like a shooting star. In fact it was actually the international ...

Meine letzte Tour hier in San Pedro fuehrt Christina, Manuel und mich ins Valle de la Luna, nord-westlich von San Pedro gelegen. Nach unserer etwas speziellen Exkursion ins Rainbow Valley starten wir ausgeruht erst spaet im Nachmittag.
Wir stehen hoch ueber dem Eingang zum Mondtal vor einer langen Duene. Alle Lucken dicht machen (Fotoausruestung ...) und ein Sprung ins ...

... thanks to an Italian company who, whilst attempting to harness the geoth**mic muscle of the und**ground aquif**s, has managed to drill a hole in one of the main wat**ways. The result is an enormous sprout of boiling wat**, 70m high that roars with indignation. The Italians have thrown themselves into rev**se and beaten a hasty retreat leaving oth**s to wond** how to repair the damage. They have left behind a furious local community who are desp**ate to seek ...

... foot high dune, strap the "ironing board" to your feet and try to look as cool as possible as you "hurtle" down the hill.

Personally, I thought it looked like too much effort for too little pleasure. Jim obviously looked the part but the technique was sadly lacking. After several "runs" down the dune, he emerged pretty knackered with sand in places he'd rather not talk about.

The next day it was Jim's 41st birthday...that´s right...FORTY ONE years ...

... und Unterhaltung geboten, wir haben uns lieber an unserem Bier festgehalten, die Tänze der Einheimischen bleiben mir ein Rätsel und die deutsche Hüfte hat da einfache ein wenig eingeschränkte Bewegungsfähigkeiten von Rhythmus ganz zu schweigen. Aber was kann man mehr von einem Tag in Chile erwarten. Dann aber auch weiter nach Salta Argentinien.

... back and enjoyed an amazing few kilometers of downhill biking. We reached Valle de la Muerte (death valley) and locked our bikes up to climb up the sand dune - this was ridiculously hard work, Celia only managed it three times and Lee five. Sand boarding was fun but difficult and very tiring!! That evening we went out for some dinner, collected our laundry and had an early night in preparation for our trip across to Bolivia the following day.

... t have
our vouchers from the tour company or itineraries for our tours. A short walk into town to Desert Adventure soon fixed that and then we were free to chill. We had a toastie at a veggie sandwich shop (once again I don't know it's name - I must learn to keep notes!) and then back to the hotel.


The town is easy to negotiate as it is on a grid plan.


Our first trip was that evening and it was the ...