Awasi San Pedro de Atacama

... br><br><br>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 ...

So the salt flats... so rock up to the pick up place and loaded into a mini bus for the short ride to the border with Bolivia. Then a longer 30 minute ride to the Bolivian check point. I was going to be sharing the trip with 3 Brazilian women all over 45 - 2 architects and their ex secretary - ooh what fun (not)... <br><br>So when we arrive at the Bolivian border the drivers make us breakfast as we get our passports ...

... 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 ...

This town is stuck in the middle of the Atacama Desert. This town is just what you expect South America to be like. Four dusty, sandy streets with really friendly people. From here we visited the moon valley and death valley the most inhospitable places on the planet because of its lack of jumidity. In the day it is really hot and at night minus 12 degress. This place was ...

... till it finally started climbing to the top to go back inland towards the main highway, it was an awesome view with no one in sight and not seeing another car for 3.5 hours. Passing thru Antofagasta it was just another city to me( second largest in Chile), I kept heading north along the coast with a short detour to the Natural La Portada which is a natural arch just off the ...

... golven had gesmeten, besloot ik omdan toch nog maar een dagje extra te blijven en eens te checken wat er snachts zo allemaal te beleven valt... bwa, voor het dindagavond-uitgaansleven had ik nie moeten blijven. Bestookt en achtervolgd door een bende hiphoppende en beatboxende snotters, om dan om 3 uur al de last man standing te zijn. En op strand maffen bleek toch ook niet zo ...

Purely a destination of convenience, the point at which we skip a couple of thousand miles of bus journey and take the sensible option of a flight. Iquique is a bizarre town that feels like it is in the wild west era. The overnight stopover was however vastly improved by great sushi!!!

... do. So I spent most of the day reading in a cafe or working on the internet. Which is the same thing I did the next day before it was time to catch my SUPER PLUSH bus to Santiago. I decide to treat myself and went with the deluxe sleeper where the bus rocked me to sleep and I was very refreshed by the time I got to Santiago. Really not too exciting of an entry... but I wanted to document it anyway. Sorry.

... I used to picture when I thought of SA. It was tiny with only a few streets all of which were dirt. The placed seemd to solely exist for gringos passing through. Everywhere you turned was a hostel or some special deal for tourists. We decided it was best to get strait into the salt lake tour so booked to leave the next day. Probably not the smartest idea as you are supposed to acclimatize before heading up to 5000 meters. Bah.