Park Calama

... my hands and pointing to pictures.<br>I was going to title this post "move on - there,s nothing to see here" , with no pics but I thought "sod it" I need to have a couple of pics to remind me of my last "happy" day in Chile...<br><br>Bye - Bye ...... Ron<br><br>P.S. Up the County - Just tatered Tooting 5-0 in the cup !!!<br>PPS cum on you blues ... Stuffed manure !!!

Water pump fixed now off to San Pedro about 8hrs ride from Arica but I have to try and make up some time that I have lost. Going thru the Atacama desert tested the water pump out and there was the problems with it, arrived in San Pedro about 8.00pm and checked in for 3 nights. Next day rode out to the Valley of the Moon with the name saying it all, it was just like a lunar landscape, walking around on the rocky outcrops you can hear the earth cracking with ...

Successfully got the TurBus from San Pedro to Calama - I could get used to this way of travelling, with reclining seats, foot rests, non-stop tv entertainment (largely US sitcoms but Spanish subtitles so I'd call that educational) - it sure beats National Express.... Got into Calama at about 4pm, and decided not to pay the extortionate two pounds taxi fare but to walk to the hotel instead - big mistake - I ...

Sortim de San Pedro a les 7 per travessar la frontera... però resulta que Xile està tancat d'11 del vespre a 8 del matí... Espera't una hora que obrin la frontera, i una hora més per passar tots els controls, primer el de la policia, llavors el d'aduanes. Llavors 160 Km fins la frontera amb Argentina, on hem de tornar a passar els controls... aquests encara són més complicats, primer policia, despres inmigració i despres aduanes (on, a sobre, et renyen si no portes un boli ...

... Got up at 6 this morning to take the bus to Chile, where we are now, and where we´ll meet our overnight connection to the border shortly. Argentina has been really great. I´m sorry to leave it, but really looking forward to Peru too. Argentinian people really made the trip - so friendly and funny. The incessant mate drinking was brilliant. Anywhere, anytime, pull out your thermos and your gourd and go to work. We saw people ...

... overnight the rest of the way. By the time we get into Arica tomorrow morning we´ll have been on the go for almost 24 hours and then there´s the border crossing into Peru and another 5 hour bus trip to get to Arequipa where we´re taking a well deserved break until we fly on to Cuzco on Weds. I´m sure I have more news but my brain is tired after travelling so I´ll make another entry from Arequipa ...

Filled the car and checked the tyres and realized that we had been driving along on tyres with a pressure of only 16 and also had to top up brake fluid. From Caldera we drove along the coast for a bit then headed inland. This must be the most boring bit of road in Chile. It's flat, flat, flat and there is nothing of interest to see. A huge industrial hammer mill the largest Malcolm has ever seen grinding up stones....a bit like a ...

... go to bed and we all sat having dinner in hats, gloves and several layers of clothing. We were slightly warmed by a performance by a promising four piece of sub-10 year old kids wuth out of tune instruments who hd everyone laughing in their seats as they butchered some Bolivian music. I knew that something wasn´t right when I hit my salt bed along with roomie, Diego (a 62 year old from Uruguay who spoke no English - we got on famously), and sure enough I was up every hour ...

... heat whilst I could only manage a short spell before decamping to the shade. Pablo paid for it though and suffered from a combination of a small amount of sun stroke but a (un)healthy dose of altitude sickness (personally I think he´s a shandy lightweight, Cuzco at 4000m next week should sort him out though!!) Altitude sickness manifests itself as constant nausea and thumping headaches. No booze for him then for the first two nights and the shivers on the second night from so ...

... He was telling us aswell that NASA is building even bigger telescopes in Germany to put here in the years to come. They are so big (around 9m in diameter) that they have to enlarge the road tunnel through the mountain which leads up to location on the mountain for the telescope. The names of the ones they have out here at the minute are called ELT telescopes which stands for (this is good now) Extremely Large Telescopes (holy god ...