Terrantai Lodge San Pedro de Atacama

... a bit more and then went to book my remaining tours.<br><br>Sunset was grand. Obviously with no rain, there are very few clouds (only very high ones) so there are practically guaranteed clear skies. The group had a mixture of good people and old people so we had to go quite slowly but there were some fun moments, like sprinting down some steep and very high sand dunes (much steeper than the photos make it look, BTW). Sunset probably could have used a little more cloud ...

... on home soil. Sam from the Salt plains was also there and it was nice to meet up with her again a few times.<br><br>Our one venture out of town was to Valle de la Luna, not religiously named this time but actually so called due to it´s resemblance to the moon. After the South West of Bolivia, we were getting used to things not really looking like places belonging to the planet we know. The standard tour goes for sunset via Valley of Death and the ...

I'm going to try to write this with my baby sister wiggling and gurgling on my lap, so it might be a little haphazard.<br><br>On Wednesday morning Theora and I took off for San Pedro (the driest desert in the world). We got there to find a hot, dusty, all adobe and thatch and wooden town. Its low season right now for tourism so the town was relatively calm.<br><br>Our first full day we hitch-hiked to "Pukará de Quitor", a stronghold of the Atacameño people ...

... Hilfe zu holen resp. das Problem zu beheben. Nicht einfach in the middle of nowhere ...<br>Unsere kleine Strapaze wurde mehr als belohnt. Das Rainbow Valley ist so farbig wie die von einem Maler vergessene Farbpalette ... die Farbenpracht reicht von rot Nuancen ueber weiss, gelb, gruen, grau, braun bis ins blaue gehende Farbtoenungen. Eindruecklich.<br> <br> <br>

... an oasis in the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile. At around 2,400m it´s considerably warmer than the Bolivian Altiplano that we had just come from. The absence of the piercing Altiplano winds were welcomed by both of us as were the pleasant temperatures of around 30C.<br><br>It´s fair to say that as soon as we crossed the Bolivian border into Chile the difference between the two countries was immediately apparent. Apart from the pleasure of hot running ...

Leaving Taltal my plan was to reach Tocopilla to make up some time instead of staying in Antofagasta which I had planned. Heading north to a town called Paposo on the coast the road was bitumen all the way then it changed to gravel for the next 140kms and took about 3.5hrs to negotiate. Some sections you could travel about 80km/hour then you would have to slow down to 20km/hour ...

... 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!!!

My bus arrived in Iquque around 4 am, but they let us sleep on the bus until 8. After finding a hostel and having a little nap, I went out to buy my bus ticket to Santiago, and check out the town. The town square was really nice, however, not a lot too look at. So I headed to the beach, where I sat and watched the waves and the surfers for about 3 hours. It is always nice to just relax and have nothing ...

... as the first. The rest of the trip was ok but very long 26 hours or so. Hello cabin fever. The scenery on the ride was just mind blowing it was like nothing I had ever seen before. There was just dirt and sand for miles. No trees bushes or water just desert. We imagined it would be much like that on the moon. As we neared the ocean the view just got better. Huge mountains up to 5000 meters hovered over the water line ...