Wow – its only been 5 days since I’ve written in here but it feel like I have about 5 months to catch up on.  When I cut off lask week we were about to arrive in San Pedro do Atacama – what an amazing place.  I have never been in the desert before and when we got of the bus the heat ust hit us all like a ton of bricks.  Very different that the humid Ottawa summer heat – just super dusty and dry and hard to breathe at first.  Funny though, because the heat did not last into the evening and it takes awhile to get warm in the morning.

No sooner did we get off the bus and get to our hostel then most of us were on another bus taking us out to Moon Valley.  We barely had time for a shower as we only had 40 min to spare, but I felt so scrungy after over 24 h straight in the same clothes.  I mean, I know when travelling you have to expect to be kind of grotty, but seriously, there’s only so much grime this little lady can take.

Our bus to Moon Valley showed upand we were writh another large group.  The tour guide was a super hot local guy named Davide and he was definitely an impressive part of the tour for many of us girls.  We walked around the first stop taking pictures but the heat was so strong that all of us sort of wilted.  I think this is where we began to notice the altitude as it was really hard to catch my breath walking up the sandy hills.  I don’t htink that first stop had a specific name but the photos don’t capture how amazing it was.

Our next stop was Death Valley, apparently the driest place on Earth.  Davide sad that many of the areas hadn’t seen rain for 47 years and in San Pedro they only get about 20 mm spread out over several days.  Amazing that people live like that – but they probably think our changing season are super crazy.  Death Valley was cool, and it was where we started to notice the salt in the rocks.  We paused at this one areas and Davide asked us all to just be silent and listen.  All around us there was cracking, as it the rocks were going to come crashing down.  Very creepy.  He told us bcausethe salt heats up and expands during the day the cracking is caused by contractions when the temperature goes down at night.

Our last stop was Moon Valley and this is where we climbed a sand dune to watch the sunset.  Wow that was hard work!  We ended up wlking out further onto this rocky area, which was cool but kind of dangerous.  I glanced beside me at one point and got a bit of a head rush because the cliff just completely dropped off.  I was a bit more careful with my steps after that.

The sunset was beautiful but I think that everyone saying how amazing it was going to be built up my expectations so that I was a little unimpressed.  Not to be a cynical tourist but I think I’ve seen nicer sunsets at the cottage, or even from my old apartment.  However, the experience was still cool.

When we arrived back to town all of us were starving and we really needed to get something to eat quickly because we all had to be up at 3:45 am for a 4 am tour of the geysers.  We found a nice little place that had a set menu for a good price and I enjoyed a really nice veggie lasagna.  My camera ran out of power during the Moon Valley susnset so I had meant to track someone down to lend me a charger but unfortunately I didn’t manage to have the camera ready in time so I have no photos of the geyser tour.

4am came very fast and all of us were pretty groggy.  Katie and I were very focused on the hot springs we were going to get to swim in so we thought that flip flops would be the best choice of footwear.  It was a cool morning in town, but not terribly cold so we figured we’d be fine… well, not so much.  After 2 hrs on the bus we reached the geysers just after 6am.  We were quite a ways up, about 4300 m, and the temperature was -6 degrees.  Flip flops = not so smart.  Both K and I were having a rough time and we got a lot of weird looks.  I mean, there were people with full on parkas and hate and mitts and here we are in flip flops?!

Our tour guide was the same as the day before and he was really having fun teasing us about our feet, pretending to go and warm them up and stuff.  Nice guy – from Easter Island (he calls it Rapa Nui).  Amazingly fit – you’d have to be the Energizer bunny to do tours one after the other like that – and a total clown, always showing off with back flips and things.  He said he’d been doing the tours in San Pedro for 7 years – wish I’d asked how old he was (could have been anywhere between 25-35).

Anyway, the geysers were pretty cool – they only erupt early in the mornin which is why we left so early.  Again, because of the talk beforehand I kind of expected the eruptions to be huge and crazy, but they were still really neat as I’d never seen anything quite like it before.  Part of the price of the tour was a picnic breakfast and I so grateful for the warm coffee and the Chilean version of grilled cheese.  Definitely welcome warmth for many of us who didn’t quite get the message about dressing smartly.

Our next stop was the thermal pools and all of us girls were very excited to go for a warm swim.  These were somewhat lukewarm, but every so often some super hot water would come in and you had to watch not to burn your back.  Of course there were not change rooms so getting out of bathing suits was an adventure.  Since there were lots of us it was just a big laugh, making sure we watched out that no one showed their bums or boobs too much.  I still think that several strangers got a good look at both my butt and breasts.

We had a chance to walk around that area for a bit after our swim and see more geysers, only these were much smaller – more like little pools.  After that our next stop was on old Mapuche village where were were able to walk around and buy llama kebabs from this old man who was cooking them over an open fire.  That was really tasty; although the meat was chewy the spices and marinade were incredible.  At this point a couple of people on the tour (no one from our group) were really suffering from the altitude and very sick to their stomachs.  I felt quite fortunate not to be affected, that is for sure.

As this entry is getting up over 1200 words, I’ll quit for now.  Staying tuned for the next entry which will cover the end of my time in San Pedro, our infamous desert crossing and our first few days in Bolivia.

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