San Pedro de Atacama, hot spot for the driest desert in the world. I arrived in the morning of January 29, and was fortunate enough to meet up with three great people. First, I met an American couple, Chris and Jess, who are professional climbers here in South America for three months, climbing rock and ice. Maniacs. But very cool. We then met up with Rachel, an English astronomer (she hates when I tell people) who has been working in La Serena, Chile, but is moving to Hawaii this coming Tuesday. I don´t think I mentioned Rachel before, but I had seen her twice. When I was on my two day tour to NP Lauca, I saw her riding her bike through the mountains with the intention of crossing into Bolivia. Turned out the altitide and ... read more

Let me begin by stating that Death Road is probably a lie - I just didn´t know where I was and thought that sounded good. Rachel and I began our day at 7am in order to be at our tour office by 8am. The other three on our tour, Gozo, Caralina, and Manuel, were also there on time. Unfortunately, the people running the office weren´t. I began to get nervous, but about 10 or 15 minutes later they did show. We eventually took off, which meant we drove to the border and waited an hour to get our passports stamped to leave Chile. We then drove an hour or so and went to get our passports stamped to get into Bolivia. We were to meet a desert type truck there and change cars in order to ... read more

Just after my last entry, I checked my email just before getting on the bus for a 12 hour overnight ride to San Pedro de Atacama. In that email I learned that my Uncle Mark had died that day. This has always been one of my travel fears - that someone I loved would pass away while I was out of the country. I loved my uncle very much - he went out of his way to make sure I had a good time at the lake in Wisconsin every summer. His death comes as a surprise for me, and since I was unable to make it home for the services, it still hasn´t quite sunk in for me. I was able to go to church in San Pedro to sit and reflect for a time, ... read more

Let´s see, after my last entry I took an overnight bus from Arequipa, Peru to Tacna, Peru. I didn´t sleep much at all and arrived early - about 4:30am. I had decided earlier to skip Tacna itself, and just use it as an entry into Chile. So I had to sit at the bus station until about 7am waiting for the borders to open, and to get some transport there. I saw another gringo there in the bus station, and decided to ask him to watch my pack while I went to the bathroom. This is a difficult part of traveling alone. His name is Christoph, a nice guy from Austria as it turns out. Afterwards we sat and chatted until the border opened, and then we shared a taxi with a couple other folks who ... read more

Here I am, my last night in Peru. I got into Arequipa yesterday morning at 5:30am on a night bus from Cuzco. I waited around the bus station for a few hours, waiting for it to be a respectable hour before hitting the hostels. I ended up going with the second hostel. The first only had dorm rooms available, and I felt that I needed a room to myself and a good night´s sleep before heading off the next night (tonight) to Tacna, the southernmost city in Peru and the last brief stop before catching a bus to Arica, Chile. I went to another hostel and it was perfect - relatively cheap and my own room with hot shower. It was also bright, sunny, and super quiet. The old man that runs it ws really nice ... read more