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Published: January 27th 2007
Civilisation, sort of.
Marie-Claire shows her excitement at being somewhere thats not Bolivia.Claire:
San pedro de atacama is a sleepy mexican feeling little border town situated in the atacama desert (hence the name of the town). the atacama desert is sold as the driest place on earth where it rains at most once a year. typically, this year it rained the days we were there. but it was only light rain and it lasted about half an hour so we can forgive it. otherwise san pedro was like heaven after the freezing altiplano of bolivia. the temperature was 26 degrees and the beer was cold and tasty. also the steak was great and we found a restaurant that was fantastic (restraurant adobe if you ever happen to be in san pedro).
we decided to fill our time here with a mornings horseback ride through the desert. the horses looked healthy and normal sized (very different to the ones we saw in bolivia) so we booked a tour through the valley of death, where we could gallop on the horses for 15 minutes if we wanted to. my horse seemed a bit troubled at the start and wouldnt really listen to me but our guide assured me this was just part of his character.
Fooooood!
Claire decides to document the moment as her salad arrives. once we got to the bit where they can gallop, the horses seemed to know what they were expected to do and took off at the slightest twitch of the reins. my horse didnt even need that much encouragement and took off completely of his own accord, refusing to stop. once the guide got hold of his bridle he walked me and the eager horse for the rest of the galloping section. ross' horse was a bit eager too and seemed to have a delayed stopping function, almost unseating him a couple of times. once we got off the galloping sandy bit the guide let us trot off on our own a little along the road while he talked to me a bit in spanglish (we both learned new words and everyone was happy!). ross and a couple of others got a bit ahead of us and disappeared around a bend. this apparently infuriated my horse who was born to be a leader, not a follower and decided to take it upon himself to help me catch up to them. feckin evil horse wouldnt stop for love nor money until we had caught them, at which point i prompty got
Me and Fooooood!
I get the steak i've been waiting for 2
1/2 months after arriving on this continent. And it tastes bloody good. off him and refused to go anywhere near him again. he was a mad horse. even the guide said he wouldnt ride him (i thought it was nice of him to let me as a complete beginner give such a 'loco' horse a go thought...). John, who was with us gave me his nice sedate horse and the rest of the ride was quite uneventful. dont think ill be horseriding over here again for a while.
thats about it for san pedro, next was la serena where they have a beach and no altitude!
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