Oh my god, a Merc!

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Really from Rio de Janeiro we hadn't been in any affluent area's so when I saw a brand new Merc pull up at the immigration office, it suddenly dawned on me that we were back in the first world and it was quite a shock coming from Bolivia, the poorest country in Latin America. I'm not saying that you have to be in a poor country to meet real people or to see real things, but when you have been used to people living in pretty crap conditions it's surreal to be dumped back in Western civilisation.
There had been something dodgy going on at the border that morning, drugs most likely, so the Chileans were being extre vigilant and our bags were checked twice for drugs and illegal food. Because of that I don't think I will ever understand why Muzz said what he did when my bag was being searched and I had declared nothing; "Dave have you still got your coca leaves?"!!! And to this day I will never understand why the officer checking my bag didn't pursue it, but I am very glad of it.
San Pedro de Atacama is a very attractive town (well for a desert town, anyway), but it's very gearded towards tourists. Apart from one thing though. It has 2 cash machines. If you have a Maestro card no worries, but if you have a Visa you are screwed. The one cash point that accepts Visa is usually empty or broken apparently, so make sure you arrive with Chilean pesos or U.S. Dollars that are in mint condition. One slight rip and they will not change it for you. Travellers cheques are useless here too. We only stayed one night in San Pedro and didn't do any of the activities on offer as we needed to get to Santiago ASAP, so this will be a short and probably useless blog! There are plenty of travel companies offering trips into the Atacama desert (the driest place in the world) or sandboarding, mountaineering, biking etc and if money and time were on our side we would definately have done something. As it was, we lazed around and drank and chatted (argued!) about football and enjoyed the oxygen. The weather was fantastic and relaxation & Chilean cabernet sauvigon was the order of the day. The next afternoon it was was back to the long distance for a 24 hour trip through the desert to Santiago & the Pacific Ocean again that we hadn't seen since Lima.

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