Chile................

We arrived after an uneventful flight, fresh as daisies ( same couldn´t be said for our pitters and feet though!...HMMMM, nice thought that one!! ), no to tell the truth we were knackered! Anyway, we met a lovely couple ( Vicky & Sig ) in our last hostel in Auckland who we found out were on the same flight as us, so we decided to travel together, it was really great having travel partners and it made it a fair bit easier as 4 people without a clue has got to be better than 2!!
Santiago was a humungous city, some parts pretty nice, others not so! The constant smog made for interesting night time skies, instead of it being dark, it was a dirty shade of pink all the time.....strange.
We spent a couple of days here then shot through, a 24HR Bus journey brought us to San Pedro De Atacama, I don't know what your idea of Chile is, but the reality blew us away, i suppose i was imagining it to be like a Clint Eastwood film, a bit dry but with loads of shrubbery and cacti everywhere, well it was for the first few hours of the journey, but on awaking, we looked out of the bus and had to do a double take, total desolation, no plants, no life, nothing, just huge white hills and plains, it was awesome in a strange sort of way. This continued till We hit The Atacama desert, it´s apparently the driest desert in the world, there was a pretty dramatic change in scenery then, We can only describe it as lunar like, canyons and ravines with loads of variations in the colour of the sand and rocks. San Pedro De Atacama itself was a little oasis in the middle of this nothingness, a typical South American town with loads of character, we spent four days here, mountain biking, sand boarding and hiking through Inca ruins and spectacular canyons, totally not what we expected, absolutely brilliant!
Another 24HRS non stop travelling brought us to the Peruvian border!

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