San Pedro Desert and some salty fun

Day 1 We arrived in San Pedro De atacama after our 9 hour bus ride feeling a little sad to be leaving argentina but still up for the desert expierence, as expected it was hot, really hot and the bus dropped us off about 10 minutes away from town so we had to drag all our kit to the centre, was a sweaty walk but not too bad considering. We ended up wondering around the centre of San pedro for a bit which is amazingly well developed for such a tiny desert town, all the tourism it recieves really shows, we ended up staying in a small hostel for about 4 pounds a night after being drawn in by the owner who is to be called pedro. The place was a bit sparse with no hot water and limited toilet facilities but it was better than sleeping rough in the desert and the beds were comfortable. First day was spent mostly wandering around feeling the place out and then going out for food and a pub. Pub was quite nice if not a bit expensive we even had an open fire with live chilian band performing for us to boot.

Day 2 Got up at a reasonable time today and decided that it was probably a good idea to do somthing with the day, so we decided to rent some bikes and go out into the desert, we had 2 choices of destination La valle de la luna (valley of the moon) or La Valle de la muerte (the valley of death) so being the careful considerate travelers that we are opted for a ride into the valley of death, as an afterthought me and Holden also decided to rent a couple of sandboards to try our luck on the massive sandunes that were supposidly around and about. It was great fun being back on a mountain bike again after so long and the unusual terrain of the desert made the whole ride like some crazy test track with dips and ridges and jumps all carved into the rock by the wind and occasional river. However we soon discovered how the valley got its name as the air around us was so dry we could almost feel it sucking the moisture out of us and the sun was so hot that the smallest physical exertion could turn you into a panting sweating wreck, however we had packed plenty of water lippy and sun tan so all was good and nobody suffered too badly. Went back to town where we made friends with a stray dog we called dan (after our long lost travelling companion, dan hills, oh dan where are you?!) then bought beer and booked our long 3 day tour through the desert and the salt flats (so named because they are flat and salty) we then went out for a delicous pizza and then went back to the hostel, there was a little bit of trouble at the hostel from a nasty pedro who said i hadnt paid and i think was trying to rip me off but me and holden stood our ground and won against the evil chillean foreigners! haha!

Day 3 Got up early today to move all our bags over to the bus which was to take us to the Bolivian border, waited around in customs for a bit and then we were off to load our bags onto the Landrover which would be our transport for the next 3 days, we first had a quick stopoff at a burnt out wreck of a bus which we used to wee in (the pissbus to tinkletown as we called it) then we were off. The first stopoff was at some natural hot springs which were about 30 degrees and lovely and warm so a few of us changed into our swimming shorts and went in (not before graham, a scottish guy travelling with us, decided to pull my swimming shorts down in front of the whole tour group, luckily i dont embarass easily so nobody was hurt, besides the group of girls in the baths soon regained thier sight). We floated around for a bit being lovely and warm and then decided to move on. The next stop was at a point covered with volcanic geysers, the whole area smelled of eggs and apparently some of the geysers were spitting water and steam at 180 degrees, we were warned to be careful around the larger geysers as the ground could be unstable and a frenchman had fallen in a few years ago and become french fried. so taking safety into account we set about taking pictures as close to the geysers as possible (unfortunatley we couldnt upload all of them because the computers are so slow here, ask to see when we get home if you really want). Along the way we also stopped at several different coloured lagoons, a red one coloured by copper in the water, a green one coloured by copper oxide and a white one coloured by arsenic (no swimming). We finished the day at a flamingo lake at 4500m elevation (it is worth noting at this point that throught the whole day we had been travelling uphill, the air was getting thinner and the sun hotter, as a result it was impossible to move AT ALL without panting heavily and getting a crashing headache, for instance, the very act of getting out of the landrover warrented a good 30 seconds break to recover your breath and clear the red from your eyes, at one point i ran out into the middle of the desert for a photo by a mountain and nearly passed out from exhaustion) where we had a wonder up to a look out point, by the time we walked back the temperature had dropped and the wind was intense, was a relief to finally get back to our cold run down concrete hostel. Note: while i was out there i managed to find a dried llama scalp which i thought would be perfect revenge for the shorts incident, the plan was to place the llama scalp in grahams bed with a friendly note attached, godfather style, however it turned out that graham was suffering badly from altitude sickness plus his girlfriend Mel was sleeping in the same bed, so i didnt have the heart to cause them more suffering, turns out i have a conscience after all, youll get yours graham mark my words!

Day 4 Got up early again today and headed out just after sunrise, today was more of a desert day with a lot of time spent driving around dusty tracks with the wondows closed so it got very hot, we stopped off first by a interesting mountain then by some millions of year old rock formations which had been carved into amazing and interesting shapes by the wind. spent a little bt of time scrambling around here climbing the rocks and generally pulling poses, had to stop every 30 seconds or so to regain our breath but was well worth all the effort. We stopped a few more places along the way but it was mostly the same sort of stuff we had seen before we eventually pulled up in a tiny village with a water tower and a train track where our driver told us we had to wait for 20 minutes, he then promptly vanished leaving us to entertain ourselves, we speculated that he was off to "visit" one of his many wives we assume he had collected along the route in which case 20 minutes wasnt very along at all and was in fact quite selfish. but we made do with what we had and took some great photos of the old trains and the water tower (the creepy picture of holdens eyes staring out a crack were taken here) we also made friends with a small local girl who had an amusing way of climbing up the ladder on the water tower then sliding all the way down again, then we were accosted by a drunk who insisted that we wernt welcome there (thankfully he was turned away by Mike (chris) who lives in east london and is very good with drunks) then our driver came back looking pleased with himself and we left.
About 15 minutes before we arrived at our hostel we had an accident, the Landrover sunk into the begginings of the salt planes and we all had to get out and look a bit confused for a bit, however after a bit of pushing and gentle persuasion we managed to unstick it, unfortunatley our driver decided he didnt want to get stuck again so drove off into the distance, leaving us to trudge after him not quite knowing when or if he'd stop. He eventually did and we got to our second and last hostel which was actually really nice and warm, had a TV and an hour of hot water. Another thing worth noting is that earlier that day i had lost my glasses, i couldnt work out where they had gone because they had been in my pocket the whole time, in the end it turned out they had somehow dropped out my pocket which was sealed with velcro and fallen to the floor of the landrover where they had been bent and smashed by our clumsy feet, it was tragic, like loosing a child, a cool stylish child, however holden leapt into action and managed to repair my glasses with nothing but determination and a bit of gaffer tape, i was overjoyed! we then got cleaned up, played cards for a bit and went to bed, knackered (high altiitude also makes you sleepy).

Day 5 Got up early again this morning and after our 3rd breakfast of bread and butter (and noodles if you were clever like me and holden and brought your own) and set off, today was to be almost entirely traveling through the salt flats. The salt flats were created when a massive prehistoric sea dried up leaving mile upon mile of gleaming white salt, the salt is perfectly edible but apparently contains lithium which is a mild sedative. the views of the flats were amazing, you could see for miles around and the landscape was eerily quiet and spotless, we drove for a bit and came to a great big rock formation called the devils egg or somthing which was actually a massive lump of ancient dried coral, we climbed about on this for a bit but the rocks were so sharp they cut my trousers to pieces and my hands and gloves to boot but it was still good fun and gave us some absoloutley awsome views of the surrounding salt flats. We then left for a short drive to the salt hotel which, you guessed it was made entirely of poo...no im kidding it was made of salt, everything, chairs, tables, beds, everything, apparently you wernt allowed to stay there anymore but we had a look around anyway, there were sculptures of indigenous people carved in the salt as well as animals and plants, there was also a clock, which was quite cool. We left after buying a few souvenirs and a trip to the toilet. The next stop was to some salt fields which is where some locals screped the salt into piles and left it to dry where they would then collect it and sell it as table salt, it was wierd seeing the landscape pocked by hundreds of little lumps but great fun to run and frolic in. The last part of the journey took us out of the salt plains and back into the desert where we went to visit El cemetario de la trens, or the train graveyard, this was basically a dump where the germans, english, spanish and french had just left thier old steamtrains a hundred years before and left them to rust, it was fantastic fun climbing amoung the wrecks and i think we got some excellent pictures, i would say that i wished i was 5 again but to be honest i think i got even more enjoyment out of it now than i would have then. Our 3 day desert tour finally concluded in the tourist town of Uyuni which had a really strange mix of rich tourist business along the one main street right next to the poor locals which sat either side, we booked a night in a hostel (which cost about 1 pound 20 each) and spent the rest of the evening wondering around enjoying the eateries and bars.

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