Frm Chile to Bolivia via desert and salt flats

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After 28 hours and 4 buses (it was suppose to be 22hrs, 2 buses but one broke down and just before the 3rd one did we swapped again) we finally arrived in San Pedro de Atacama. On the bus we realised we'd taken the company used by miners and not tourists i.e. We were the only females with 24 Chilean men. They were very sweet and as we went by they pointed out the hand in the desert and where the Chilean miners had been trapped.

In San Pedro de Atacama we strolled through their Market and organised our next few days. In the evening Lucille & Amanda were able to join a stargazing tour (only 2spaces left, me & Jane decided will try do it in Bolivia). After finding a nearby football pitch Jane and I created a football with a bag of rubbish, grabbed our torches and tried a one-on-one game. The altitude meant after every goal we had to stop for half minute to get our breath back. We survived until it was a 2-2 score and then conceded to penalties so running wasn't needed. It went to sudden death, I finished the game with an unstoppable high left corner (equally at this point we only had a empty bottle as a ball).

Valle de Luna (valley of the moon)
The next day we went on a tour to the Atacama desert and nearby park reserves. The first stop was at the valley of death. Funnily enough it meant to be called the valley of mars because of it's landscape however the gent who named it struggled with Spanish so everyone thought he meant death.

We travelled on to see caves, canyon-like formations, a salt mine and The 3 Marys rocks. We ended in the Valle de Luna for the sunset. It was a great day and the scenery was outstanding.

4WD tour from San Pedro to Uyuni, Bolivia.
We concluded the best way to enter Bolivia was via a 4WD tour that travelled through the desert and Bolivian salt flats. It took 3days & 2nights and was brilliant! Our group was 3 trucks and we particularly befriended the couple in ours, Suze & Dave. We saw lagoons, flamingos, climbed in the rock desert where volcanic rock had fallen. We swam in a hot spring which we were told was 37'c. We visited the sulphur geysers which bubbled and steamed as well as smelt of eggs.

On our first day in the desert we experienced sun, snow, rain, thunder and lighting storms. We were treated to a 3 course meal and basic accommodation that was leaking. We enjoyed using our scout and girl guide knowledge to create a dam and pulled our beds together on the floor for extra warmth and dryness.

On our last day we visited the cemetery of trains and then the big finale, the salt flats. As it's the end of rainy season they were coated with several inches of water. We paddled around and amused ourselves creating photos using the flat perspective. We ended our trip in Uyuni, we all went for dinner before the others travelled onto La Paz. We decided to stay a night before moving onto Turpiza, apparently the home of south america's grand canyon.

Sent from my iPod

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