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Published: February 5th 2007
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The Altiplano 13th & 14th December We spend a couple of full days driving over the Altiplano to the Chilean border. We need a guide so that we don't get lost. Some parts of the drive are beautiful with strange rock formations and green mossy things! En-route we stop at Laguna Colorado - a red lake with thousands of flamingos resting in the lake. We also stop at Laguna Verde which is a beautiful green and blue lake, but we're told not to get too close as the colours are due to the arsenic in the lake. Nice - first asbestos at Potosi mine and now arsenic, I'm sure my insurance doesn't cover this!
We stay one night in the middle of a tiny hamlet. This is where it all starts to go wrong for the group! There are issues over the rooms as we only have enough beds for girls and boys to share which the girls don't particularly want! We eventually sort it out but our tour guide is obviously seriously annoyed with us. Later in the evening we overhear an argument outside which culminates in the tour guide telling us we are the worst group
ever. A mantle we're now particularly proud of! We spend the rest of the evening drinking and trying to cheer everyone up. I don't think we're the worst group ever and actually the only issue is the Ozzies not taking the drugs to clear up any parasites and not re-infecting us and our tour guide being crap! Ho hum never mind.
The atmosphere is not so good the next day and the tour guide ignores us for most of it until he apologises later and says we need to have a group sit down to air all our issues!
We cross the Bolivian border although it takes awhile as there is no one home! Eventually we find the border crossing guards. They've been out hunting and get on the bus dripping blood everywhere from the rabbits they have caught!
The border crossing into Chile takes a little longer as we have to unload the bus and have all our belongings checked. We're paranoid that we may lose some of our gifts and souvenirs as we're told the patrol guards like to take things. Luckily this doesn't happen to us.
San Pedro 15th to 17th December We enter Chile at San Pedro de Atacama. It's a quirky town with dirt streets and adobe mud houses but has fantastic food. We're here for a few days and spend a lot of time shopping for silver ware as there are some great workshops here. Kate and I have some rings made for us.
We drive into the Valle de la Luna. A strange wind eroded place with salt crusts on the earth. This is what the moon's surface is supposed to look like. Unfortunately here, Kate manages to shut her thumb in the heavy metal door of Rita. Ouch, we're really worried as we think she may have broken it and is obviously in a lot of pain. I'm worried as its Kate's left thumb which she uses for her job - who will look after me now when I become a housewife?? We stick her thumb in some ice and a sling and several pain killers later we think it can't be broken but a bit squashed. Kate's very brave and we carry on with the day and even manage to climb the sand dune to watch sunset.
In the evening we have a star
gazing tour. Its with a French bloke who looks just like Alan from MASH! There are 5 telescopes that we get to look through. Its excellent and we get to see Saturn and its rings and some far away galaxies and star clusters. The milky-way is amazing. We're both blown away by the magnitude of the universe.
The next morning we finally have our group talk! Its not too bad but its not fun either. Everyone gets a chance to talk and the main issue is with Martin and not being able to communicate and the Ozzies not taking the pills for the parasites. The Ozzies agree to review the situation if we give them more info on the drugs etc so Vicky kindly does some research and prints off details. Everyone is relieved as the atmosphere is much better. However later in the day it degenerates into bedlam with the Ozzies accusing 2 people of pushing drugs and saying they have been in contact with their lawyers and will sue. How ridiculous can things get???
The next day we drive to Pan de Azucar National Park and camp on the beach. Its a funny atmosphere and we're
trying not to talk about it all.
La Serena 18th to 20th December The following day we drive to La Serena where we spend a few days. Its a beach town and we camp near the beach. Its the first time we've come to a town that is very Western and rich with huge shopping malls and cinemas and good restaurants and bars. At first Kate and I are excited by it but then wierdly enough we feel claustrophobic.
However we do get to have a cheese, wine and olives evening which is very nice! And we go to the cinema.
We spend an extra day at La Serena and we have another group meeting where Martin tells us that he has asked the Ozzies to leave the truck but we are subjected to a talk by Martin where we are told off effectively for exerting peer pressure. Needless to say I'm very angry and pissed off about this and can't actually wait to get off the bus now. But I'm also happy that the Ozzies will no longer be with us.
In the evening we've organised for a taxi to take us to an
observatory where we have another evening looking at the stars and through telescopes. This time we get to see Venus.
San Juan 21st to 23rd December We have a long driving day over the Andes to the border crossing for Argentina. The atmosphere on the bus is much better and I feel a lot more relaxed now things have been resolved.
The border crossing road is full of strange ice formations - I'm not sure if this is part of a melted glacier but they are huge icicles.
The crossing is easy and we camp in San Juan at a campsite with a huge pool that is more like a lake and very slimy! We're also warned about banditos (robbers!). We spend a couple of nights camping here and its unbelievably hot so we have trouble sleeping at night as it never cools down even in a tent.
However San Juan is the place to be for good wine! We visit a winery (Graffigna) and spend a good afternoon wine tasting and relaxing on bean bags. It excellent wine and very cheap so we're drunk a lot of the stuff since!
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Mum & Dad A
non-member comment
Boozers
Oh dear, clearly what boozers you are! is this to help Kate not think about her poor thumb??????