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Published: March 10th 2009
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Hello! I know it's a long time since I have written one of these things, but in my defence I did spend bloody ages writing one a week ago only for the internet to screw up at the worst possible moment. It's taken me about a week to get over that incident. Anyway I'll dig deep into my memory and try to recall some of the highlights of the last few weeks.
After leaving Argentina we headed across the Andes to Chile, and a tiny little oasis village called San Pedro de Atacama. Arriving in San Pedro was without doubt the low point of the trip so far. First of all the bus pulled over in the middle of the desert, dropped us off and the driver just pointed down the road, saying something we didn't understand in Spanish. We walked down the road which did thankfully take us to San Pedro. That was when the fun began. For some strange reason there were no beds available anywhere in town. We literally walked around the middle of the desert for 2 hours in the baking heat, with all our bags, looking for somewhere to stay. I had actually resigned myself to the fact that we were spending the night under the stars, but luckily we did find somewhere. San Pedro was a really strange place. It was tiny and the only things there were hostels and travel agencies. We only spent one night there before heading off into Bolivia.
We were pretty pushed for time in Bolivia, so we just decided to do a four day jeep tour of the Southwest of the country; which included the Atacama Desert and the salt flats that we had heard a lot about from other travellers. The tour turned out to be absolutely amazing. We spent the days going round the lakes, geysers, valleys etc. At night we were staying in these really remote little places with Bolivian families. I don't really think I'm poetic enough to do Bolivia and justice, but suffice to say it was one of the most increadible and surreal places I've ever seen. The salt flats at sun rise were especially amazing, we've got some great photos. We would have loved to spend more time going around the rest of Bolivia but we were pretty pushed for time. 2 months to do South America really is nowhere near enough.
We went back to Chile, through San Pedro again, and then onto the Chilean coast at a place called Iqueque. After travelling around the desert it was nice to get back to some sort of civilisation. We were planning on just spending a few days chilling by the beach, but it didn't really work out like that. Our first day there we went sand boarding which was pretty cool, but really hard work walking up the sand dunes. My snowboarding experience definitely gave me an advantage over Martin and Benson. Martin's first run was hilarious as he slid the whole way down on his arse and could't stand up to save his life. He did get a lot better to be fair. The next day we did a paraglide which was great. Jumping off the side of the cliff was scary enough, but not as scary as the decent at the end, as I'm pretty sure my instructor lost control of the parachute. If you find yourself spiraling into the sea surprisingly quickly, the last thing you want to hear is your instructor shouting is, 'OH SHIT'! We did survive though, so I'm sure we were fine all along really. After Iqueque we embarked on our longest coach journey (28 hours) to Valparaiso. This was one of my favourite cities in South America. It was a pretty odd place, basically built into the side of a very steep hill side. You need to get these 19th century 'elevators' between the different streets, as It's too steep to walk. Everywhere you looked in Valparaiso there was something odd, or interesting to look at, which I found really cool. We had a very weird night out there too which involved me and Benson singing kareoke in a bar filled exclusively with locals, and Martin waking up in a Chilean families home in the mountains having nearly gotten himself arrested. I'll have to elaborate on that story some other time.
We spent the last few days in South America in Santiago. I'm a bit ashamed to say that we spent three days there and basically didn't leave the hostel. There are a few reasons for this. One is that this hostel was amazing; it had a pool with a bar built into it, which was especially appealing given that Santiago was probably the hottest place we went in South America (and that is saying something). We also met a big group of people who we got on really well with. We had a great time there, and it was good way to sign off on our South American adventure.
We're in New Zealand at the moment and, surprise surprise it's been great, (I promise I'll write one of these things one day saying were having a shit time and want to come home). As much as we loved South America it has been so good being in an English speaking country again. It just makes everything so much easier and so much more stress free. We spent a few days at the Sims house in Auckland which was really nice, good to catch up with them and go out for a few beers with Ben. Since then we've basically been all over the North Island, visiting really cool places and enjoying all the extreme sports here. The best thing I've done has to be the black water rafting, which involves absailing down into a huge caving system, going on an underground zip wire, floating down a river in a little rubber tube in the pitch black, and climbing back to the surface through two waterfalls. It was as amazing as it sounds. We're about to head to South island which I'm looking forward to as I've never been and I've heard really good things. I'm sure Mom will be pleased to know South Island is where I'm planning on doing the bunjee jumping and the sky dive.
So yeah, I'm pretty sure thats everything covered. Hope your all well back home. Times flying by, so I'll be home before you know it. Unless the internet crashes in the next 10 seconds in which case I'm jumping out of the window next to me. If your reading this though you can probably assume I haven't done that.
Matt x x x
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