Blogs from Calama, Antofagasta Region, Chile, South America - page 2

What a day and where to start! We arrived in Calama, an old mining town at 8am. There were no sign of gringo's anywhere and everyone stared at us like they'd never seen a gringo before! We had until 6am on monday morning for our next bus to Bolivia so explored the town a bit, went for some lunch, watched a opening ceremony of a new fire engine and then went to a mall for dinner and to watch some football! We got back to the station at about 10pm and decided to get comfortable for a good few hours sleep. However, one slight problem arose at 11pm- the bus station was closing and we had nowhere to stay! In our wisdom we decided that a safe place would be to go to a police station ... read more

We left southern Patagonia on a mammoth 2 day bus journey (the only possible way was to hit the coast of Argentina and head up) and had to overnight in the only town I have not liked in Argentina, Comodoro Ridavaria. Its a Petroleum town, really sterile and dull, but plenty of people living the good life with their big pay cheques. We woke up the next morning to ´enjoy´the Argentine´s independence day (9 de Julio). Well there wasn’t much on except a marching band (which we had missed). Oh well. We caught a bus that night to Bariloche - Lakes District. Bariloche is really nice, very touristy though but full of all the things you would expect from a skiing resorty type town - heaps of ski gear for sale/rent, and loads and loads of ... read more

I know i said that was it from chile but i´ve got a few hours to spare in the ordinary town of Calama before i go. I left San Pedro early this morning and took the 1.5 hour bus trip so as to make sure i´d get tickets for the only train which runs from Chile to Bolivia each week. Any thoughts of warmth will be appreciated as i talked to a huy who did it a couple of weeks ago and he said the temperature plumeted to -10. Pretty darn cold thats for sure. So to the main reason for the bonus blog Chuqui Mina, just outside of Calama. As you can see from the pictures its pretty big. In fact its 5km X 3km and nearly 900m deep. The boys doing the mining take ... read more

Hallo ihr Lieben in der grossen weiten Welt, nachdem wir euch jetzt so lange auf Berichte von uns haben warten lassen, hier ein bisschen was ueber die letzten Wochen. Nachdem wir Chachapoyas gegen Abend mit dem Bus verlassen hatten sind wir am naechsten Morgen in Trujillo angekommen und von dort gleich weiter nach Lima gefahren. In Lima haben wir uns dann so sehr nach Sonne und blauem Himmel gesehnt, dass wir nach vier Naechten nach Arequipa weitergefahren sind. Dort scheint das ganze Jahr die Sonne, der Himmel ist eigentlich immer blau und das Wetter ist das ganze Jahr fruehlingshaft. In Arequipa haben wir uns dann auch um unsere Weiterfahrt nach Asuncion gekuemmert. Das ist gar nicht so einfach da die Busgesellschaften nur ganz selten internationale Verbindungen anbieten und man nie per Telefon oder Internet Fahrkarten bestelle ... read more