Atacama desert action force 5

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There is not much in the desert.
were in San Pedro de Atacama which is in the Atacama desert in the north of Chile. its realy hot and dusty and sandy. took 18 hours to get here from the nearest big town and it was mostly through the desert. nobody lives in the desert by and large and the only people we saw for a long time were in roadside graves and shrines, placed next to the burned and twisted wreckage of some car or truck.A few llamas scattered here and there broke up the scenery but they suck. Alot of cool shapes in the desert, its a salt desert and also the driest in the world. It used to be a sea but it clearly dried up so all thats left is dirt and salt. The sky is the biggest bluest clearest sky ive ever seen and there is never a cloud, its always the crispest azure as far as the eye can sea.Except at night, when all the stars missing from Europe come out to play.
I have NEVER seen nearly so many stars in one sky in my whole life, i think if i were to add up every star ive ever seen, it would not be as many as in the desert sky.There were literaly untold stars, bright as you liek just above you. You could see huge stains of galaxies and forever-away star systems and whatnot, like whoever painted the night sky tried half heartedly to rub out some of his work and paint over it.I dont have a photo, it wouldnt have worked or done it any kind of justice.not even the kind in the news.

so yeah, this place is pretty quiet, accept for the millions of dogs fighting at night, im sure at least 1 or 2 get lynched each night, theres motley gangs of dogs here, all shapes and sizes, with a few very nervous and jittery cats.Theres not really alot here and nothing really works but its nice to do nothing here.for a short time.

we hired some mountain bikes and attempted to ride to some inca ruins but by the time we got to a hill where we could see them anyway, we were dying.It would appear sitting on buses all day and eating cheese forever has not really turned me into the spartan athelete i assume i am.the ruins looked weak anyway, we´ll see better ones. we went to some museum and checked out the history of the area, pre-inca to now. very neat, desert shamans seemed to have a pretty sweet deal.
Then we took an excursion into the bits of desert beyond our meager peddaling and had a look at all sorts of odd shapes and mountains and huge sand dunes and salt caves etc. All the places had rad names like Death Valley and Dinosaur Valley and Moon Valley and Mars Valley and so on.I shant explain the names. People were sandboarding down some of the sand dunes which looked like loadsa fun but we havent got the time or means to do that here so maybe somewhere else. Twilight in Valley de Luna was magic.sunset was kinda boring but it heralded the coming of colour to the desert.before its all sand colour.white or off white.maybe some beige.as soon as the sun went down there were deep greys and blues and reds all mixed together and in ways id never seen.ive never seen blue and red together at the same time without being purple.its apparently what mars looks like but either way its well cool.
Off to Bolivia tomorrow to check out the salt flats and their bit of the desert which apparently is much weirder.cant wait.

So that was Chile, i like it, its expensive for the area, sometimes its just expensive but we´ve had alot of fun. The people are great and they have amazing geography, one day ill come back to see patagonia where they have huge glaciers and geysers and lotsa of snow and ice and penguins and all sorts.
yay.

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Photos

Desert sun, Death Valley
we saw alot of this

Church,San Pedro
Aside from nothing, the desert also contains Jesus.

Valley de Luna
the colours and shapes and shadows just couldnt be captured by our cameras, it was awesome.

Forsaken Cross
Alot of people had to die in order to get the love of jesus accepted out here. Inscribed on the cross is "oh god why have you left us alone?" in the 4 languages of the regions history

King of the Hill yeah?
i cant believe how much of a mission it was to ride up this hill, the cliff behind me is pretty high but not really.

Salt Canyon walls
this is just salt and dirt,if you were quiet you could hear the salt crack loudly as it radiated heat in the shade.bit sketchy.

And yea, for I am the Way and the Light
yes, this IS cool.

More Valley de Luna
just for some perspective.This is a fraction of what we saw in one day.The desert is fairly large.

San Pedro
The parts of it which arent restaurants and guesthouses look like this, in fact even they look like this.But with mexicans.

Also the desert
Thats a volcano in the background, behind it is Boliva.It occasionaly belches ash and gas at Argentina.ha.

Sunset, Valley de Luna
its cool, and yes that is my finger. this is a new style of photographism.watch out.

Comments

[Snooging]

hola guapa
that was some cool scenery right there! i see ure rockin the shorts again but ure not nearly in as many phophos as when u where here... and i thought we had got u used to being a model cat by now :P dont fry in the sun! xx