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Published: July 30th 2010
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valle de la luna
check out the view! At 12:30pm on Tuesday I caught a bus into La Serena, where I was to meet Steph and Jana and catch the bus to San Pedro. I got there a bit early so walked around the mall and tried to get my phone fixed so I could text the USA. Needless to say, I still can’t --- situations like these is where the language barrier really sucks! Anyway I met the girls at the bus station and we boarded a 4:20 bus to San Pedro. The ride wasn’t terrible, although we did not bring enough food and were starving. Finally we had 10 minutes at a stop and got awful ham and cheese sandwiches on white bread and some crackers. The crackers were mantequilla (butter) flavored and were quite strong. This country loves white bread, sugar, and mayonnaise.
Anyway, we arrived in San Pedro at 9 am on Wednesday morning and some hippies at the bus stop asked if we needed a hostel, and we said no we already booked one. They then told us we were the one they booked. Reluctantly we hopped in their jeep and arrived safely at the hostel a few minutes later. We put down our
Inca home
hey thats the size of my room! stuff and checked out the town and looked at the tours available. We decided to go with the "promocion" offered by Layana, which we got 3 tours for a decent price. Our first tour was Valle de la Luna, which left at 3pm that day. We got some food, walked around town, and met back at the tour agency by 3pm, where we were picked up a van and off the to desert we went. It’s called Valle de la Luna because it resembles the surface of the moon and its different stratification and salt formations cause by natural environmental factors. We arrived at the main event (seeing the sunset over the desert), but there was a lot of wind, which caused the sand to blow all over the place. As we hiked up the sand dune for a better view we were pelted by sand, and had to stay low to avoid the wind from blowing us away. The top of the hill was even worse. We stayed low, and hid behind anything that would provide shelter for us ----I tried to sneak a few photos when the wind wasn’t blowing, but it didn’t work. I got sand in
the lens (so did Steph and Jana) and my camera would not open (keep in mind this is the new camera I bought in Santiago because my other one is till at the top of Cajon de Maipu). I tried to blow out the sand, but it did not work. The next day we woke up early for our trip to the Lagunas Altiplanicas y Salar de Atacama. The Lagoons were at an altitude of 4200 meters, or 12, 900 feet. First we visited Laguna Chaxa (flamingo reserve), Laguna Meniques, y Laguna Miscanti. The lagoons were breathtaking and had also formed naturally through volcanic eruptions or ? what else. This was my favorite tour because it was so beautiful, and we got to hike and walk around to see different lagoons and flamingos. The only down side is that it was freezing cold and I have no pictures to show I was there (although my friends do). On the way back to San Pedro, we stopped in the pueblo town of Socaire for lunch and Toconao, a small town with a famous church bell and llamas just chilling on the street.
On our third day in San Pedro, we woke
Hostal Cabur
great hippy run hostel up at 3:30am in order to take a 4am tour to the Gyser del Taito, visit the thermal baths and the pueblo Machuca. They warned us it would be cold, but it was COLD -- --like -12 C. This tour was also at an altitude of 12,900 feet. We arrived there just as the sun was coming up and saw the gysers spew. It was not as spectacular as I thought it would be (Old faithful at Yellowstone is so much better). It was cool to see so many gysers going off at different times, but there were a lot of people there, and our friend Jana fainted due to the altitude. We had breakfast after walking around a bit (we were promised pankakes and omelets - a real b-fast----, but we got a hard boiled egg and a ham sandwich (one piece of ham on white bread) . Next we went to the thermal baths, I think they can only be called thermal baths if they are hot, not luke warm. Needless to say those who went swimming had chattering teeth. Last stop on this tour was the pueblo of Machuca --- population 10. There were houses, people selling
things, and a beautiful church up on the hill. They were celebrating the virgin saint with a bonfire, some music, and hot chocolate with cinnamon (that was delicious) . After we went back to San Pedro. We were all going to shower because we hadn’t done so since we got there (it was way to cold to take off clothes at night especially in our open courtyard hotel). When we got back, the wind was picking up outside and the water didn’t work. We went outside and all shops were closing ---- it was a huge wind and sandstorm that cut of the electricity and water in the entire city. Of course this was the day I made a phone date with my principal --- so greater force decided I wasn’t going to make any big decisions that day. The hostel owner, Felipe, had some contraption to blow sand out of cameras and such so he fixed all of ours --- I was not about to get a third camera.
Meanwhile, our other travel companions found out that they must be ready to leave on busses and planes to go to winter camp (the following day). This type of warning
is par for the course around here. So we go to the bus station to try and get them a ticket, and change our own, and of course nothing can be done because there is no electricity. We walk around for a min and see that 1 store has a generator, and we take cover in there, like all other gringos in San Pedro that day. To make a long story short, the power came back on at the bus station later that night, the other 2 got there tickets and made their bus that evening and Jana, Steph, and I changed to an earlier bus on Saturday. We spent the last night by the bonfire, drinking wine, chilling. On Saturady it was back to La Serena --- we arrived on Sunday, I took a bus back to Ovalle, packed my backpack and took a later bus back to La Serena to go to the winter camp orientation.
Time spent on buses in 48 hours (Sat/Sun) : 20 hours
Organization level of the program on a scale from 1 - 10: -5
San Pedro: Altiplaicas tour - totally worth it; Valle de la Luna is good 2 if you go
Valle de la Luna
just like the moon on a day that is not windy; gyers (go to Yellowstone)
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