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Published: October 1st 2006
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In the Atacama Desert
much dust and little of anything else. total desert if ever there wss one Well, as has been the mantra since the whole trip started, backpacking tends to run with ups and downs with one minute things looking rosy, then everything going wrong, and then everything is rosy again. This has definately been the case in the last couple of days. After the last blog was posted i managed to get myself heroically lost on the very simple walk to the bus station in Valparaiso, but luckily my bus was running on South American time (although to be fair the buses here are usually first class and make a mickery of the çnational Express in terms of comfort) and so I was still good to catch my ´PullmanBus´ North (definately north this time, a coment has told me that Valpo is in fact West of Santiago rather than the North i stated. Id settle on North West´as a comprimise as its certianly not on the same level) to the city of Antofagasta. The journey was to take 18 hours (phwee), but as i said the semi-calma service I took was luxurious enough and time passed pretty quickly admiring the landscape, watching a variety of dubbed movies and TV (seeing Bewitched and CSI dubbed in Spannish
Lots of desert
Using the ´doggy style´tongue out technique to keep cool is hilarious) and occasionally stretching the legs at the many stop offs along the way.
And so to my arrival in Antofagasta at 1645 the day after i left Valpo at 2215. The first thing i noticed about the town is that its very much not somewhere on the usual toursit trail. My guidebook had told me to look out for the beach (there was one, but having been to Goa and Thailand it was...well not the same really) and the town clock tower which is menat to resemble Big Ben. I suppose if Big Ben shrunk, got dirty, changed its outlook completely, its a possiblity, but i think really Lonely Planet need to reassess. Combine this with the fact that there seemed very little else to do and the hostels in the city were...erm...theres not really a polite way to describe them, and hence i decided it was time to ship out and try and get across to San Pedro in the Atacama desert (the worlds driest) as soon as possible. I in fact had a backup plan in case i didn´t like Anto, so i wasn´t too worried at this stage. However when my backup plan of
Mt Jurike
Big and like a triangle - winner a company doing 4x4 tours through the desert to San Pedro had changed its business to that of a carpet shop (dont bother looking for Desertica tours unless you need some sturdy fabric), i did panic a wee bit. Alegedly there were no more buses that day, plus my money had run out and nowhere wanted to change anymore - hooray. Things were looking grim. However at the last, i did mamage to find a bus company that were still running a service to San Pedro so i jumped on (very hot and bothered by this stage due to all my energy being taken up using Spannish - poorly- to find out all of the info above) and settled down with the prospect of arrriving in the middle of the night with nowhere to stay - boo.
However after the downs come ups and as i zoomed through the outskirts of the desert watching more Bewitched in Spannish, things seemed not so bad. Hopefully things would become randomly good in San Pedro. Well, to begin with this seemed unlikely as when i got off the bus there was literally no-one around and everything just looked kind og black, dark
My Home in the desert
the wee place with the sign out front and foreboding. But then, enter the turn of luck which always seems to happen in the end. Standing alone in the middle of nowhere (as far as i could tell) some chap rode past on a bike and enquired if i wanted wine, a warm fire and a bed for the night. Yes.And it turned out to be perfect. Christian turned out to run a house-come-hostel which was populated by 10 or so other backpackers, including an English guy (there has to be one everywhere i go it seems), and after quick introduction, we were in San Pedros half buzzing, half asleep night life, enjoying the bars. Then it was back to the hostel to sit around ye olde camp fire.
So to today. San Pedro in the light is admitadly very touristy, quite small, very very hot and dry and mostly here to cater for tours to The Valley of the Moon (moonsacpey type stuff in the desert). However, i kind of like the place. It feels like a Glastonbury festival squashed, repackaged in Spannish and then dropped into the middle of the driest desert on earth. Random as you like. My morning was taken up seeing the
Inside the hostel
Quiet by day but the fire area comes alive at night with much merriment and guitar showcasing sights of the town, then 3 or 4 mins later when this was done, I went back to the hostel, booked a tour to the Valley of the Moon tommorow, and with little else to do decided to carry out a British exploative hike in the direction of the desert. Good it was too, and unbelievably hot. Despite being in sight of the oasis of the town (it truly looks like one too, everywhere you look is brown and red earth, then suddenly up pops the town of San Pedro de Atacama with greem trees, grass, buildings and whitewashed houses), it all felt very exploere like. Sadly the internet places here are basic so theres no pictures yet but hopefully i´ll work something out soon.
So tommorow i´ll be off to the ´moon valley´, and the following day for a tour of Chiles largest salt flats. Then hopefully on Wednesday i´ll be taking one of the worlds steepest train rides from the nearby city of Calama to Uyuni in Bolivia. Who knows. I´ve managed to find some fellow travellers looking to do the same trip so i wont have to rely only on my Spannish completely if i do it.
Still having a great time in Chile anyway, really freindly people and lots to see and do.
Claire, if you read this i´ll be in Bolivia at the end of next week, so let me know if you´re about. Probably going to do a trip to the salt flats next weekend. But then again everything might chnage completely.
Thanks for the comments too, sorry for my constant errors, but like i say i´m often rushing to cram all the info into the blogs, and i´m trying to comment on all i see without the benefit of knowing whats going on in Spannish (granted my own fault for not speaking it).
And just quickly, i have tried, and loved the empandanas, but seem to be surrounded more by the Completos - iffy hot-dogs with avacado, tomato and mayo. They seem to be almost more popular than empandanas.
marc
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