Blogs from San Pedro de Atacama, Antofagasta Region, Chile, South America - page 41

Hoje comecou a viagem. De Sao Paulo, fui para Santiago e depois para Calama. Em Calama nao precisei esperar tanto pelo o voo. Peguei um voo antes. E de Calama, finalmente para San Pedro de Atacama. Alias, o aeroporto de Calama è uma casinha no meio do desero. A cidade e pequena com diversas casas de Adobe, que e uma especie de barro. Porem, todos os restaurantes e hoteis sao estilosos. Ja confirmei o tour para o outro dia e o espanhol esta todo travado. ... read more

So we ventured out to the bus station at Valparaiso, taking bets on how successful or rather unsuccessful our journey to the desert was gonna be but surprisingly lady luck still appears to be with us and we made it here without any trouble. Well thats not strictly true... Gina decided to make friends with the bus driver - a 50 year old divorcee i hasten to add. Anyway he seemed very nice and friendly, then a little over friendly with Gina who he nicknamed Princess Diana, i somehow became the queen mum - not impressed!! Anyway dude spent the rest of the journey trying to chat her up and taking lots of photos which became so bad that they had to pretend to be asleep for the remainder of the 18 hour journey! So we ... read more

San Pedro is a quiet dusty town in the north of Chile, in the middle of the desert. It is so hot here and really really dry. It has some amazing natural wonders, volcanoes, geysers and the valley of the moon, land which is apparently similar to the moon (so similar that NASA come here to test out their equipment). We are not here for long, just enough time to see the valley of the moon. It was amazing, the landscape like nothing I have seen before. We walked along the valley and into crevices, we ran down sand dunes - sinking into them as we went down. It was lots of fun. We climbed to the highest place to watch the sunset and it was stunning. As soon as the sun went down the sand ... read more

See some movies associated with this blog When we arrived in San Pedro de Atacama we were surprised by how small it was. It is so famous,and so many people tell you how nice it is that somehow we expected something quite different. OK, the background scenery is amazing, a succession of enormous snowed capped peaks (with several volcanoes amongst them) which look straight from a postcard, but we didn't find the village in itself to be anything special. For starters it has just one cashpoint machine, attached to a bank that only opens for 2 or 3 hours on a Thursday afternoon, and with so many tourists needing money for accommodation, food and excursions, apparently it dries up quickly. Naturally with our luck it was out of order when we arrived. With only about £5 ... read more

Strange spending so much time so high, altitudinaly that is, when the highest real estate in Oz, Mt. Kosiusko, is only 2,200 metres or so (I think) and here in San Pedro de Atacama it’s already 2,440 and everywhere else around here is higher. Breathing is always a little laboured but with a mouthful of coca it gets easier! Did a few look-arounds of San Pedro, they really draw a long bow with some of the “famous” features, crikey, but the general scenery is soo fantastic that you can overlook the overblown toury spots general shortcomings. Valley of the Dead, Dry Lake, Green Lake…and, in the Valley of the Moon, the Turtle’s Head that iconic, Incan outcrop, dedicated to the god of constipation. While we’re there, much as the Valley of the Moon was modestly awesome, ... read more