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Published: December 1st 2007
So next stop Santiago, and the travelling really starts again, the language barriers the completely different ways of life, the homeless people at every turn, and the best of all, the price drop.
We stayed longer than expected in Santiago though we were quite clueless about our plans for Chile so we needed some time for planning, we had planned to miss Chile and head to Peru ASAP but got roped into doing a desert tour, which takes an alternative route, up to Peru instead of the bus which goes direct, and you get to see the country on the way through. One of our best ideas yet it was so good.
We joined the rest of our group late as we spent an extra day in Santiago to catch the rugby world cup final, which was a let down. Meeting the group we weren’t sure what to make but soon realised they were nice people, one girl was even a famous news reader from Canada and her husband Paul was a nice fella. Now I say everyone was nice though I didn’t mention Cristophe the Swiss….. well wanker for want of a better word, he spent the whole four days
contesting everything anyone said and whenever he mention England he had something bad to say about it.
We set off heading for the Atacama Desert (driest desert in the world) with a few stops along the way; the first was Punta de Choros, where we took a boat out to three different Islands spotted lots of wildlife from birds, to seals, sea lions, and our favourite penguins. Another stop along the way was Bahia Inglesa, a beach town on the bay we stayed in a beach hut type of set up here, which was nice with a huge bbq thrown by the driver and tour guide,
When we eventually arrived in the desert you could see why it’s the driest in the world, (meteorological stations have never recorded rain in over 50 years) and let me tell you this place was hot, we visited a couple of sites in the desert, the huge concrete hand which they call the hand of the desert (original) we saw all the salt flats which they mine here to sell off to other countries that was interesting hard to believe the amount of salt. Oh and caught a few sunsets with the flamingos.
We
arrived in San Pedro a strange little town with mainly bikes as transport and one cash machine that never has money, meaning the last day when we were supposed to leave for Peru. We almost got stranded as there was no way of getting cash therefore we couldn’t pay for the room we had slept in for two nights, this caused problems, Luckily Cristophe helped us out maybe he was alright after all no he was still a knob.
Next stop Peru and the gruelling Inca Trail
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