Day 40 - Travel to Villamar

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Late pick-up today at 09:30, so after a good 7.5 hours sleep I woke up at 06:00 to catch up on this blog but couldn’t publish it because the hotel’s internet is too slow.

Today was basically a driving day to get to our last stop before four nights in the Atacama Desert. Soon after leaving the hotel. We went to the same spot where we watched the sunset and Issac showed us how to do some funny trick photos, which was a lot of fun.

We then drove for about 90 minutes to Julaca which is a tiny town almost like a ghost town although Issac told us that a year ago there were no shops providing a public toilet but now there are two. After that we drove on with a couple of stops when Enzo spied lamas or ostriches and we saw two with babies. The other stop was at the top of a valley for an overall view.

Lunch was at 13:45 at another small town called Alota and once again provided by Issac and Enzo. We then left at 15:00 and drove for drove for about 45 minutes to Rock Valley which had unusual rock formations before heading to our hotel for the night, Mallku Cueva hotel just before the town of Villamar. This is another modern rustic looking hotel which uses a cliff face as its back wall and in fact our room’s back wall is the cliff face which reminded us of the cave houses we have stayed in Santorini and Cappadoccia. Once again internet is slow and we spent the time before dinner at 19:00 walking around the area which is quite lovely.

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