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Published: October 7th 2007
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Basically it took us ages to get over the jet lag and 5 days after we arrived in Chile we were just about beginning to come right, but maybe the fact that our 3 hour bus ride inland from Antofagasta took us 2260m (7500 feet) up didn’t help our recovery. We arrived at Calama in the early afternoon and walked a kilometer to a hostel, unfortunately paying for a night before discovering that the tour of the largest open pit mine in the world and the only reason we or anybody comes to Calama was booked out for the next 4 days… Things only got worse - apart from being jetlagged, tired and grumpy, we were staying in another expensive (to us) hostel (£10) that was very basic and there was a power cut across the whole city. While the lack of electricity made for a romantic candlelit dinner, (well we had some candles anyway) we learnt from a couple of stranded Irish girls that they understood it was difficult or impossible to get money in San Pedro de Atacama, our next destination. This was why they had stopped in Calama, only to find that all the ATM’s were dead because
of the lack of power and all the banks were shut. With our bus booked for the next day at 12PM we retired to our luxurious abode and with the power coming back on later that night, we went to sleep casually thinking that we had it all covered and would easily sort out some cash the next day…
The power was still on in the morning, but the cash machines were all still in la-la land and the queues in every bank were enormous. Running out of time before our bus was due to leave at 12PM and dreading the thought of another 24 hours in a place we didn’t need to be, we tried to get a credit card cash advance, but couldn’t find a bank that would do this. At 11.50 we rushed to the bus station feeling rather stressed and tried to change our ticket for later that day. That wasn’t going to happen, which was fair enough as the bus was due to leave in 2 minutes when I asked, so we thought about just buying another ticket, but then decided just to go for it and hit the road to San Pedro. As
it turns out, the ‘travelers bible’, The Lonely Planet was well out of date, as was the word on the street and San Pedro de Atacama has had 2 cash machines for two years, no bank yet but lots of money changers with bad rates. So after a small fight with one of the two ATM’s which didn’t like us at all and waiting 30 minutes for the other one to be fixed we successfully got hold of the Chilean flip-flops that we needed and breathed a sigh of relief.
So here we were in San Pedro, I had a nice backache having managed to book the most broken seat on the bus, which seems to be becoming a bit of a habit and we headed towards any hostel that wasn’t in our trusty ‘bible’… Again it wasn’t quite the price we had expected and was on the outskirts of town, South America was turning out to be a lot more expensive than we had planned. The quality of accommodation wasn’t improving either as we found that only if you crouched really low in the shower could you coax out a warm dribble of water, but it would have
to do for now.
San Pedro is in the Norte Grande area of Chile that once belonged to Peru and Bolivia. A little bit higher than Calama at 2440m and situated in the Atacama desert, the driest in the world, surrounded by salt lagoons, snow-tipped volcanoes, sculpted rocks and fantastically clear skies. Those skies attract the attentions of many international astronomical agencies, who run numerous projects in the area and have built a number of observatories, including a huge new radio telescope that is currently being constructed by a multi-national cooperative. Having said that about the skies, it was cloudy when we were there…. Extremely unusual apparently, as was the snow falling in Santiago at the same time - more global topsy-turvyness was the only explanation we got. Whatever it was, it thwarted our attempts to go on a highly recommended star gazing tour 3 days in a row and we reckoned that the guys who stumped up the millions of dollars for the new telescope were probably getting a bit worried too.
After a night in the dodgy hostel, we decided to go in search of something better, wandering around town checking out the cheapest places and
coming close to giving up hope of finding anything better before we came across Vila Coya, a little cheaper and a lot nicer. It turned out to be a really good find, with a nice ambience and some likeminded people staying there, including Stephane and Nancy a lovely couple from Switzerland and Quebec respectively. In one of those strange travelling coincidences that happen from time to time, we have just bumped into Stephane whilst waiting in Santiago airport and writing this blog 2 months later!! Anyway, during our walk round town we also checked out some of the tour operators that offered a whole variety of trips to the Salar (Salt flats), treks up volcanoes and sand boarding. We opted to entertain ourselves with the latter in the cheapest way we could - renting a couple of bikes and boards and cycling out to the dunes for the day.
To save us carrying lunch we had a bite to eat before we left, tucking into some Pan de Atacama (well known for being the driest bread in the world) con jamon (ham). In true English tradition we set off on the bikes just after 12, with the sun beating
down on us as we peddled the 7km out of town….hmmm not many other people out on the roads. The altitude didn’t help either with that much less oxygen and pretty harsh UV levels which made it feel really hot. A little strangely because the air is thin it doesn’t hold the heat and as soon as you step into a shadow it is gets quite chilly… ha ha Chile geddit... (that joke wears off after the first couple of weeks here). Anyway we left the tar seal after about 4km for a bit of off-roading and were soon at the sand boarding area, in the Valle de Merte - the Valley of Death, recently renamed after a spate of sand boarding related backpacker fatalities, …only joking! Leaving the bikes we slogged up a small dune to join some others, but it wasn’t steep enough and we failed to get anywhere. After another 10 minute hike and with the Buddhist philosophy of “you may die today” we learnt in NZ seeming a little too likely, we stood at the top of a large sand dune and began waxing our boards again. Well, we survived 2 hours of ‘falling with style’
surprisingly suffering no serious injuries, because although I could stand up going down I had little or no control of the direction, so it generally involved a lot of speed. Lexa didn’t quite get a full run down the hill, but she was slightly wary after her last skiing exploits left her in plaster and the walk back up the approx. 150 meter high dunes at altitude was a real deterrent to going down the hill in the first place! I did give up with the standing at one point and tried the lying flat on the board face first option. It has to be said it was successful in the speed stakes, but stopping generally involved an undignified faceplant with sand going everywhere and when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere!
As the sun started to go down a little, the tours started coming out to the sand dune to enjoy the slopes without the heat of the mid day sun…heh smart, but way too crowded for us. This was our queue to jump on the bikes and head back into town for some grub, a drink or two and several long showers in an attempt to wash
away all that sand!
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Martyn
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Gritty realism...
Oh, that sand can't be good in all the nooks and crannies. And believe me, the crannies are the worst...