Last days in San Pedro

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When we arrived in South America we were only planning to visit Chile, but everyone we met kept saying things like ‘go to Bolivia it’s amazing’, ‘go to Argentina they’re really friendly’ etc etc. So whilst hanging out at the very friendly Hostel Vila Coya in San Pedro de Atacama, Lexa did some brain storming of places to visit in Bolivia and Ecuador with the help of Rocio (Argentina), Marcus (Germany/NZ/Argentina) and their South America lonely planet, knowing that when we left we were going to have to go solo, except for her brief notes...eeeek!

With a list of places to visit we had decided to start by heading northeast and follow the increasingly well travelled route from San Pedro de Atacama (Chile) over to Uyuni (Bolivia) by 4x4, via the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world. To give you a flavour of the journey here are a few excerpts from the Lonely Planet, “a dreamy and extreme three-day jeep journey”, “wild uncharted terrain” “service can be inconsistent and amenities bare-bones and the success of a trip depends largely on a plucky, positive attitude and a good driver”..... Anyway we didn’t come travelling to sit in a 5* Hotel, so after asking around and hearing numerous stories of terrible journeys in freezing conditions and awful vehicles, we decided to book our trip through Cordillera Traveller, following at least some good reports about their service. It certainly seemed a bargain upfront, with 3 days transport 300-400km across the middle of nowhere, including food and accommodation for about US$90 each (and some companies charged even less). Only time would tell whether it would be trip from heaven with the stunning views of the blinding salt flats or a highway to hell that would leave us wishing it was all over....

We put off our departure date for a few days due to the uncharacteristic clouds, thinking that a white salt flat wouldn’t look quite as awesome with a blank white sky for contrast and might add to the potential misery of the trip. This meant that as well as researching and blogging there was plenty of time for socializing - just what we wanted after NZ and weeks of isolated campervanning. So amongst other things we had a nice time with Nancy and Stephan including a great night out with them, where a cheap meal was followed by a budget blowing night on the beer!

On our afternoon/evening we took a tour to the Valley of Death followed by the Valley de la Luna for sunset with Rocio and Marcus. During the day we had the clearest skies of our stay in San Pedro, but a couple of hours before sunset the clouds came in....doh! We walked up to the designated view point all the same ready for sunset, expecting a dull and dreary end to the day and were pleasantly surprised when the whole sky lit up and made the whole trip worthwhile. Marcus and I were in our element taking thousands of pictures, but in the end we were dragged back to the bus kicking and screaming by the girls..... just one more photo ... just one more photo!

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Comments

[Amy Brown]

I'm a bit confused...the date on your blog entry says August 12th. That was ages ago! Are you back in Blighty and backdating your posts or are you still updating from lands far away? Hope you are both well XX

[chichi]

pictures
beautiful pictures ! a bit like a dream xxx keep on the discovery xxx lots of love from france xxx Chichi and family xxx