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Published: August 29th 2008
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The bus to San Pedro de Atacama brings you through kilometre after kilometre of desert but this is no featureless landscape of sand dunes rather an everchanging vista of of mountains, salt flats, plains filled with rocks and boulders and in the distance the brown silent mountains stand watch. There is almost no vegetation apart from some small scrubby plants, perhaps some cactus exactly as you would see in a John Wayne film and occasionally where there is an oasis, some trees as is the case in San Pedro de Atacama. This oasis is not as you imagine a palm tree fringed, clear blue pool of cool water but rather a dry, dusty, arid village of single storey adobe buildings with some trees scattered through the streets. It is also at an altitude of 2,400 m and although not high, you can feel the loss of oxygen in the air and the effects of the lower atmospheric pressure are everywhere to be seen - from the extra fizzy beer to the exploding roll-on deodorant bottle.
San Pedro is on everyone´s itinerary and although you shouldn´t like a town entirely devoted to tourism in the middle of a desert, it is
a magical place and so different from anything we know, or have experienced that quite simply we loved it. Yes even in winter it is full of tourists, yes it is very expensive even more so than the rest of Chile, yes the altitude is difficult to get used to and yes one tour operator "forgot" to pick us from our hostel up at 4 a.m. in below zero conditions so we didn´t get to see the El Tatio geyser field BUT we still loved it. Quite simply it has a very special atmosphere and simply sitting in the little main square watching the world go by is a legitimate and worthwhile thing to do (especially as perfected by Paul and Leon two new travelling friends of ours from Middlesborough and Melbourne respectively).
Our adventure was a mountain bike ride a little way out of town to "Devil´s Gorge" a local natural phenomenon in an area full of them, where, by the side of a dusty road, a little crack in a rock wall just wide enough to cycle through leads to a labyrinthine gorge climbing all the while and going further and further into the wilderness. We set
out at 14.30 in the afternoon armed with a hand drawn map from the bicycle hire shop and promises that it was "muy especial" ringing in our ears. The gorge was deserted and eerily silent - in the desert there is no animal or birdlife so the only sound is the sound of your heart beating as it attempts to make up for the fewer oxygen molecules at altitude. By 17.00 we had been cycling for quite a while but there was no sign of the gorge ending or any really apparent exit road so we kept going...
We were beginning to be concerned as we knew that sunset was about 18.10 but we felt that we must be near the end, relying on the hand drawn map we had. As we emerged higher in the gorge and I could see the sun I realised we were still travelling in a direction away from San Pedro. Feeling it was too late now to turn back we redoubled our efforts and continued on paths that had become increasingly soft and more difficult to cycle on. Eventually we spotted what seemed to be a small path climbing a ridge leading out
of the gorge. We followed it, breathing hard, as we pushed our bikes through the soft sand and gravel. We crested the ridge expecting to see a path leading downhill towards San Pedro. Instead there was a gradually sloping vast expanse of grey rock and dust - what I imagine the surface of the moon would look like. In desperation we pushed on feeling tired and de-hydrated but beginning to feel that we could be stuck there for the night. We followed some horse tracks to another ridge and with sunset almost upon us we climbed a narrow track to the top of the ridge and gasped with amazement.
We were on a hilltop many kilometres to the east of where we had begun and some 200 or so metres higher than San Pedro. With a gorgeous sunset painting red, orange, pink, purple, blue and black on the red slopes of the volcano Licancabur to the east, we had no time to stop and admire the view. We needed to get off the mountain before dark and hope to navigate our way through the maze of dirt roads back to San Pedro before it got really cold. Luckily there
was a full moon and there was good light for another half hour after sunset and for some reason I had chosen to bring my torch with us when we set out that morning. Practically carrying our mountain bikes we followed a zig-zagging dirt track, barely wide enough to stand on, down to the bottom of the hill and began to half cycle, half walk towards the first of the dirt roads...We guessed a few of the turns we took, dodged some furiously barking dogs on the outskirts of town and arrived back to a town in the darkness of a power cut, exhausted and exhilirated and celebrated with a very large candlelit meal.
So the lesson we have learned is? Never guess the scale of a hand drawn map and always carry a torch and a sense of direction with you.
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Fede
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Oh my god! At the moment I would just go for the very large candlelit meal...I am turning into a lazy fat whale. I believe you are trying to get lost somehow just to have a reason not to come back! Please send Silly Billy a nice postcard from Chile because just this morning he was complaining about the one you sent from India...