San Pedro - From Sunrise to Sunset (Like cactus and tequilla in a shot glass.)

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San Pedro: From Sunrise to Sunset

(Like cactus and tequila in a shot glass.)

Finding time to put pen to paper has been extremely hard between epic bus rides and bustling new towns. Oh and please excuse the long title, but anything shorter would fail to describe the lands of wonder I am in. In fact I feel a lot like Alice. You know the one who fell into wonderland.

And on that note I will begin.

“Terry who? “ I ask the random gentleman who greets me as I fall off the busssub, in my best ‘I haven’t been sleeping for the past 5 hours, and no I am not melting under the intense midday sun’ voice.
“Pratchett.” he replies in his cool as a cucumber voice of a local. “Are you looking for somewhere to stay?”
With my big pack and unusually blue eyes the answer is obvious, but I humour him and reply, “ Yes, do you know somewhere?”

“As it happens I opened a back packers four months ago and it’s just near by”
“Well that sounds good, how much do you charge and do you have hot water and a kitchen?”
“Yes we do, and it is all new.”
“It sounds almost too good to be true!” Keeping an eye out for his partner in crime Moka and I look at each other and answer non chalontly, “ Lets take a look.”

Heading past the bussub depot and over a big drain trickling with dirty water we cross a large road. Although I didn’t realise it was a road until a pick-up came flying past and left me a little dazzled. You see everything here is just dusty, dirty, sand stuff. No grass to define edges or trees to offer shade, no pavement to guide the way, only a few lamp posts and tire or shoe prints to indicate the route.

Terry is right, the place is fab: it is modern dessert Kitch, with that all essential hippy twist. Insence, orange table cloths with funky candles, hammocks and of course your baggy pant shabby top wearing hippies hanging around.

“Sweet. We will stay tonight and see how things go.”

Three nights later Moka and I decide it is time to leave the extreme desert conditions of San Pedro de Atacama, for Uyuni in Bolivia. But before I elaborate on that Salvidor Dali experience, I will tell you the tale of this one time when I was in the desert on a crappy bike with no name:

I awoke one delightful day before the crack of dawn: roughly 5am when the alarm went off. Sunsets are romantic and lovely, but a sunrise is something different. I have to admit that dusk is my favourite time of day. Everything quietens down, and there is a feeling of calm after a hard days work… or play. But a sunrise offers the promise of a new day, things yet to be explored and an optimism that is all encompassing.

Hence my bloody mad idea to watch the sunrise over the Moon Valley, just a few kilometres from San Pedro’s town centre. Well at least it would have been a few if we hadn’t ridden our bikes 20 minutes down hill past the entrance!

Nothing like a bit of exercise to get you enlivened right?! Wrong! With only two gears and a massive valley to ride back out of I thought I had passed into some sort of Jim Morrisson realm. Luckily I have a sense of humour, and the gods rewarded my efforts with a glorious globe peeking over the mountain range just as I made it back to the top.

“What do you reckon?” Cries Gabriel, a Swiss room-mate who was also as mad as us to start cycling at 5:30 am.

“Wicked!” Moka yells back from the rock peek we have climbed to - Gabriel opted for walk in the valley with two dogs that joined our sunrise adventure.

DESERT LESSON ONE: Do not take you bike into the sand with you. The down hills are hard, the up hills soul wrenching.

Watching the suns light bring the lunar valley into illustration is exquisite . I thought Mother Nature was mad to have deserts, all barren of life and water, but it is all part of the balance of life and captures a unique beauty you have to feel rather than see.

Moka and I said farewell to Gabriel and the dogs, as he had a bus to catch and they had other dogs butts to sniff. We stayed on for a couple more hours, taking pics and wandering around…. As you do in the desert!

DESERT LESSON TWO: Distances cannot be measured by sight alone.

Late afternoon seems like a perfect time to walk to a nearby oasis lake. It is only 3 km, which is like 45 minutes walk. Although the trees seem as though they are constantly within arms reach, they are actually quite a ways off! Walk, walk, walk, almost there. Walk, walk, walk almost there. Walk, walk, walk, still not bloody there!
The afternoon wander would have been a lot more rewarding if the oasis lake I was visualising all his long, dusty way, was actually a lake and not a swimming pool. Lesson three came the on the walk back to town.

DESERT LESSON THREE: SPF 60 regularly applied is NOT enough to protect you from the sun.

For the second part of the walk back from the ‘would-be-oasis-lake’, I covered my head and face with my green and gold sarong from Thailand, tucking the edge under the bridge of my sunglasses ensuring not a single speck of my now leathery-feeling face was showing. Sure I look like a bit of a freak, but I am much happier. It is six o’clock but the sun’s power is without restraint here in the desert: were I am on foot and don’t even have a crappy-bike-with-no-name.

With a new day comes a new adventure and todays menu is:
Entre: Lake you cannot sink in.
Main: Eyes of the salt lake.
Dessert: Sunset to tell your grandchildren about.

I am a bit of a fish when it comes to swimming - hate pools but love the river and enjoy the sea. Here in “Cejar Lake” I learn that reality is not always as it seems.

The Andes is the result of two massive techtonic plates crashing, and in the aftermath vast amounts of ocean where literally left high and dry. Today this means that there are high altitude lakes not of water but pure salt left behind by the vanishing water.

There are also a few small lakes that have 35% more salt than normal sea water. This means lots of things but for my entre it means I am able to swim and not sink - just like at the dead sea. I have not been to the dead sea and this is my first time feeling such an illogical sensation: bobbing to the surface like an over boiled sausage, making like a star fish and I don’t sink: even my ‘bottom’ is boyant as a life raft!

Both Moka and I now look like zombies due to our white and stiff salt-coated skin, so a leap into the eyes of the salar for our main is perfect. The eyes are two precise round lakes about 10 metres in diameter in the middle of the friggen desert!

After our jumps, a more relaxed tone is taken with desert as we walk across a lake entirely made of salt. The effect is maddening and I can understand why it has been compared to landing on the moon. As the sun falls over the horizon I feel peaceful and generally content - gotta love a sunset like this! Although I have to wonder: If God put all the animals in their place for a reason I have to ask why the hell the only animals out here are Flamingos!?

“Alice!”
“Yes.”
“Wake Up!”
“Why? I am having so much fun.”
“But it is not real! It is just a dream.”
“WELL, I am having a metaphysical discussion with Frank the Flamingo de los Andes.”
“Alice, you are not making sense, please wake up!”

“ After my discussion with Frank we can chat about reality and dreams.”

“Alice!!!”
“Piss off!”



We have finally made our way to La Paz. President Evo Morales presented the new constitution in El Alto - a spill over town next to La Paz - today and people are a bit mad. Bolivia itself is very interesting to say the least and I honestly do feel like Alice.

Next entry: loads of delicious cake to wrap ya laughing gear around, as well as a few pics of some well worn travelling shoes!!

(Bussub is a pelindrome I made up for absolutely no reason.)

XX

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Comments

[anonymous]

I love your photo of lovers in the setting sun - beautiful! Hope you're still have tonnes of fun. Come back and visit us in London soon! PS - Tracy is back in the building on another assignment! So you gotta come back too! Belinda xx

[Travelling Shoes]

What are you still doing in London? Thanks for the feedback, and look out for some hot of the press new releases in the next few days!! he he he