The twenty-three and a half hour bus ride was by far the
worse one I had encountered on my South American travels. For some reason I was
just restless the whole way. I couldn't get into my latest read The Cocaine
Wars, I couldn't get comfortable, the food was sub-standard either a cheese or
ham roll and a peach juice, peach juice is one of my least favourite of the
juices. The films they put on were only in Spanish, well besides for one, which
I got into only for them to switch it off ten minutes from the end. The only
thing I could do was listen to my iPod, play solitaire and sleep but there were
only so much of those I could do before I grew bored, tiresome and restless.
Playing football manager or writing a blog would have been priceless but there
was no plug socket. So when we landed in the desert town of San Pedro De
Atacama I was mightily relieved. The town immediately had a western feel to it
with its dusty roads, shack houses and red desert. To be honest I thought that
we would stay a little outside the desert in a more built up town. As soon as
we were off the bus we were greeted with the usual hotel promoters, we chose to
go with a large camp sounding guy as his rates were the cheapest. Heled us over
the sandy, rocky football pitch and up the street to the hostel which was made
from a concoption of cement, breeze blocks, bamboo and wood. When I skyped my
Irish friend Matt Hyland later that day he asked if I was stopping in a shed
but it wasn't that bad at all and I really enjoyed the feel of the place
despite the only occupants being Earl and myself.

After checking in we explored the small downtown area which
mainly consisted of travel shops, restaurants, small mini markets and a church
which was being renovated. There wasn't much to see. But we booked a couple of
tours for the up and coming days, we also sorted out our bus ticket out of the
desert where we would be going to a place called Calma where we then try and
source a bus to our next country Bolivia. With nothing but free time for the
rest of the day we decided to relax. Earl and myself had both been nominated
for the ALS Ice Bucket challenge so we did that, then I settled down with a
Beef pot noodle and watched the disastrous performance Man Utd put in against
MK Dons. A brief trip to the shop followed where I would get the ingredients
for my chicken burger tea. It was nice to have a relaxed chilled out day where
we could sort some stuff, relax and not be on the go.

The next morning after a well-deserved lie-in and some
scrambled eggs on bread. I got a couple of chores done, this including washing
my clothes and sorting some travelling photos out. I also managed to download
the film I missed the last ten minutes of on the bus so watched the end of that
and a film called The Other Woman which was pretty disappointing. But before
you knew it it was time for our first tour where we would visit Valle De Luna
& Valle De Murte. The stops in the three hour tour included Cordiella de le
Sal, Canon de Sal, Anfiteatro Tres Marias and puestos sol. The tour was very
good and gave us an interesting look at part of the Atacama Desert. I
particularly liked the canon where we winded and crouched through tunnels and
caves learning about the formations and minerals of the rocks around us by our
tour guide Camilia. Camilia was also a very attractive women, she had sorted
out our tours in the office and it was a nice surprise to see she was leading
this tour, he English wasn't brilliant so I think the Spanish speakers got more
descriptions than Earl and myself the only non-Spanish speakers on the trip but
that didn't matter to me. The area we visited for sunset was great too offering
a view which looked out onto the desert, Andes and volcano's. It was a great
afternoon out full of many photo taking opportunities.

That evening was relatively quiet as we had to be up at the
crack of dawn the next day for another trip so I continued sorting my traveling
photos and watched a Seth Rogen and Zac Efron film called Neighbors which was
very good. I had heard that the Atacama desert had the clearest nightfall and
you could see many stars and even on occasions could see Pluto or Jupiter, but
from when the sun set I kept checking to see if it was worth star gazing for a
while but I was highly disappointed. I had seen many more clearer and starrier
night skies in Australia, for example there was when I did the Ayer's rock tour
and camped out under them in a swag and then there was my 28th
birthday on Mission Beach which offered a glistening starry night. So far it
wasn't living up to the Scientific reputation it had. But at 1.45am I needed to
go to the lav and as I went I glanced at the sky and I realised that I must
have been looking at the wrong times as I felt like the stars were on a disco
ball around me they were everywhere and felt so close. Unfortunately it was
1.45am, freezing and I had to be up in four hours so it was merely just more
than a glance at the sky.

So after a meek four hours sleep I woke up for our next
tour, this time it would be to the Lagunas Altiplanicas and Salar De Atacama and
the stops on this tour included laguna chaxa, pueblo de toconao, observation of
flamencos, pueblo desocaire, laguna
miscanti and menique. Once again it was my favourite tour guide Camilia running
the show, but this time she had a Colombian side kick, he was training to be a
tour guide and was able to help her with her English translation. For me the
tour was not a patch on the previous days. This particular tour cost £35 and
yes we drove further out and the our was longer but it semt like we spent more
time sitting or in my case sleeping on the bus than seeing cool stuff. Don't
get me wrong there were highlights for sure we got to see wild flamenco's and
Lama's. The Volcano's and Laguna's were nice apart from the weather being a bit
chilly and they put on an exceptional breakfast for us. But what annoyed me was
that when we booked the tour there was no mention of some hidden costs for when
you had to go into a certain national park, yeah these might have only been a
couple of quid each but when you pay £35 I think personally this sort of thing
should be included. Let me take you back to Valpo, we did a free walking tour
which was based on tips and we got free bus tickets, food and drinks. I'd have thought that it would be a free tour
that would want to charge for them little extras. Maybe I'm being too harsh,
like I say I did have a good time, we saw cool stuff but the value for money
compared to the $10 on the previous day semt unjust. If you were looking at
booking a tour I'd definitely do the Ville de Luna tour again and recommend that,
but I'd probably give the other a miss and do something else such as Geysers
Del Tatio or Salar De Tara.

We were dropped off at our hostel and we only had a few
hours before we would catch a bus to Calama, where we hopefully head straight
to Bolivia. So we freshened up, knowing
we could be in for a long journey got our stuff sorted and left the desert and
perhaps Chile for pastures new.

So until next time stay safe and take care

Adi

xx