Iquique We were on buses pretty much all day today. The trip from La Serena was 19 hours so by the time we arrived in Iquique it was 6pm. We did make a brief 20 minute stop in Antofagasta, just long enough for us to pick up a cup of coffee and an empanada each (mine Pino and Mae's ham and cheese) After arriving at the tur-bus terminal we immediately walked about 4 blocks up the street where we planned to book a bus to La Paz that evening. Annoyingly it turns o...

La Serena - Iquique We made an early star this morning and had packed the tent up and walked 1km to the bus stop just in time to get the 9am bus to La Serena! We arrived at about 11.30 after driving once again through the beautiful valley which we were awake enough to enjoy this time and straight away went to see about getting a bus to San Pedro de Atacama. To our dismay and great disappointment there were no seats left on the bus and they were all booked up for...

Monte Grande Having decided the previous day that it wasn't worth attempting to climb the mountain after all. (partly as we coudn't find where the path up started) We slept quite late today and got up at around 12. After a lovely breakfast of ham and tomato sandwiches we set off in the opposite direction from Los Nichos in the direction of a small village called Monte Grande. We admired the wonderfull scenery as we walked about 5km and arrived to find a small...

Los Nichos Pisco Distillery We made a special effort to get up early today, which wasnt a problem for me as I was freezing cold and hadnt slept properly at all :(( The reason for our rising at 7.30 was that we'd been told about a hike to the top of the mountain behind us that should take about 3 hours to reach the summit and we wanted to leave whilst it was still cool as the heat in the middle of the day is exhausting at over 30 degrees! After an attempted br...

Pisco Elqui When we got off the bus in Coquimbo it was still dark. We collected our baggage from the irritated man who had put our bags in the wrong place because he didn't bother to listen to us the night before when we told him where we were going!! We decided to wait until it was light before walking the mile or so to the hostel and while we waited I got some water and two mystery cakes (layers of custard and pastry with chocolate icing I think) from the cof...