Megacentre & British Indian We woke up early as there is no curtain at the window so the light fell straight on us as well as the fact that other people in the dorm were moving about getting dressed etc. By 9.30 we were eating breakfast which is included in the price of our room but consisted solely of tea, coffee, bread and jam...of course we made sure we had plenty to get our moneys worth! After doing a few bits on the internet we got some info from the ...

La Paz We were up and about by 8am today as we made our way to the bus terminal. Arriving at the bus station around 9 we immediately set about finding a suitable bus. Eventually armed with tickets on the 9:30 bus we just had time to buy a couple of cheese empanadas for breakfast and some strange coconut, honey pastry things (which are very hard to eat!!!) before getting on the bus. It was a fairly uneventful journey through quite uninspiring scenery, until we ...

Orouro After spending nearly an hour to get the bus load of us through customs we had a further 4 hours travelling before finally reaching Orouro at about 1.30. During the journey we watched the landscape change from snowy mountains in the distance and rocky terrain at the side of the bumpy road with Llamas running free (some with coloured ribbons tied to them) to rolling hills of scrubby grasses with the occasional stone wall and cattle wandering about. We pa...

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...