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Claire & Dave's Big Adventure
San pedro and the Salt flats
Our next stop in the long skinny country of Chile was San Pedro de Atacama. To get there, we had to take a 30 hour bus ride from Santiago with no stops or breaks, but at least we got fed. Kind of. Chilean food on a bus consists of a dry piece of ham or, an equally dry piece of cheese, never both, on stale bread with no butter. Fortunately, for us we were sat next to some French lads who carried their very own bottle of mayonaise that they happily shared to add at least a little bit of moisture and taste to the 'sandwich'. If you ever find yourself having to make this journey in Chile, fly. Or sit next to French people. French people always carry mayonaise.
San Pedro is the launching point for the famous Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia and many people use it as the border crossing from Chile. But the town itself is also a great little spot with plenty to do and see nearby. Plus thanks to being the only real town in the middle of the huge empty Atacama desert it has the esteemed honour of being the most expensive town in Chile. Knowing how much we love to spend money we had to visit.
The town itself is basically about 8 roads crossing over each other to create just a few blocks. It's sandy, hot and dusty, but with it's hoard of cafes, restaurants, travel agents and souvenir shops that mainly cater to the backpacker crowd it provides a nice base for a few days. Once again, nearly everything we did here we we were alongside our travel buddies Will and Louise.
Valley of the Moon
The first place we visited was the 'Valley of the Moon' which is a valley (would you believe it?) that isn't actually the moon (honestly!) but actually just somewhere that just looks like the moon. A bit. It was interesting though. Even though the gravity was functioning perfectly normal and we could breathe the air unaided we were still able to pretend it was like being on the actual moon by taking really big steps in slow motion which amused David for the entire visit, but nobody else.
We soon learned a little bit about the area from the tour guide (who we later suspected to be a vampire due to her dramatic change in friendliness once the sun went down). The moon-like surroundings are created by the tectonic plates moving against each other pushing up salt to the surface and drying the area out. If you lick some of the rocks they taste salty. This was proven by David. We also learned that the whole of Chile has only existed for a short time, in comparison to the rest of the world as it is one of the newest areas of land in the world revealed by the receeding ocean which used to come right up to the bottom of the Andes. This too adds to the already salty and sandy landscape. Sorry, thats probably getting a bit boring now... There was also a cool cave that we got to walk through.
After the Valley of the Moon we continued our theme of valleys named after unusual and exciting things by visiting the the Valley of Death! So called, because the valley is inhabited by thousands of zombies that kill anybody who dares visit. Not really. This place is very much like the moon valley but it is tinged with a redder colour in the sand. It sounds cool though - Valley of Death, it's actually a mistake in translation. A priest from Italy visited the area many years ago and came up with the name. Because of the redness in the sand he described it as looking like the planet Mars (it was the same priest who named the Valley of the Moon and he really liked spacey things). Unfortunately in Spanish 'Mars' is 'La Marte' (Although the chocolate bar is still called 'Mars') and death is 'La Muerte' and so the Italian priest pronounced it incorrectly and somebody wrote down Valley of Death and the name simply stuck.
We werent allowed to venture too far into the Valley of Death as the police were searching the area. Ironically somebody from the town has recently gone missing there and is presumed dead!
The last stop on the tour was a huge clifftop where we could watch the sunset. We can't remember the name of the place (perhaps the Cliffs of Saturn if the priest had anything to do with it) but it was a nice view. Every single tour winds up here and the place is packed. A few locals take advantage of this and sell beers and cakes from their car boots whilst one guy even set up his own little cocktail bar. We bought a few beers and enjoyed watching another beautiful sunset in South America.
Sandboarding
Knowing how obssessed we are with extreme sports it will come as no surprise that we jumped at the chance to go sandboarding in the desert. Just above the Valley of Death, that looks like mars, there is a huge sand dune where we went to get narly and extreme. Our experience with 'board sports' is limited to say the least, we have both skiied once but neither of us were very good at it and David has skatebaorded once when he was twelve. He broke his arm. So naturally we were a little apprehensive about attempting to sandboard down a huge sand dune into a pile of rocks at the bottom. Fortunately the company that organises it said we would be fine (well they would, wouldn't they?) so off we went.
Once we arrived we hiked up the huge dune and had our very quick lesson at the top. We asume we had the lesson at the top so that we then had no option but to slide down. The lesson was simple yet effective. Basically stand up and let gravity pull you down, when you fall (note not if you fall) try not to hurt youself. And then we were told to just go for it. It was actually a lot easier than we thought. The first couple of goes we took it is easy and fell several times, as falling was definitley the best way of slowing down but after a few goes we were soon flying, sometimes literally, down the hill. Claire was even able to make it down without falling at all too, something that David never actually achieved. The only downside to the whole thing was walking back up the dune, our calves got a great work out.
What made the day even better was the setting. On top of the sanddune we had an awesome view of the whole desert, where again we watched another beautiful sunset in South America.
After a few nights of fun in San Pedro we spent our last night eating yet another mixed grill alongside Will and Louise. It was an early night though as in the morning it was an early start to begin our trip across the famous Salar de Uyuni.
Salt Flats
The Salar de Uyuni recieves mostly positive reviews but occasionally people hate it. This is usually because of the company they choose- some drivers are drunk, some guides speak no English, accomodation is unpredictable and the food can make you poorly. We have since found out that it is actually one of the most dangerous trips you can do in South America as statistically more foreign people die in car accidents (drunk drivers) here than anywhere else in the continent. And so with this in mind we chose our company carefully. The problem is that you book and pay for the tour before you see/meet the driver and accommodation etc. The four of us visited several agencies in town and specifically requested sober drivers and preferably English speaking guides. The company we chose, Estrella Del Sur, promised all these things and were at a price we were happy with so this was who we chose.
On the morning of the trip we were picked up from our hostel by minibus and taken through the border into Bolivia to mark our 15th country on this trip. It was here, just after the border crossing in a carpark and with no way of returning that we would meet our driver and guide for the next 3 days. As mentioned, so much of this trip depends on the driver so we were hoping for a good one.
Our minibus driver who brought us asked us in perfect English to put our bags on top of one of the 4x4s that was parked up on the edge of a nearby cliff and that our driver would be with us shortly. We waited a while for the driver but he was nowhere to be seen at first. Eventually after 30 minutes of waiting around watching all the other groups set off with their friendly and professional guides a small Boliviano man wearing a dirty cap and heavily **** stained trousers stumbled up to us clutching a near empty bottle of whiskey. Whilst smoking a joint the size of a recorder and speaking in slurred Spanish he rather aggressively introduced himself as our driver. We all looked at each other in disbelief. This was exactly what we had hoped to avoid!
As he climbed/fell into the drivers seat he told us he would back it up a little bit for us to get in. We were all speechless, not believing that we were supposed to entrust our lives to this guy, but we had already paid and our friendly minibus driver had just left We had to choose between being stranded in the desert on our own or get in the vehicle with this intoxicated tramp!
He started the engine and began reversing to the edge of the cliff but as he did he actually passed out at the wheel! The vehicle and our driver went crashing over the cliff and fell 200 metres into a huge fireball at the bottom. That was a close one. At least he wouldn't be driving us now. We soon moved to another car and found a new driver. He didn't speak a word of English but he had been driving these tours for over 20 years and he didn't stink of booze. He would do.
And so off we went towards the Salt Flats of Uyuni, us, Will and Louise, a friendly French guy and a rude lady from Spain. Before reaching the main event on day 3, the salt flats themselves, there were plenty of other stops along the way all offering lots of sites, scenes and photos. We stopped at so many salt lagoons, all with different colours and scenery. Most of them had hundreds of pink flamingoes too. We would probably know more about the reason for the different colours and formations if we had either listened more in our chemistry classes at school or if we had a driver who spoke a word lf English. Never mind they were still impressive to see.
The area we drove across on the first day has had a lot of volcanic activity in the past which created some thermal pools and also some geysers. The pools were ok - basically a few too many people crammed into a very small hot pond.
The geysers were really impressive though. Lots of hot steam rising from bubbling hot pools of mud. It was other worldly. We also learned the reason that Bolivia is called Bolivia, it is because in Spanish the word for 'dragon' is 'bo'. As dragons live underground in this area to create all the heat for the geysers and volcanoes it could be said that 'dragons live here' but remember in Spanish that dragon is bo so it would actually be 'bo live here' ('bo' is plural and singular for 'dragon' in Spanish (similar to the word 'sheep' in English)). So in Spanish the phrase 'bo-live-here' would be wrote down as 'bo-liv-ia'. Bolivia. Land of dragons.
Day one had been fun, our driver was safe, our companions were fun (apart from one) and we had seen some nice things. We all shared a six bed dorm in a dirty shack for our first overnight stop and the food we got was... edible. Due to the altitude we all had headaches and didnt feel great after dinner so made for an early night in preparation for the 6am start in the morning.
Day 2
Our start turned out to be really early as when we crossed the border into Bolivia (land of dragons) nobody told us that our clocks had to go back an hour, so as we set our alarms for 5.30 we actually got up at 4.30 which could have been a much appreciated extra hour in bed. Day 2 was mostly a driving day. We stopped at more sites - a volcano, a stone forest, a railway line and yet more lagoons with flamingoes. It was nice but it was very much get out, take some pictures, get back in all day long. We had to take a detour as well due to the Dakar rally passing through the area on the same day. There was a lot more driving on this day which contributed to a very long game of I spy and an impromptu singalong to Queens Bohemium Rhapsody. The things you do in the desert eh?
The hotel this time was much nicer and was made from salt! You could even lick the walls! We had a lovely double room and the food was ok here, but a bit too salty! Not really, but it didn't stop David trying to make an awful joke about it. Another early night was taken, this time we had to be up at the real 4.30 in the morning to watch the sunrise over the salt flats.
Day 3
We have never been fans of getting up for sunrises, we dont mind staying up for them, but getting up at that time is usually an anticlimax for the pain of getting up in what always feels like the middle of the night. Especially when there is no electricity and you are getting ready in candle light.
Well, this time we were proved wrong. Watching the sunrise over the horizon of the salt flats, reflecting off the shallow layer of water that surrounded us was really special. Truly stunning. For 20 minutes we stood and stared at this magical scene unfolding before our eyes (whilst obviously taking hundreds of photos). That sun rise alone made the trip worthwhile.
Once the sun was up, we could see where we were. We were nowhere. All around us was just nothing but a hoizon with a blue sky. We drove further into nothingness and found a dryish patch to make all the usual false prospective photos that so many make. The best was still to come though, as we were driving we found an area so empty of anyone or anything it was like being in another world. There was a thin layer of water surrounding us, reflecting the blue sky above. It felt as if we were standing in the middle of a perfectly still ocean. Without doubt it is one of the most spectacular places we have ever seen! Just simply amazing!
We continued the drive to reach Uyuni and had a quick stop off at the train cemetery which should be called the train scrapyard as that is exactly what it is. Still, it was kind of eerie to see the old battered trains lay to rest in the middle of a desert landscape. And that was the last stop of our Salt Flats tour. We were dropped off in Uyuni at our hotel.
The whole tour has been a highlight of our whole trip and it lived up to all the hype. It was made all the better that we were able to do it with Will and Louise who we have to say goodbye to soon. We can't wait to carry on this journey through this amazing continent and see more exciting things, but we think that it will be hard to top this one!
TRANSPORT STATS
Planes used - 11
Buses/coaches used - 91 (+4)
Trains used - 25
Metros/subways used - 48
Cars used - 14
Minivans - 11 (+1)
Russian Campervans used -1
Horses used - 1
Camels used - 1
Taxis used - 22
Cable cars used - 1
Bicycles used- 3
Tuk tuks/autorickshaw used - 31
Scooters used - 6
Elephants used - 0
Ferrys used - 7
CycleRickshaw - 1
Bamboo HouseBoat - 1
Tour Boat - 2
Combi Van - 2
Huge 4x4 Truck Thingys- 2
Catamarans - 1
Kms travelled in campervan - 12298
Toyota Landcruisers - 1
Our next stop in the long skinny country of Chile was San Pedro de Atacama. To get there, we had to take a 30 hour bus ride from Santiago with no stops or breaks, but at least we got fed. Kind of. Chilean food on a bus consists of a dry piece of ham or, an equally dry piece of cheese, never both, on stale bread with no butter. Fortunately, for us we were sat next to some French lads who carried their very own bottle of mayonaise that they happily shared to add at least a little bit of moisture and taste to the 'sandwich'. If you ever find yourself having to make this journey in Chile, fly. Or sit next to French people. French people always carry mayonaise.
San Pedro is the launching point for the famous Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia and many people use it as the border crossing from Chile. But the town itself is also a great little spot with plenty to do and see nearby. Plus thanks to being the only real town in the middle of the huge empty Atacama desert it has the esteemed honour of being the most expensive town in Chile. Knowing how much we love to spend money we had to visit.
The town itself is basically about 8 roads crossing over each other to create just a few blocks. It's sandy, hot and dusty, but with it's hoard of cafes, restaurants, travel agents and souvenir shops that mainly cater to the backpacker crowd it provides a nice base for a few days. Once again, nearly everything we did here we we were alongside our travel buddies Will and Louise.
Valley of the Moon
The first place we visited was the 'Valley of the Moon' which is a valley (would you believe it?) that isn't actually the moon (honestly!) but actually just somewhere that just looks like the moon. A bit. It was interesting though. Even though the gravity was functioning perfectly normal and we could breathe the air unaided we were still able to pretend it was like being on the actual moon by taking really big steps in slow motion which amused David for the entire visit, but nobody else.
We soon learned a little bit about the area from the tour guide (who we later suspected to be a vampire due to her dramatic change in friendliness once the sun went down). The moon-like surroundings are created by the tectonic plates moving against each other pushing up salt to the surface and drying the area out. If you lick some of the rocks they taste salty. This was proven by David. We also learned that the whole of Chile has only existed for a short time, in comparison to the rest of the world as it is one of the newest areas of land in the world revealed by the receeding ocean which used to come right up to the bottom of the Andes. This too adds to the already salty and sandy landscape. Sorry, thats probably getting a bit boring now... There was also a cool cave that we got to walk through.
After the Valley of the Moon we continued our theme of valleys named after unusual and exciting things by visiting the the Valley of Death! So called, because the valley is inhabited by thousands of zombies that kill anybody who dares visit. Not really. This place is very much like the moon valley but it is tinged with a redder colour in the sand. It sounds cool though - Valley of Death, it's actually a mistake in translation. A priest from Italy visited the area many years ago and came up with the name. Because of the redness in the sand he described it as looking like the planet Mars (it was the same priest who named the Valley of the Moon and he really liked spacey things). Unfortunately in Spanish 'Mars' is 'La Marte' (Although the chocolate bar is still called 'Mars') and death is 'La Muerte' and so the Italian priest pronounced it incorrectly and somebody wrote down Valley of Death and the name simply stuck.
We werent allowed to venture too far into the Valley of Death as the police were searching the area. Ironically somebody from the town has recently gone missing there and is presumed dead!
The last stop on the tour was a huge clifftop where we could watch the sunset. We can't remember the name of the place (perhaps the Cliffs of Saturn if the priest had anything to do with it) but it was a nice view. Every single tour winds up here and the place is packed. A few locals take advantage of this and sell beers and cakes from their car boots whilst one guy even set up his own little cocktail bar. We bought a few beers and enjoyed watching another beautiful sunset in South America.
Sandboarding
Knowing how obssessed we are with extreme sports it will come as no surprise that we jumped at the chance to go sandboarding in the desert. Just above the Valley of Death, that looks like mars, there is a huge sand dune where we went to get narly and extreme. Our experience with 'board sports' is limited to say the least, we have both skiied once but neither of us were very good at it and David has skatebaorded once when he was twelve. He broke his arm. So naturally we were a little apprehensive about attempting to sandboard down a huge sand dune into a pile of rocks at the bottom. Fortunately the company that organises it said we would be fine (well they would, wouldn't they?) so off we went.
Once we arrived we hiked up the huge dune and had our very quick lesson at the top. We asume we had the lesson at the top so that we then had no option but to slide down. The lesson was simple yet effective. Basically stand up and let gravity pull you down, when you fall (note not if you fall) try not to hurt youself. And then we were told to just go for it. It was actually a lot easier than we thought. The first couple of goes we took it is easy and fell several times, as falling was definitley the best way of slowing down but after a few goes we were soon flying, sometimes literally, down the hill. Claire was even able to make it down without falling at all too, something that David never actually achieved. The only downside to the whole thing was walking back up the dune, our calves got a great work out.
What made the day even better was the setting. On top of the sanddune we had an awesome view of the whole desert, where again we watched another beautiful sunset in South America.
After a few nights of fun in San Pedro we spent our last night eating yet another mixed grill alongside Will and Louise. It was an early night though as in the morning it was an early start to begin our trip across the famous Salar de Uyuni.
Salt Flats
The Salar de Uyuni recieves mostly positive reviews but occasionally people hate it. This is usually because of the company they choose- some drivers are drunk, some guides speak no English, accomodation is unpredictable and the food can make you poorly. We have since found out that it is actually one of the most dangerous trips you can do in South America as statistically more foreign people die in car accidents (drunk drivers) here than anywhere else in the continent. And so with this in mind we chose our company carefully. The problem is that you book and pay for the tour before you see/meet the driver and accommodation etc. The four of us visited several agencies in town and specifically requested sober drivers and preferably English speaking guides. The company we chose, Estrella Del Sur, promised all these things and were at a price we were happy with so this was who we chose.
On the morning of the trip we were picked up from our hostel by minibus and taken through the border into Bolivia to mark our 15th country on this trip. It was here, just after the border crossing in a carpark and with no way of returning that we would meet our driver and guide for the next 3 days. As mentioned, so much of this trip depends on the driver so we were hoping for a good one.
Our minibus driver who brought us asked us in perfect English to put our bags on top of one of the 4x4s that was parked up on the edge of a nearby cliff and that our driver would be with us shortly. We waited a while for the driver but he was nowhere to be seen at first. Eventually after 30 minutes of waiting around watching all the other groups set off with their friendly and professional guides a small Boliviano man wearing a dirty cap and heavily **** stained trousers stumbled up to us clutching a near empty bottle of whiskey. Whilst smoking a joint the size of a recorder and speaking in slurred Spanish he rather aggressively introduced himself as our driver. We all looked at each other in disbelief. This was exactly what we had hoped to avoid!
As he climbed/fell into the drivers seat he told us he would back it up a little bit for us to get in. We were all speechless, not believing that we were supposed to entrust our lives to this guy, but we had already paid and our friendly minibus driver had just left We had to choose between being stranded in the desert on our own or get in the vehicle with this intoxicated tramp!
He started the engine and began reversing to the edge of the cliff but as he did he actually passed out at the wheel! The vehicle and our driver went crashing over the cliff and fell 200 metres into a huge fireball at the bottom. That was a close one. At least he wouldn't be driving us now. We soon moved to another car and found a new driver. He didn't speak a word of English but he had been driving these tours for over 20 years and he didn't stink of booze. He would do.
And so off we went towards the Salt Flats of Uyuni, us, Will and Louise, a friendly French guy and a rude lady from Spain. Before reaching the main event on day 3, the salt flats themselves, there were plenty of other stops along the way all offering lots of sites, scenes and photos. We stopped at so many salt lagoons, all with different colours and scenery. Most of them had hundreds of pink flamingoes too. We would probably know more about the reason for the different colours and formations if we had either listened more in our chemistry classes at school or if we had a driver who spoke a word lf English. Never mind they were still impressive to see.
The area we drove across on the first day has had a lot of volcanic activity in the past which created some thermal pools and also some geysers. The pools were ok - basically a few too many people crammed into a very small hot pond.
The geysers were really impressive though. Lots of hot steam rising from bubbling hot pools of mud. It was other worldly. We also learned the reason that Bolivia is called Bolivia, it is because in Spanish the word for 'dragon' is 'bo'. As dragons live underground in this area to create all the heat for the geysers and volcanoes it could be said that 'dragons live here' but remember in Spanish that dragon is bo so it would actually be 'bo live here' ('bo' is plural and singular for 'dragon' in Spanish (similar to the word 'sheep' in English)). So in Spanish the phrase 'bo-live-here' would be wrote down as 'bo-liv-ia'. Bolivia. Land of dragons.
Day one had been fun, our driver was safe, our companions were fun (apart from one) and we had seen some nice things. We all shared a six bed dorm in a dirty shack for our first overnight stop and the food we got was... edible. Due to the altitude we all had headaches and didnt feel great after dinner so made for an early night in preparation for the 6am start in the morning.
Day 2
Our start turned out to be really early as when we crossed the border into Bolivia (land of dragons) nobody told us that our clocks had to go back an hour, so as we set our alarms for 5.30 we actually got up at 4.30 which could have been a much appreciated extra hour in bed. Day 2 was mostly a driving day. We stopped at more sites - a volcano, a stone forest, a railway line and yet more lagoons with flamingoes. It was nice but it was very much get out, take some pictures, get back in all day long. We had to take a detour as well due to the Dakar rally passing through the area on the same day. There was a lot more driving on this day which contributed to a very long game of I spy and an impromptu singalong to Queens Bohemium Rhapsody. The things you do in the desert eh?
The hotel this time was much nicer and was made from salt! You could even lick the walls! We had a lovely double room and the food was ok here, but a bit too salty! Not really, but it didn't stop David trying to make an awful joke about it. Another early night was taken, this time we had to be up at the real 4.30 in the morning to watch the sunrise over the salt flats.
Day 3
We have never been fans of getting up for sunrises, we dont mind staying up for them, but getting up at that time is usually an anticlimax for the pain of getting up in what always feels like the middle of the night. Especially when there is no electricity and you are getting ready in candle light.
Well, this time we were proved wrong. Watching the sunrise over the horizon of the salt flats, reflecting off the shallow layer of water that surrounded us was really special. Truly stunning. For 20 minutes we stood and stared at this magical scene unfolding before our eyes (whilst obviously taking hundreds of photos). That sun rise alone made the trip worthwhile.
Once the sun was up, we could see where we were. We were nowhere. All around us was just nothing but a hoizon with a blue sky. We drove further into nothingness and found a dryish patch to make all the usual false prospective photos that so many make. The best was still to come though, as we were driving we found an area so empty of anyone or anything it was like being in another world. There was a thin layer of water surrounding us, reflecting the blue sky above. It felt as if we were standing in the middle of a perfectly still ocean. Without doubt it is one of the most spectacular places we have ever seen! Just simply amazing!
We continued the drive to reach Uyuni and had a quick stop off at the train cemetery which should be called the train scrapyard as that is exactly what it is. Still, it was kind of eerie to see the old battered trains lay to rest in the middle of a desert landscape. And that was the last stop of our Salt Flats tour. We were dropped off in Uyuni at our hotel.
The whole tour has been a highlight of our whole trip and it lived up to all the hype. It was made all the better that we were able to do it with Will and Louise who we have to say goodbye to soon. We can't wait to carry on this journey through this amazing continent and see more exciting things, but we think that it will be hard to top this one!
TRANSPORT STATS
Planes used - 11
Buses/coaches used - 91 (+4)
Trains used - 25
Metros/subways used - 48
Cars used - 14
Minivans - 11 (+1)
Russian Campervans used -1
Horses used - 1
Camels used - 1
Taxis used - 22
Cable cars used - 1
Bicycles used- 3
Tuk tuks/autorickshaw used - 31
Scooters used - 6
Elephants used - 0
Ferrys used - 7
CycleRickshaw - 1
Bamboo HouseBoat - 1
Tour Boat - 2
Combi Van - 2
Huge 4x4 Truck Thingys- 2
Catamarans - 1
Kms travelled in campervan - 12298
Toyota Landcruisers - 1
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