After a brief stop in Valparaiso, we decided to head up to San Pedro its a small town in the Atacama desert and will be our crossing point into Bolivia.
We headed to the bus station we needed to head back to Santiago and then catch the bus from there to Calama which is about an hour from San Pedro Atacama.

Our bus was leaving Santiago around midnight so we arrived there with an hour to spare we got some provisions and of course a 2 liter bottle of wine to help relief the boredom of a 24 hr bus ride.Of we set i have to admit the seats where extremely comfortable the cost of the ticket was only 20GP a real bargain.

The journey its self went pretty quickly Myself and Bri tried to get our head down as much as possible, the wine went down extremely well as well so that made the journey a little bit more pleasant. We befriended a Chilean guy called Sergio hiss English was ok so we spent the majority of the day talking to him ETC we finally arrived in Calama some 24hrs after setting of from Santiago, Sergio showed us to a hostel so we all stayed the night in Calama.

After getting up nice and early we freshened up it was lovely to have a hot shower after the long bus journey, we headed out for breakfast and then we headed to the bus station to grab a bus to San Pedro around an hour and a half away.
We spoke to a lady on the bus and she told us about her hostel so once of the bus we headed to the hostel to have a look and the accommodation was really nice so we sorted out a good price and moved our kit in.

We had a walk around the town the town itself has a lot more western visitors because its the route in to and out of Bolivia. That evening we just chilled outside our room we grabbed some wine and read and chatted etc.

The next day was a real lazy one i sat outside in the sun all day it was just lovely to chill with my book and some wine.
Later that afternoon we went for a walk around the town to get some prices for mountain bike hire and tours ETC, as we walked around we bumped into a English couple Helen and Jay we got talking and arranged to meet later that evening, so we all met up and went to a local bar the bar was lovely it had a massive log fire in the middle and the atmosphere was really relaxed and chilled.

We got talking and as the evening moved on the wine began ton flow more freely, so near closing time we all staggered out and headed of home.

As you can imagine we awoke in the morning to very sore heads but we got up and headed to breakfast, after that we jumped on the mountain bikes and headed out of town to Quitor, a fort constructed in the XII century lies on the top of a hill on the river of San Pedro, the Quitor Pukara is one old indigenous strength which data of more than 700 years. Tulor, with archaeological sites where towns of the age of stone can be found (500-600 AC) which have been excavated.

Once we had climbed to the top we had a chance to view the surrounding area it was absolutely breathtaking we spent a good couple of hours walking around the site before heading to the sand dunes to try our hand at Sand Boarding.

We headed out on the Calama road we then had to take a turning of it lead down a dirt track we cycled as far as we could then a 4 x 4 came past and offered us a lift to the dunes, once we was there we got our boards and headed up the dune it was very hot and very steep but we came to a part we thought would be a good starting point so we both looked at each other waiting for one of us to go so Bri went first not a bad effort he nearly made it down without falling over i have to admit i was rubbish my board kept sinking in the sand not sure i waxed enough but we had fun we spent some time up there prating about.

We was going to do the sunset tour later that evening but we decided we would do that tomorrow as we was shattered.