San Pedro de Atacama - Day 35 - 03/11/2012 (Saturday)
The bus got in at about 9am. As this place was tiny it was a quick walk to the place we were staying. Our rooms weren't ready so we all went out for breakfast. The town really was tiny. 1 Main Street with a few others coming off it. The streets were not surfaced so it was also very dusty. The rest of the morning we just had a wander around the place and chilled out in the hotel. We went for a late lunch but that just ended up being a drink as no one was hungry.
Then at 4pm we all meet up to go sand boarding. I thought this would be like what we did in Aus and we go down a sand dune on a surf board. I was so wrong, it was on a snow board down the dune! The bus took us a few minutes out of town and then up into a valley. Once there we got given snowboards and had to climb the dune. Anyone who has tried to climb sand will know how hard this is! It took a while to get up. Once at the top they guys gave us very little instructions and left us to it. Needless to say our first runs was useless. We both fell over and couldn't get the hang on it. We went for a second but that involved reclimbing the dune. Sarah's 2nd attempt wasn't bad but mine was worst than the first. I hung back at the bottom to watch those that were doing a good job and when I went up a 3rd time I could kind of do it. We both went or a couple more attempts slowing getting better and faster each time. The best bit was it didn't hurt at all when you fell over as it was only sand.
Once we couldn't climb anymore the guys packed up and we drove to a valley one over from the dunes. From here you could see for miles in every direction and we sat and watched the sun go down. I couldn't believe how cold it got seconds after the sun sank. It was freezing!
We went back to town to shower and then we sat in the quad outside of the hotel and played some games.

San Pedro de Atacama - Day 36 - 04/11/2012 (Sunday)
For some reason Sarah and I weren't feeling great. Everyone in the group had a cold ages ago and we have not been able to shake it. Most of the group went for a bike ride to a nearby lagoon but we both vegged out and slept most the morning away.
We wanted to go and get some lunch but all the cash machines in town had run out of cash so instead we just had to get some empenarders.
That afternoon we walked out of town to some Inca ruins. It was only 3km out of town but it seemed to take ages to get to. We think it was far more than 3km! We had to walk along side a dry river and we had to keep crossing it. Although it was fairly safe because it only rains 4 days a year here.
When we finally arrived we did both the walks in this reserve. The first was around the stone walls (the remains of the Inca homes) and then the 2nd was a 30 minute climb to the top of a hill where they used to worship. 39 minutes up normally would be a walk in the park but as we were at 2500 metres it was a little harder. The view from the top was amazing and we could even seen where we had sand boarded the days before.
Once back in town we went for a meal with a few of the group and then got an early night as the following day we were crossing the border to Bolivia and we would be reaching heights of over 4800 metres. We had no idea if we would suffer from altitude sickness or not!