Day 257 - San Pedro de Atacama - Friday 29th June 2012

We woke up pretty cold, with furry mouths, red stained teeth and feeling a little worse of wear - the hangover was setting in! After a leisurely wake up and a not so lovely breakfast (free in the hostel but consisted of a stale piece of bed and one, yes just one, measly cup of coffee) we were ready to go on our planned bike ride. We walked down to the main square and watched the festivities for a while, it was the yearly San Pedro de Atacama festival so lots of people were dressed up and dancing, and then got on our hired bikes and peddled out of town. Our destination for the day was the Valley of the Moon, a mere nineteen km from the town. So Ad, David, Sandy and I started to cycle out and were accompanied by several of the local stray dogs who seemed to like to tag along for the company. The scenery on the ride out was quite amazing and funnily enough did actually resemble what we thought the moon or maybe mars might look like. After about an hour of riding we reached the entrance, paid our fees (I got in as a student!) and carried on the ride for a further thirty minutes or so until we reached an area we could sit down, take in the views and nibble on the olives and fruit we'd brought along. As we sat and took in the view, Ad checked his watch only to see it was already nearly one o'clock and we had a bus to catch in just over an hour! With that in mind, we said our goodbyes to Sandy and David and quickly rode the, what now seemed very long, ride back to town. It was such a shame as we only got to see the first glimpse of the valley - that will teach us to drink numerous bottles of red wine and Pisco the night before a bike ride! Back in the town, we caught out bus that would take us to La Serena - a nineteen hour ride! The only thing that broke it up was the stop at a random bus station about nine hours into the journey where we tucked into our first Italia completo - the Chileans take on a hotdog, covered in avocado, mayo and ketchup! Yummy!