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The neverending journey
We left Arequipa at 7.30am, bus to Tacna (border down from Peru to Chile) and crossed the intense border crossing with numerous bag searches, we even had to dump some jam as it was classed as dangerous! We arrived in Arica the other side of the border at around 6pm and tried to get to San Pedro, however buses did not go there so we went to Calama, which we had never heard of before but it was close so it got our vote. An overnight bus, more leg room than your living room, best bus yet I reckon! However we arrived at 6am with no idea where we were or how to get to San Pedro as they dropped us off outside a shopping mall, not the bus station, thanks pullman bus company...Anyhoo with some Norwegian ladies we got a taxi to what we thought was the bus station, however it was another side of the road job and we had to wait till 9am till the first bus, which 5mins before leaving we found out was already booked up, 10 people got before us and managed to get tickets to stand for the 2 hour journey, no more people allowed on they said! Oh no you dont I said and kicked off in a frenzy of aggression and tiredness while Sarah watched on, they let us stand, yay. Arrived in San Pedro in the middle of the desert after 26 hours of travelling without let and found a nice lil hostel. The Atacama is the most arid and driest desert in the world, San Pedro is a tiny little town in the middle of it, with more hostels, hostals and hotels than you could possibly imagen!
The next day we went to see the Geysers of Tatio, left at 4am and arrived at dawn, we saw steam coming up from the ground all around us and water shooting up every so often, we explored for a while (being careful not to tread on thin ground) and then had breakfast with chocoloate milk cooked in the thermal waters! After more exploring and suffering temperatures of -8 to -15 degrees we went to the thermal pool of water and went for a swim! Getting undressed in weather that cold was stupid, but the water was so warm it made up for it, water came up from holes in the ground and actually burnt us when we sat too close! Nobody else from our group came in, our British grit shone through when we got out and back into the freezing temperatures!
Spent the next day waiting for the 3 times a week bus to Northern Argentina, relaxing in the desert resort!
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