From Fhloston Paradise!! Okay, not really. From San Pedro de Atacama. And not live either. I’m typing on my laptop to put onto computer later this afternoon. So it’s all a sham really.
We’ve certainly had a much nicer few days than the previous entry’s topic. We are finding things a little frustrating from time to time, when we want an item and then realise that it was in his backpack. I would have rather them have stolen his bloody clothes. But, his cards are in the process of being reordered, and if the so-called heavenly spirit has any love left for us, my card will arrive safe and sound (and my damn PIN!) and we can breathe a little easier.
But anyway, back to the nicer. Well, nearly. The bus to San Pedro de Atacama was 23 hours long. ADVENTURE!!! I squealed. TORTURE!! Andrew squealed back at me. He clearly won that one, because it SUCKED. I was pretty damn happy to get off the bus, but by the end I was feeling very, very ill. Whether it was the kinda funky salami roll they gave us, too long on a bus, the stress from Andrew’s loss, a bug of some description or something else I can’t think of or even a combination of the above, I don’t know. I just know that today (3 days later) is the first time that I have really been able to eat. Before today, 3-4 bites of something and I’m left wondering whether I’m going to vomit. It was enough to make Andrew worried – ‘You don’t want to eat? Are you sure? Shit, you’re really not okay!’
We were a little unsure if we really had arrived in San Pedro – the ‘bus stop’ was a shack amidst dust. But thankfully we trundled into town and found the basic hostel and got a room. Although predominantly a tourist town, San Pedro lacks the tack and glamour of places like Cancun and Chichen Itza. I guess it is designed for grass-roots backpackers, wanting to get their hands dirty as they walk down the unpaved dusty roads and not minding shacking up in places with rooves that aren’t waterproof and walls that rub a white dusty clay onto your clothes every time you lean against them. Despite all this, or perhaps because of it, it is actually quite expensive here – meals are comparable to Australian prices, which makes us baulk a little. Well, we’re going to Bolivia next so we’ll get over it I’m sure.
We are smack bang in the middle of the driest desert in the world, or so they say, and it’s easy to believe. No moisture, all terrain is covered in very fine dust with very few plants in sight – in fact, the only plants I’ve seen are in town where there is water. Much of the landscape is dark sand dunes that enthusiastic backpackers sandboard up and down all day, amidst the heat of the afternoon and the freezing cold of the night (part and parcel of having essentially 0% humidity).
Yesterday we took an excursion into the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley), stopping off at Death Valley and the salt flats (our first stop). The area is a valley surrounded by three mountain ranges; the Andes, the Salt Mountain Range and the Domeyko Mountain range.
(insert number here – maybe 65) million years ago the valley used to be an ocean, the water coming down from the mountain ranges and getting trapped. However, over a long period of time climates and landscapes change, and the water all evaporated, leaving behind a massive salt valley with its own miniature mountain ranges. It had an eery beauty to it, the auburn rock dressed in salt and towered over by colossal mountain ranges.
Next stop was Valle del Muerte, apparently named after a misunderstanding – an explorer searching for archaeological artefacts (not gold, I swear!) named it after Mars, which got misconstrued as death (apparently easy to do in Spanish). We walked up through a beautiful sedimentary layered canyon, working our way through up to the top to look out over Death Valley, where we could see people sand boarding far, far below (donkey).
Back into the bus and into the Moon Valley ‘reserve’. We started hiking up through another canyon, this one encrusted with quartz and salt crystals. We weaved through rock formations that seemed to resemble a certain planet named Tatooine (insert pod noises here), bearing erosion scars and a kind of reverse stalactite process. The next section was very reminiscent of Jen’s journey across a mountain range to see Aughra (what in the world…?), and Andrew soldiered on throughout my fantasising.
When we eventually got up to the top we could see out over the Moon Valley, which was just gorgeous. To one side we had sand dunes encircling another salt flat and bordered by further rock formations. To our left we had the Andes mountain ranges, of which we could see 11 ‘inactive’ (well, Chaiten was supposed to be!) and one active volcano, one which is the tallest volcano in the world at just over 6000m above sea level. Crazy. The other side bears one of the other aforementioned mountain ranges – I can’t remember which one now!
This was all very pretty, but I wasn’t prepared for the beautiful display at sunset. Suddenly the Andes were lit up in a beautiful orange-pink colour, which moved slowly up the ranges and into the clouds, becoming more and more pink. Across the other side the sunset morphed from brilliantly bright yellow to orange to red to pink before finally fading away behind the mountain ranges. Then it got COLD. Very quickly. We trekked back in the almost dark to the top of a sand dune, to which our guide grinned and just ran down. Oh well, if you can’t beat em…..AAAaaaahhhhhh!!!!!
The next day we had the mother-of-all-early mornings with a tour that started at the can’t-believe-I-did-it 4am start. This better be bloody worth it. Grumble grumble grumble. To top it off, the bastards didn’t rock up till 4:20am and we were damn ready to go back to bed. So, we took a 1.5 hour bus ride to the El Tatio geysers, which are the largest in South America. Why, oh why we had to be there at sunrise I don’t know (well, I kinda do – they are biggest when the temperature is colder – before the sun gets high). The road was a little shoddy, but not too bad. I felt a little ill, but considering we were at about 4400m and I’d been feeling ill the past 2 days, this was not really surprising.
As we drove up to the geysers, we saw a small pack of alpacas (I think - either that or a really cute breed of llama), which are just so cute! Almost llamas, but way cuter.
Anyway, geysers. When we arrived the biggest did a big spurt for us, which was a novelty for me at least, I’ve never seen a baby geyser let alone the biggest in South America. Pfwoar! This was lucky, because it was freaking cold up here. The day before it was -15ºC, and I assume it was something similar this morning. My initial reaction was pfft, I’ve been in colder. Then my toes reminded me they didn’t have warmers, my neck reminded me I lost my scarf and my body reminded me that I don’t have my puffy jacket anymore and that I’ve spent the past 2 months in heat. Dammit!!
We wandered around and looked around and the plethora of geysers, ranging in size from tiny holes with a small waft of steam to others boiling and hissing and spitting water metres in the air. Some had rainbows of mineral deposits streaming from their base, which really started to glisten when the sun came up. Oh god, the beautiful, beautiful warm sun. Bask in all its glory. Burninating my backside. Burninating all the peasants. Burninating all the peoples. And the ice-thatched geysers!!!
After a cold breakfast and hasty rubbing of my toes we drove across to the hot springs, where, if you are a crazy mofo, you can take a dip. Crazy mofo? Sounds right up my alley. But when they say hot springs, what they mean is luke-warm springs with patches that burn the shit out of you. It was warm on my toes and fingers but the rest of me was less than warm. I skidaddled out of there fairly quickly, to emerge and find out that I should have stayed in. OMFG it was so cold when I got out. Modesty went out the window as I stripped off and frantically dried myself to get dressed. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only I-don’t-care-if-you-see-me-naked person, because everybody else did the same thing. At least I’m a girl and don’t have to worry about some things. DAMN!! It was cold.
We toured around a little longer, and I got to see my first llama! Yay! Unfortunately I couldn’t get close enough to bring out any Emperor’s New Groove jokes, but I reckon they are better suited to Cusco anyway! I also got to see my first flamingo, which was pretty cool, and even got to see a pack in flight.
We went to a small village where I think I may have eaten llama on a kebab, which was pretty good considering my aversion to meat and food in general at the moment. The little town was full of some quite cute stray dogs and cats, which were terrorised by a small chubby child who went beyond the boundaries of playful child into simply cruel and will probably grow up into a serial killer.
By the time we got home I was quite thankful, because in the bus I ended up getting quite hot (and winding down 2000m was making me feel more than a little ill). And here we are ladies and gents. Tomorrow we are off to Bolivia on a 3 day jeep tour to the Salt Flats there. Don’t know when I’ll get net again – maybe in 4 or 5 days….so until then, Andrew apparently thinks a good ending is thank your mother for the rabbits. I don’t know either.
San Pedro photos
Moon Valley photos
Geyser photos
