Highlights:
Valle de Lunar:
Sandboarding in Valle de la Muerte
El Tatio Geysers
SPACE Astronomical Sky Exploration
Lowlights:
Collin leaving to the south of Chile: we had a great 2 weeks together but the show must go on I guess
Dessert conditions: dusty (could never keep anything clean), dry and boiling hot.
People:
English Group: we met a group of English guys and girls. There was an Indian British guy among them and one of the English guys managed to do the South African quite well, I was very impressed.
Nathan: A French guy, 21 years old, very friendly, very intelligent , well read
Kate and Paul: An English couple living in New Zealand, I met these guys in Copocabana, Bolivia in an Irish restaurant (El Condor & The Eagle Cafe). They were very helpful and gave me lots of tips on the places I was to visit next. The manner in which we met again was absolutely crazy. Collin and I are were chilling in the jostle and he was surfing Facebook. He said that some of his friends(that he met in the jungle in Bolivia) were also in Copocabana and that we should meet them. When I got their I immediately recognised Kate from earlier in my travels. It was so weird that we all ran into/ travelled with each other during the course of our travels independently.
Zoe, Carla and Clemens: A Canadian, Canadian (with Mexican heritage) and French girl respectively. They were all studying together in Argentina. We met them in Valle de la Muerte. Very crazy, bubbly girls.
Places:
Valle de la Muerte (AKA the Valley of Death): did some sandboarding here, I was really proud of myself because I had only done sandboarding once before in Boksburg, but I managed to ace it without even bailing once. The walk back up was treacherous as you felt like you were going nowhere slowly in the sinking sand and it was blistering hot. However, it was so fun that I made the journey back up at least 6 times, going higher up the slope each time. Collin and I met Zoe, Carla and Clemens here.
Valle de Lunar: a perfectly barren landscape that resembles the moon. We were taken on a guided tour through the various part which included a cave. We all made our way to the top of the valley where we watched the sunset with a glass of lovely Pisco Sours. This was the first time I had ever tried Pisco Sours. Collin and I had a crazy idea to take “Moon” shots in Moon Valley, I think it was very fitting. We walked a bit further down from our group and each dropped our pants in style to take some lovely mean shots. The group could see us and they all killed themselves laughing, the girls (Zoe, Carly, Clemes) took photos of us in the act. The girls were inspired by our heroic acts and decided to follow suite. It was absolutely hilarious, got a nice snapshot of them, haha!.
El Tatio Geysers: are 4200m above sea level making them some of the highest geysers in the world. It is also the third largest geyser site in the world, with over 80 active geysers. I froze my ass off here. I wore only a T-shirt under my fleece and the temperatures dropped below minus 6 degrees. It was so cold that my hands instantly went numb when I took them out of my gloves. Everyone was just angry cold. The geysers were beautiful and I was amazed that some of them emitted steam up to 10m high.
SPACE Astronomical Sky Exploration: the tour started about 10km away from the city at 10:00 in the evening with an explanation of the sky using the naked eye and what we scientifically defined as astronomy in past times. Our Canadian tour guide was very witty, continuously cracking astrology jokes. We covered many of the constellations and we were given a brief lesson on how to “read” the night sky. There were many interesting facts that were thrown around that I had no idea about, definitely very informative. The second part of the tour entailed us looking through a series of 8 different telescopes pointing to various points of interest (galaxies, Saturn, bright stars, etc) in the sky. The tour ended with a Q & A session over a delicious cup of hot chocolate. Unfortunately the Q & A session was very brief due to our tour guide having another group. I would have liked to have asked him more questions. It was an excellent experience overall.
Activity:
Collin bringing out the Talc: on the first night in the hostel we bought much alcohol (Pisco sours, wine, beer). We were having an awesome time chatting to all the guys. Later on in the evening, Collin decided to bring out his Talc and the 96% alcohol he bought from Patosi. He dared everyone to have a sip of it, I took a chug of it. He then brought out the Talc and started to intimately explain the benefits of Talc and how talking can change your life. We then had a mini Talc war where he put some Talc all over my shirt, I retaliated by completely obliterating his black jacket with Talc. I then said “Talc for everyone” and puffed a huge amount of Talc into the air, showering everyone and table in white powder. One girl wasn’t very impressed, and said that we were weird freaks and left the table. Collin and I killed ourselves laughing.
My Birthday: we decided to start my birthday celebration a day before on the 13 October. We downed 4 bottles of Pisco Sours and a couple of bottles of beer during the course of the day. I phoned my mum at 12:00 South African time so they could wish me. Later in the evening, around 23:00 we (Collin, I and 2 English guys) headed to a massive party (in a huge tent) about 20 minutes walk from where we were staying . They bought drinks for me at 12:00 and all wished me happy birthday in Chilean time The party was ok, the music was terrible (RnB and pop) and the DJs couldn’t mix to save their lives. I still had a great time and got sooooo drunk. On my actual birthday I woke up around 12:00, completely hung-over. We met up with Kate and Paul for some beers and then I spent almost 2 hours trying to resolve all the guys (Kate, Paul, Collin) tickets to La Serena because the lady who sold them to us wasn’t very clear about the fact that the bus left from Calama NOT San Pedro. She was being a complete bitch, but eventually I managed to get a 50% refund for all of them. Spent the rest of my birthday at the hostel talking to Nathan, the English guys and others.
Foods:
La Estaka: Collin and I had an amazing Thai curry served in a coconut here. The meal was perfect, delicious and perfect presentation.
Chicken place: there was a place up the road from us that served huge portions of chicken and chips, the food was great for hangovers.
Drinks:
Pisco Sours Original: A cocktail consisting of lime juice, syrup, egg white, sugar and bitters. It comes in a premixed bottle and is delicious. It contains only 18% alcohol but it has a kick of note.
Pisco Sours Mango: same as above except with mango,
Gato Wine: this Chilean wine was a light, soft red. I loved it.
Crystal Beer: nice strong, tasty Chilean beer.
