San Pedro de Atacama : Tourist trap central.

One of the main streets of San Pedro
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We arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, a small touristy desert town, at about 11:30am. The bus was 45 minutes late after an already 16 hour bus trip, so we were drowsy and exhausted with the crazy idea that we would have the energy to shop around for a hostel. Needless to say, such a situation never arose, and when we were once again accosted by hostelliers offering us rooms, we took the second one who spoke to us.

The hostel we ended up choosing was Cabañas Candelaria, a small hostel with only one bathroom and about 4 different rooms to choose from. We ended up in a small double room (or matrimonial rooms as they call them in South America) with one window overlooking the small courtyard-like area, which had hammocks and several tables to choose from. The kitchen was small but more or less usable. To get hot water for the shower, one has to light the hot water thingy with a match. Even then it turned out that the hot water was sporadic at best.

Rachel said to me: "If you travelled this country without you boyfriend, things would be very different." I now found out what she meant.

The mountain seperating Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile
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So a small aside for me to whinge... San Pedro de Atacama : A small town, a hot town. All the stores sell the same things, and fresh fruit and veg are hard to come by. All the restaurants are expensive, and all the internet cafés are restricted to 56K connections. There are millions of hostels and places to book tours. Shade is hard to come by. Lots of stray dogs. Lots of roosters which wake you up first thing in the morning, and a surprisingly small number of English speakers considering the "tourist trap" title the town deserves.

The most pointless, boring, and hot 20 minute walk I've ever had to pay for.
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Anyway, after we arrived at the hostel we decided to check out the centre of the town. We took the hostellier´s (his name's Mario) advice and cut through the soccer field. Unfortunately, the way it was drawn on the map, it seemed the soccer field was much closer than it actually was, so when a small laneway opened up on our right, we decided to go down that way to cut through to the town. We're walking down this tiny laneway. Jason's saying "are you sure it wasn't that gate back there?" when we hear a growl. We stop and see a medium sized dog growling at us. Worried. but not overly frightened, we just stare for a little. Until we start hearing barks, and another dog jumps out from under a fence. This one isn´t just growling, he's baring his teeth and barking and coming toward us.

All emerging from the salt caves (me sitting down!)
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Now we're scared.

We start slowly walking backwards, saying nothing. It keeps coming at us, more barking, more baring of teeth. Just like in the movies when dogs attack. Just as heart-stoppingly scary. As we keep going back, I decide to start yelling for help in Spanish, as I'm convinced the dog is about to jump up and attack us. As I start yelling, Jason bends down to get a rock. The moment he has the rock in his hand, the dog stops and bolts back to wherever it was hiding.

Relieved but our hearts beating incessantly, we head back out of the alley onto the main road. So far, that has been the most freaky part of our trip.

One of the many exciting waiting-for-the-sunset drawings
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When we do get into town, I start realising that I've been feeling a bit dizzy, so when the tour operator we're speaking to suggests we take a day to rest due to the altitude (about 2500m above sea level), I realise why. After booking our 3 guided tours (for a total of AU$75 each), we head to the internet café. Suddenly, reading one of my mum's emails, I start feeling sick. We quickly head back to the hostel where I nap for hours.

After waking, we introduce ourselves to Emily and Rachel, two californianas who we end up going out for drinks with. Turns out I'd overestimated how well I felt, as soon after I start eating while out, I start feeling sick again. So Jason and I headed back for a very long sleep to recuperate.

Flamingo having a bite to eat.
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The next day, Jason and I ate scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast - not very yummy but we hadn't had time (or effort) enough to buy groceries the day before so were stuck with a scarily low amount of food. We decide to head into town to get groceries, and I start complaining about feeling sick again. By now Jason, who was a little queazy the day before but not nearly as much so,  is getting sick of my sicness and basically tells me to get over it and keep going. So I do. I start feeling more and more sick, so start sitting down in the streets wherever I can find enough shadow. But Jason wants to get a move on so we can book bus tickets, so I keep going, get tickets, then run out of the ticket office.. and throw up in a bin. Embarassing, but after that Jason didn't question whether I was really sick or not, so no big loss I guess.

One of the beautiful lagoons
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After going back to the hostel and resting again, we had to leave for our tour. We headed down to the tour office where we were leaving for La Valle de Luna (the Moon Valley) at 4pm. The bus is stuffy and we had to get the guide to open the windows as they were basically stuck shut. This tour... I cannot overemphasise how over-rated it is. Firstly, we visited the Death Valley, where the guide made us walk down a hot sand road for 20 minutes in the boiling hot desert sun. Yeah. Not that great. Then when we finally went to the Moon Valley, everything was really really boring and uninteresting NOT INCLUDING the salt cave. The salt cave was right near the entrance of the park and was basically what the name suggests: a cave made of salt formations. It was a bit of a workout: at one point we had to "frog walk" on our sides because the roof was so low, and then a moment later we would be taking giant steps up a steep slope of salty rocks. It really exhausted me, but at least I didn´t feel sick. The guide also pointed out the giant volcano on the horizon: To the left is Bolivia, to the right Argentina, on this side, Chile. After that though, we basically looked at a few rocks, and then went to the top of a giant dune to watch the sunset. Wait, let me amend that sentence. Then we went to the top of a giant dune (which took 10 minutes to get up) and waited an hour in skin-whipping sand for a really uneventful, not-even-all-that-pretty sunset.

Close up of the moon : I strongly suggest clicking for full view, even though it might take a while to load.
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That being said, the one hour wait did allow Jason and I to come up with some very entertaining desert games:

1. Naughts and Crosses : the classic. Only need sand, and rocks to draw with.

2. Darts : Involves drawing a target in the sant and then flipping coins into the target for points.

3. Sand raker : Based on a computer logic game we once had. You basically make a small rectangle and then add obstacles around which you have to buddist-rake the sand. A bit difficult to explain but fun in a boring way.

Anna McDougall and Anna Macdougall
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4. Hit the rock : Involves choosing a target and then flicking rocks at the larger rock in an effort to hit it. Best of 5 wins.

And that's how we entertained ourselves in the desert. It wasn't much help for our moods when we got back to the hostel at 9:30pm and discovered the best dinner we could come up with was Pasta with "Barbeque sauce" which tasted more like tomato sauce with extra Crap for added flavour.

On Sunday, we had to get up for 8am, when we were whisked away to the Salar of Atacama, lagoons, and to see the Flamingo reserve. The good thing was that we weren't expecting the flamingoes and other wildlife. We turned up and it basically just looked like more salt-rocks. Which is true, that being said - there were a lot of salt rocks. BUT once you sit through the orientation video and head through the entrance, you start to see all the salt lagoons (4 times the amount of salt in the water than the ocean) and all the flamingoes and other birds around. This is such a relief for Jason and myself, after seeing endless desert for so long before that.

Riding to the pool.
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I should add that before we got to the Flamingo Reserve, we stopped off at a forest (yes, in the desert) of one type of tree. Apparently it was planted as part of a project whose main aim was to (and I quote) "see some green in the desert". The trees apparently go 7x their height underground to tap the water and have no added benefit aside from aesthetically. As Jason said: "so basically, they planted trees to suck up all their water for no reason."

After the Flamingo Reserve, we headed out for a 2 hour drive to 4300m above sea-level, where there were two really beautiful lagoons with lots of ducks. At the second lagoon, people are restricted from going to the edge due to nests being all over the area. On the drive back, Jason and I slumped over the back sets of seats on the bus (it was just us and another couple, like in our La Serena tour) and slept, despite the incessant bumps in the roads. We get back at 3pm, enough time to check in at the office of another tour operator we were interested in, as they do astronomical tours. They gave us the all-clear for that night, and we were told to come back at 9pm for the tour.

Ready to go to Minus 8 degrees at 4am.
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After it taking me close to 3 hours to update my journal due to the 56k modems at the internet cafes in San Pedro, I walk back to the room alone, as Jason has headed back without me long ago. When the californianas were around, Rachel said to me: "If you travelled this country without you boyfriend, things would be very different." I now found out what she meant. I wasn't very well dressed or looking particularly appealing that day, but still about half the men I walked past would greet me, ask me how I was, or whistle after me as I walked past. It was disconcerting but at the same time their advances didn't feel intimidating or threatening like they often do with Australian men.

JJ and the geysers behind
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When Jason and I returned for our star tour, I met somebody I never ever expected to meet in my life, let alone on a small star-gazing tour in the middle of the Chilean desert. But there she was: Anna Macdougall. That's right, an English woman with my name, only with Mac instead of Mc. Hear me out. I've searched for Anna McDougall's before, but I've never found or met one. Turns out she'd walk in to book the tour, and saw her name already on the list. She was confused, but eventually became just as amused as I was when I met her. Seriously, it's not THAT common of a name. To find her in the middle of the desert, on a small tour, ON THAT PARTICULAR NIGHT... I'm still weirded out by it.

Me in the thermal pool at 4300m above sea level.
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Anyway, back to the story. After being freaked out quite sufficiently, we headed out to the observatory. The guide spoke French, German, English and Spanish, but mostly spoke in English - we learnt a LOT about the ways the stars rotate and how the stars you see are effected by both latitude and longitude. We were also able to put our cameras through one of the telescopes to take photos of the moon. After looking through a lot of telescopes at a lot of awesome stars, we got some nice hot chocolate and a short lecture showing us the scope of the universe, and how likely it is that there is other life. That being said, the guide also emphasised how unlikely it is that they would ever get here, or that we would ever get to them. I quote: "So although astonomers believe other life exists, we do not believe in UFOs." Needless to say: the tour was awesome!

A decorated llama!
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On Monday we had a day off from tours, deciding instead to hire bikes and ride the 3km out into the desert to go to the pool. Unfortunately, what nobody told us was that the pool is closed on Mondays, so after a not-so-bad ride out there, we were VERY disappointed to not have some nice cold water to cool ourselves down with. In order to go back, JAson pointed out a small dirt road that looked more direct than the one we had come on. I agreed and we tried to ride it. Bad idea. In the end it took a lot longer than the original because of all the sand and giant rocks, as well as the holes and rough patches we had to wheel the bikes over. By this point I had a migraine and my head was throbbing like nothing else. We returned the bikes (with 5 hours credit for the next day's hire) and headed back to the hostel to have an early dinner and sleep for the next day's 4am tour.

The courtyard of Cabaas Candelaria
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Naturally, our luck wasn't so good. We went to bed at about 7pm, and the moment our heads touched the pillows, loud music started up outside. It turned out to be a small dance class, which went for 2 hours. After a while, Jason and I had given up trying to get ot sleep, and instead played more monopoly card game. I should also mention that San Pedro was the town of Running Man, a book by Stephen King (or his alter-ego) which was later turned into an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. The book is apparently much better, at least according to Jason.

The pretty manipulative dog with the female half of the New Zealand couple we keep running into
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Finally the class ended and we went to sleep, waking at 3:30am after packing all our stuff to leave at the end of the day as well. We rushed to get out the door by 4am, relieved that we'd made it on time for our Geysers del Tatio tour. But nobody was there yet. 4:05, nobody. 4:10, nobody. 4:15. 4:20. 4:25, a van drives up - excited, I stand up, as I've been getting worried. But the van doesn't stop, it picks up someone else a block away then drives back past us, mockingly. 4:30, nothing. 4:35, another van comes up. This time it stops. This time it IS our van. Thank goodness. I'd literally been close to tears when it came, as the geyser tour was the one tour I DEFINATELY did not want to miss.

Sure enough, after 2 hours of driving on some of the worst roads I've ever not been able to see in the dark, we reach the geysers and they are breathtaking. They don't spurt so much as ooze steam in huge white plumes. Eating our not-so-great breakfast, Jason and I sit down on a rock which gets hotter and hotter, while the stones around feel as cold as we are (it was negative 8 degrees celcius when we arrived). Jason and I start freaking out about how hot it feels, but nevertheless the warmth is welcome so we risk the safety of our bottoms.

The next stop after the geysers are, surprise surprise, more geysers. They're still absolutely awesome, but I have my eye on something else. A pool. A thermal pool. When we reach it, Jason has already decided not to go in ("it's not hot enough"). But we stick our feet in and decide otherwise. We strip down, change into our swimming costumes, and jump in with the other tourists, a few of which are young Englishmen who disgust us with their jock-ness. One of them points to a woman getting changed and says in a gutteral I'm-a-jerk growl: "I can see 'er cunt!" ...Charming. It was much more pleasant when they left, and Jason and I got to relax in the sometimes-freezing, sometimes-scorching water. It was much less relaxing when we got out into the 5 degree air and had to get naked to change back into warm clothes. Nevertheless you don't often get a chance to go swimming in a thermal pool at 4300m above sea level, and it was a lot of fun, so we were both happy for the experience.

After another 2 hour ride (including a stop to see a bunch of decorated Llamas eating grass in an area which looked scarily like a hollywood version of a hobbit habitat), we got back to San Pedro and got lunch. We then lazed around the plaza for a while (finishing Running Man) before claiming our rental bikes and again riding 3km out to the pool. This time it was open, and we got to enjoy the water and the subsequent sun-lazing which allowed Jason in particular to get some much-needed rest. We returned to San Pedro, grabbed some dinner, then made some very clumsy attempts to carry all our luggage to the bus terminal on our bikes. Or should I say, Jason carried all our luggage, I carried our casual bags. His riding skills are far more advanced than mine. Mario, our hostellier, insisted Jason looked like a Bolivian action hero who is always stacked with mountaneering gear. I've since tried to find out the name again but have failed (*sigh*).

After returning the bikes, exchanging some books, and doing some translating for an extremely indecisive New Zealand woman, another couple from New Zealand tell us that there is a direct bus from Calama to Arica (as we've decided to head straight up to Peru). And so, in the 5 minutes before our bus to Calama leaves, we change our tickets over, getting about AU$8 back in saved money for the direct bus. So we finally leave San Pedro, with all our crazy gear and left-overs we couldn't bring ourselves to leave behind from a really expensive restaurant.

After reaching Calama, we are reunited with some old friends: some stray dogs who were at the bus station when we were on our way to San Pedro the week before. There was one really pretty, manipulative one which seemed to be the head honcho. Whenever it smelt food, it would sit at your feet, before putting it's paws on you in the cutest way imaginable. Then, it would jump up onto the seat next to you and rest there. Jason and I couldn't resist patting it, and it reacted as though it was just as good as food. I took a photo as I totally fell in love with this puppy, even though I knew it was just using me (strange the way love works!).

It turns out that the New Zealand couple was on the next bus to Arica with us, and that they also took the same Collective taxi company to cross the Chie-Peru border. We also saw them in the Peruvian border town of Tacna, where we booked a bus with Cruz del Sur for Arequipa, along with a whole bunch of rich Spanish-speaking kids. After 7 more hours of desert, a disney film, and Hellboy, later, we reached the town we are now in: Arequipa, the white city.

Stay tuned for some details of Peru and how our new plan somehow manages to avoid the capitol: Lima! Hopefully I'll have an opportunity to add more photos but I think the current selection is pretty comprehensive :)