After our New Year´s Eve recovery day we were back on the road and heading north, to the desert! For the first time we were able to understand just how much of Chile is actually desert and for twenty-four hours on a bus this is all we saw. We arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, a small town with adobe walls and dusty roads at midnight and had to wake up our hostel so could could get a bed for the night. Having come straight from sea level and now at 2400 metres we were both feeling the effects of altitude sickness the following day, whilst being in a baking desert environment. From Chile, San Pedro is the gateway to the Salar de Uyuni and Bolivia and it is a great stepping stone for getting used to the altitude before hitting the heights of the Bolivian border.
A few kilometres outside San Pedro is Death Valley, an area renowned for its similarities to the surface of Mars. In the past few months NASA has held prototype tests here and it´s easy to see why as we walked through this vast desert and ancient sea toward The Valle de la Luna where we watched sunset.Our time in Chile was drawing to a close and soon enough we needed to move into Bolivia. We were planning to do this with a three day tour across the Atacama and the Salar de Uyuni and as San Pedro is quite a small town only four tour agencies do trips across to Bolivia. We had heard a lot of bad things about them all and it wasn´t a case of picking the best but the best of a bad bunch. In fact none of them could tell us what was better about their company compared to the others. They all brake down, they all provide similar food and all cost vaguely similar prices.
With low expectations and a couple of other people from our hostel, Pete and Louise - also booking with Cordillera Travel, we decided to pick them. The morning of the 6th came and at 8.00am we were outside the offices waiting for the minibus to arrive and in classic South American tradition it did, half an hour late. Before we knew it were heading high into the mountain range that borders Bolivia and exchanged our school bus for a more suitable 4x4 jeep. We got our border stamps and had breakfast at over 3000 metres with snow replacing the sand which had existed but forty-five minuets before. (Sorry slipped into novel writting then).
Anyway the next three days were incredible, myself, H, Pete and Louise from the hostel and two mad Brazilian girls were all crammed into a jeep with our trusty driver/mechanic/DJ - Ruben! We were one of three jeeps in total (the blue one) and the group reformed each evening when we arrived at the accomodation.
The first night was spent at 4600 metres and we were all feeling it. Dehydration, headaches and exhaustion are a few of the earlier signs and the only things to help you adjust from this lack of oxygen is water, time and some good old fashioned Bolivian Coca Tea! We had been warned that the accomadation was going to be basic and cold but the only thing that stopped us from having a good nights sleep was the altitude and headaches. The following day we were driving past green lakes, red lakes and thousands of Flamingos until disaster happened and we broke down surround by miles of desolate rocky ground and being scorched by the midday sun. Ruben and the other two drivers turned from ralley driver to expert mechanic and within 30 mins they had disassembled most of the engine replaced the cricial parts and reassembled it.
That evening we stayed a lot lower in a small town called Culpina 'K´ where we had our first shower and were fed deliciously spicy Llama steaks. We got to know some of the other people in the other jeeps that night and one Dutch couple, Thomas and Lucy, seem to be doing the same sort of route as us for the next few months. Luckily for us the mental Isreali guy (and there always seems to be one around) isn't. Thanks to the rather tired Lonely Planet guide there are some very worn paths through South America and it s funny the random or now predictive bumping intos that happen out here. People we've seen before in South Chile are suddenly on the same trip as you or in the same hostel as you in Bolivia.
The final day was spent on the Salar de Uyuni (the salt flats) which had been flooded a few days before. The results were spectaclar reflections of the sky for miles upon miles as we drove through this foot deep salt water sitting on the roof of our jeep. That afternoon we were dropped off in Uyuni, ate pizza, found a bed for the night and bought a bus ticket to Potosi - the highest city in the world!
Sounds great!
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