In between the buses...

Hola!

This report is brought to you from Arica, Chile!
It's noon here, 22nd of August, and it's a Friday.
We got here after a 10-hour bus ride from San Pedro de Atacama, and are waiting for the next bus (a 15-hour one) to Cusco, Peru.
A good chance to keep this blog up-to-date, eh? ;)

In the last post from San Pedro de Atacama I forgot to mention one small detail. When they turn the power off overnight, there is also no water, at all (yay for brushing teeth and washing hands with bought bottled water!). We heard several stories on why all that happens, from the one of the dead generator to the one of many locals not paying for electricity so the electric company shuts things down as a way of punishment. Anyway, yesterday the town (San Pedro) was full of black flags as a sign of protest against "the darkening".
And it had no water at all. The ENTIRE day. Real nice when you just come from the desert and need to go to a 2-day trip (I won't even talk about the toilets lol).

Lesson learned: when in the desert, cherish the moments with power and water, and use them even if you don't need to just yet! (oh and bottle some water for times of crisis ;))

However, since we were out-of-town for most of the day, we have something to show for it.
The waking up at 4 AM to go to the Tatio geysers and freeze there at the mentioned -15 degrees for a while was well worth it. For me, it was the most beautiful experience yet on this trip.
You wake up at 4 AM, in the darkest of towns (oh yes, I didn't mention that I've never seen so many stars in the sky in my life!), and a bus takes you for 3 hours up a bumpy "road" up to 4300m where it gets colder and colder.
Upon arrival, we got some breakfast and the "Coca tea" (tea of coca leaves). Supposedly it helps prevent the simptoms of altitude sickness :)

And then the sun rises:

Note the people in the picture (you can click it for a bigger view) to get the feeling of just how big these things are ;)
Coupled with the sunrise, it surely was a good way to keep oneself warm, however a braver few wanted more:

The water itself was supposedly quite warm, but the part of getting into (and especially *out* of it) must've been quite shocking (I skipped this experience thank you very much :))
One more look at the geyser grounds:

and we're slowly moving off...

We ride on through the desert to the Cactus Valley. Oddly enough, even though there is a straight road, many seem to take alternate routes beside it (through the rocky parts), our driver included:

Oh yeah, on the way we stopped for a short snack of Llama meat. Yummy! :D


And then on to the Cactus Valley:


Ok, that was the morning. Around 1 PM we returned to San Pedro and grabbed some lunch, and then right off to the next trip - Valle de la Muerte and Valle de la Luna.
First, Valle de la Muerte (Valley of Death), which is actually not all that big when looked from above (it is quite big though).

Then another short bus trip, leading to the hills above Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley):

From this view, we sandslided down into the valley (some even rolled down the sand lol), and took a walk to the other side and through the canyons to exit on the other end of this mountain "complex".
As the sunset was approaching, we climbed up a "secret" sand dune :)
All the other agencies go to the neighbouring dune (more easily accessible, but therefore much more crowded), and our little group climbed a steep sandy path and finally reached this spot:

From here we could sit and watch the sunset, which was much quicker than expected, but gave some nice colors on the mountains on the other side (seek the people in some of the pictures ;))




And with that, we rushed on to the bus to Arica, slept through the night on that bus, and are now sitting in a net cafe in Arica awaiting that next one to Cusco...
Until next time...