Sunday 1 March 2009

Chile - short and sweet!

We were only able to visit one town in Chile - San Pedro de Atacama, as a stop off between Argentina and Bolivia. The town is in the middle of the Atacama Desert - the driest place in the world! Which unfortunately meant there was a lack of water for everything, and showers have the habit of just stopping after about 3 minutes!

Although we only a few days here we both really loved it. The people were so friendly, and could speak English really well. The town is backpacker central, loads of travellers everywhere. And the food was amazing, we ate some really nice meals here.

While we were here we saw the Tatio Geysers, Valle de la Luna and the Altiplano Lakes, which we were told had loads of flamingos, but in fact had about 5, so a bit disappointing! The Geysers were great, although we did have to get up about 4am to get there for sunrise which wasn´t nice. Plus it was bloody freezing, but we had a nice dip in the thermal swimming pool there. The Moon Valley was really beautiful, we went there for sunset, and Lucy got a bit carried away and took about 200 photos.

We wanted to do some sandboarding, but we didn´t get enough time to sort it out as we needed to get to Bolivia to make sure we had enough time to make it to Cusco for 9th March (Inca Trail). We also wanted to do stargazing, as the skies are really clear in the area, but again we didn´t have enough time. We both loved Chile so much that we´d love to come back and see more of the country, so maybe we will come back to San Pedro. There is an astronomy tower being built there at the moment, and it is supposed to be the largest in the world, so maybe we will come back when it´s finished...

We also booked a 3 day tour to Uyuni, Bolivia whilst in San Pedro. The tour takes in the salt flats, which are the largest in the world. But more of that in the next post!

See our Chile photos here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=231691&id=629140108&l=1743a00797

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