CHILE - Over the Andes

San Pedro de Atacama

07.05.2010 - 11.05.2010

We had a feeling that the bus journey from Salta (Argentina) to San Pedro de Atacama (Chile) over the Andes was going to be something special and we were right - the views from the top were absolutely spectacular! When we reached the top we could see the clouds below us and kilometres of winding roads.

We wanted to head to San Pedro de Atacama so we could visit the Atacama desert which is the highest and driest desert in the world, there are parts which have never seen rainfall. Our introduction to San Pedro de Atacama was a little unusual as when the bus stopped in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere, we just assumed it was a break in the trip rather than the destination. It wasn't until the bus driver asked me in Spanish if we were headed to San Pedro de Atacama and I said ´Si´ that he told us we were in fact there. Given this new piece of information, we threw on our backpacks and started to walk in the direction he gestured.

After a while we came across the market square and a decent hostel to stay. It was unfortunate that as we opened the door to the room an enormous spider crawled out from under the pillow. Martin bravely removed our friend from the bed and we nervously laughed about what we had let ourselves in for coming to the desert.

We managed to squeeze quite lot into the three days we had there but the highlight was the trip to the Observatory in the desert where the Astronomer gave us a full lesson on the constellations and we saw Saturn through the gigantic telescope (they had to get a ladder for Martin and I so we could reach the eye piece!!). I can report that Saturn does in fact have distinct rings around the planet, just like in the books.

Martin also hit the slopes for some sandboarding and proved to be a bit of a star.

San Pedro de Atacama is quite an expensive little place so the budget didn´t quite stretch to meals out. Instead Martin managed to whip up some fantastic vegetarian dishes in the hostel kitchen. The budget did however stretch to some lovely glasses of red wine next to an open fire in the local bar.

From San Pedro de Atacama we headed across the Bolivian salt flats on a three day 4x4 trip to Uyuni, Bolivia....

Road into the Atacama Desert