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This segment is San Pedro de Atacama 2 or the Calama Calamity or the 72 hour journey, no wait, 96 hour journey. After driving from the Salar back to Uyuni we took a quick lunch which was something green with noodles that tasted like hamburger helper. It was pretty good although disturbing to look at. From lunch we went to Bolivian immigration and received our visas (Yay, we are no longer illegal) walked around for a bit and then jumped in a Land Cruiser with our driver and his wife for a night trip to Alotta, Bolivia. Uyuni had received a lot of rain over the last few days and the roads were covered with large deep pockets of water that reflected a breathtaking sunset. On the horizon ahead of us was a dark storm developing, ascending to the stars and bellowing lightning. It was quite a show especially when we entered it. This was one of the most dramatic and scary storms I have seen in a long time and it was made even more scary by the fact that we were driving in Bolivia. We drove through a landscape now alive with water, which we were able to see with each flash of light. A land turned into a giant raging river masking stones and holes. Good thing we had one really good driver. It was one really crazy ride. We arrived in Alotta at our dorm around 11pm, were ushered in quickly and given a modest meal of rice, sliced tomatoes, diced hot dogs, and hard boiled eggs. We watched the storm move to the north as the generator for building was cut. Lights out and time to go to bed.
We woke up at 4:45 and walked beneath a blanket of stars to our Land Cruiser for our trip to the border. The cold of the night slowly began to give way to the warmth of the sunrise. We saw it rise over a lunar landscape of stone and snowy volcanoes. At the border we had a quick Nescafe before we got our passports stamped. We said quick goodbyes to our driver and hopped on our bus to San Pedro. There were about 6 hours to kill in San Pedro so we met up with our friend Franzi whom we had been traveling to Uyuni with and walked around having icecreams, playing with puppies, and popping in and out of stores. Matthew went off to the internet café and to look for a specific cotton shirt he had been on the hunt for and Ian, Franzi, and I found a nice café to spend the rest of the afternoon before we got on the bus. We found one with a lovely adobe courtyard, nice and shady, with random rays of sunlight popping in through the top of the walls. We had a wonderful conversation about how to describe smells and before we knew it it was time to go. We stopped at a small market and got some provisions for our 24 hour bus ride to Santiago, Chile. And on the way to the bus station we ran into a red faced Matthew who informed us that we had missed the bus. While we had been having our enlightened olfactory conversation, he had been running around trying to find us. Now, we had been very diligently following the time on Ian's watch. It had just been the wrong time that we were diligently following. We had just forgotten to adjust the time when we entered Chile. So we rushed to the bus station and bought tickets to Calama in the hopes of maybe catching a bus there. We were relieved they still had tickets and just managed to get on.
After our arrival we found out the last bus to Santiago had just left. Instead of spending the night at the bus terminal we got a hotel next to some of the bus companies that would be leaving in the morning. Our room was pretty smoky but we were able to watch Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon" dubbed in Spanish. It was another short night and we were up early scoping out the various prices and times and decided upon a 10 o'clock bus to Valparaiso, for it was the first one out. We had also heard so many good things about Valparaiso. After buying our tickets we took a walk down the main pedestrian street and enjoyed breakfast with a Swiss man and a pack of dogs at a café before we began our now 22 hour bus journey.
Next stop: Valparaiso, Chile
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