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Josie's Giant Adventure
Hello
We crossed the boarder from Bolivia into Chile and stayed in a place called San Pedro de Atacama. It is in the middle of the desert and it literally never rains. Its hot during the day but cools down at night and is very dusty. I think the reason that my back pack seems so much heavier is that there is half a deserts worth of sand in there now too. San Pedro is quite touristy which means its a bit expensive (particularly after Bolivia and Peru) but there are a lot of nice places to eat and some interesting things to do. Most of the restaurants are tables around an open court yard with a fire in it and you can look up and see the stars. Its really lovely, and I found dry white wine. Haaa-le-lulia Hallelulia Hallelulia.
We did a walk through the valley of death one evening. It was supposed to be named the valley of mars as it looks like the surface of mars, but the foreigner who named it didn't pronounce the word correctly and the word for mars is similar to the word for death. We then went to the valley of the moon to watch the sun set having walked along an absoltely huge sand dune to get to a point with a 360 degree view of the mountainous desert, that looks like the moon!
On the next day we hired bikes and cycled to a nearby swimming pool which was a lovely way to spend an afternoon. However, the ride there was really easy and enjoyable but I hadn't noticed that this was due to the relatively strong wind behind us which made the journey back a tad difficult.
On our last day in San Pedro we had planned to hire bikes and sand boards and go to a massive sand dune in the valley of death/mars to do some sand boarding.
However, by the time we realised our cash flow situation needed to be rectified in order to do anything at all, a digger had driven into overhead power cables. There was a power cut in the whole town and therefore the cash machines didn't work. We didn't know if the power would get fixed and even when we changed all of our other currency, we only just had enough money for food and the hostel, so alas, no sand boarding.
However, we were not bored as the terrace of our hostel overlooked the point where the digger had brought down the power cables so we spent the afternoon reading, writing and joining the many locals in overseeing the workmen fix the problem.
Within minutes of the incident, a group of men had assembled with trucks, a digger, wheel barrows and one had tools strapped to his leg, so I knew he meant business. They had the problem sorted pretty quickly really and it was almost as if it happens all the time. I enjoyed watching every person who walked past join in. They all slowed down, assessed the situation, realised that this was why there was no power, went to talk to one of the workmen about it, tutted, gave some advice, then either walked on or walked on and returned 10 minutes later with tools to help or drinks for the workers.
Yesterday we left San Pedro and travelled for 12 hours over the Andes to Salta in North Argentina.
We shared the bus with a team of footballers. Potentially a girls dream, but unfortunately not as they were actually very excitable 15 year olds so it wasn't great to be in a confined space with them for 12 hours!
We are in Salta until Friday afternoon then we will travel over night to Asuncion in Paraguay. We haven't seen much of Salta yet but it seems nice and more similar to Europe than anywhere else we've been so far. It was raining when we arrived and is a bit cooler than the heat of the desert, but its still pleasant. Our hostel is really good with lots of people to meet and a roof terrace bar. I somehow got involved in a seemingly endless game of table football last night in which I completely humiliated myself though. I didn't want to play particularly but 3 people wanted to play and were one short and I thought it would be a good friendly thing to do and a good way to meet people. Unfortunately they were really brilliant and I was really rubbish - highly embarassing.
I know some people had problems with the inca trail photos. I think they work if you open them individually, but it takes time. I think there was a problem at the time I uploaded them so I'll try to make sure future ones are OK. Also, I will try to get in more photos but the problem with digital is you can see them, and therefore not necessarily like the look of yourself in your clothes that are covered in desert or hair that looks bad or silly sunburn or something and its just too easy to delete them. I will make more of an effort in future. The ones of the salt lake tour have a couple more of me and Simon in them.
Over and out for now.
Lots of love
Josiexx
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