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San Pedro
Having arrived in San Pedro from a bus hop over the border with Bolvia I was stunned by the difference between the two neighboring countries. Chile is so much better off than Bolivia and is more like europe than many of its South American neighbours. It was good, however to feel the relative safety of such a country and have access to such things as credit cards and have a few more people around speaking english, even if the prices were 3 times more than in Bolivia.
With a safer more Western country comes a different set of travellers as well - the mountains in particular seemed to attract a lot of French and a few americans began emerging.
Horse Riding
One thing I gave a go while I was in SP was my first go on a horse. Even though the horse I was riding appeared to be in the Autumn of her years, this still didn't detract from the terror I felt at the start. The guy leading our group (a Swedish girl, a French girl and I) was dressed very much like the Lone Ranger and delighted in showing the girls in the group a few tricks including getting his horse (much younger and more athletic) to walk sideways. Apparently after I told him I had no experience with horses other than watching a number of Westerns and the Three Amigos (Ha, ha, ha, ha - [does the actions] '...wherever there is injustice, we'll be there...'), this was not enough for him to give me the slightest hint as to how I might operate a horse, including stopping it. He just told me how to get on it and left me to my own devices - survival of the fittest in the desert. Happily one of the girls enlightened me on the subject of how to hold the reigns and how to try and stop it and off we went. Once of the initial fear of everything going badly wrong I did actually enjoy it as we took a trek out in and arround some of the dunes, mountains and oasises nearby. The scenary was amazing, although my horse did seem although it might expire on some of the uphill sections. I did even let the horse get off to a canta on a few occasions - this was when one of the girls made the clicking horse go faster noise to her horse and mine decided to do the same.
Luna Valley
This was a great trip worth doing. A short ride from the centre you get into the national park and get to explore a series of caves and then head up to a place that - you guessed it - looks like the surface of the moon. If only I'd figured out how to use 'sunset' and 'night mode' on my camera by this point I wound have had some very spectacular shots.
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