Day 30: Bolivia to Chile
Up bright and early with 6:00am start, we were served breakfast (pancakes for the gluteners and eggs for me!) and we departed at 7:00am. A cold, crisp morning our legend of a driver Gonzalo had put hot water bottles on our seats! What a hero!
We had limited time as we needed to get to the border by 12:00pm so we made our way through the countryside until we arrived at a cluster of buildings at the foot of a volcano, by a lagoon.
-13 degrees outside, steam was rising from a small thermal pool. For 6Bob (less than a Euro) we had the pleasure of soaking in this deliciously hot water. A remedy for the bitter cold outside, we gently heated our bodies over the course of 20mins, by which time I was actually too hot and needed to get out!
From here, the plan was to have a picnic with our drivers before crossing the border. But clouds had scuppered the plan - temperatures were freezing and the lagoons we'd planned on visiting had completely frozen over! Instead we stopped in a hotel at the edge of the national park where our drivers/cooks prepared us an early lunch (11am early) and you'd swear we hadn't eaten in days the way we dived into the food!
It was all very rushed, but we managed to share a few words of gratitude with our drivers and give them the tips we'd collected earlier.
At the Bolivian side, in a small single roomed building in the middle of nowhere, we had our passports stamped before exiting the park, saying goodbye to our drivers and boarding a bus which would take us to the Chilean border.
On this bus, a local Chilean guide talked us through the process before heading to the Chilean border. As soon as we'd left the Bolivian side there was an immediate, notable change - the roads were far superior for one and secondly the language. I could barely follow the conversation between the Chilean driver and the guide: a very different form of Spanish that Vale told us involved the words "wea" and "catchai", which as far as I can make out make up 50% of all conversation here. "Wea", an incredibly versatile word, can be any noun, verb or adjective and can be transformed with the suffix "-on" or "-ona" turning it to mean "this guy" or "this girl". And it's all relative to a given context. So, basically, impossible to understand.
About a half an hours drive from the Bolivian border along a long, straight highway down hill, thankfully out of the altitude, we reached the border. But we couldn't cross. Because the guards were watching a football match (Chile vs Germany, for those interested). So, we had to just wait. At least it was warm though! After three days in subzero temperatures, the heat was such a pleasure.
After much confusion (take your bags; don't take your bags; take your bags; don't - make up your mind Border Control!) we finally got through customs and made it to our hotel.
San Pedro de Atacama is a beautiful, tiny, if massively touristy, town of white washed adobe houses with red dust roads. Such a drastic change from where we'd just come from!
We checked into the hotel and were to meet at the lobby at 3:00pm to change money (1 Chilean Peso = 0.0013 Euro!) and have a look around the town.
A short walk down the main strip, Calle Caracoles (really all there is is one street and a square) and I branched off from the group to do my own thing for a little bit. Three days in a car gives you cabin fever. Space needed!
While everyone went off to "the most amazing French bakery" (boo hiss glutenaphiles) Anja and I planted ourselves at a little restaurant on the plaza (imaginatively named La Plaza Restaurante), sitting in the last of the sun. To celebrate our successful border crossing (any excuse really) we ordered pisco Sours (back on the menu now - Peru and Chile arguing about who can lay claim to the drink) and something to eat. I ordered a Causa Limeña - a sort of layered potato cake with tuna and tomato and avocado. Very tasty. We sat there for a few hours, and gradually we acquired first Nivek, then Holly and Shan. Just enjoying the pisco and the warmth.
Back to the hotel to get ready for the evening, we got some pre-dinner drinks to have in the courtyard for Shans birthday. We were nicely oiled by the time we sat down to eat in a strange karaoke restaurant.
Now, Vale had warned us that dancing is not allowed in this town: a totally ridiculous assertion that I was sure was bull crap. But no. This is bizarrely true! After dinner, the dance floor (confusingly) was full of people dancing to the music being warbled by a drag queen and her friend on stage. But they kept stopping to tell everyone to stop dancing! So, they were singing away, we were dancing away and then we were instructed to stop and sit down. It was so bizarre!!!
The place started to empty early enough, and after a couple of strong Pisco sours we were ready to head home anyway. We were on our way back towards the hostel when Natalie told me to look up at the sky. It was filled with the brightest stars I've ever seen. And then she pointed to the Milky Way. I was so stunned by the clarity and perfection of this perfect sweep of stars across the dark sphere above us, that I was actually moved to tears. At the risk of sounding totally ignorant, I never knew it was something that could be seen with the naked eye, no less so amazingly clearly or perfectly! It was absolutely wonderful! After that, we found somewhere to lie back and just stare up and marvel at the beauty in the sky above us.
Accommodation: Hotel Puritama
Weather: from -13 degrees in Bolivia to 23 degrees in Chile; no more heavy layers or heavy blankets required at night, but a light jacket would do the trick.