So we get a old dusty bus from Salta to Chile, the route is over the Andes and is the highest in South America, I felt fine but Rory was stuck down with altitude sickness at the border and the bus driver had to come to his aid with a oxygen machine (bloody embarrassing), after a few hits on the machine and a sit down we walk to the little village of San Pedro, its the cutest place, although looks like a village in Africa, very dusty etc. We found a lovely cheap hostel (7 pounds a night!) and dumped our things. It turns out however that Rory’s altitude sickness may actually have been a very bad case of diahorrrioa, so he spent most of the time in the hostel reading.
We went sand boarding in death valley which was great fun, although quite hard, as you had to lug your sand board up the large hill every time you went down, honestly it was impossible, I gave it a few goes and started to have regular breaks of sitting down, my chest was burning so bad! Don’t forget we were at an altitude of 3000 m! we meet two really great Canadian women, who are the happiest people I have ever met! Rory was unfortunately struck down again so when we finished sand boarding he went home and we continued to the lunar valley, which on the advert says looks like the surface of the moon! NO IT DOESN’T! Its just looks like any other mountainous valley, anyway the guide made us haul our ass up a really and I mean really steep slope to get to watch the sunset, it was so scary, particularly as I hate rock climbing. I didn’t stop moaning the whole way up, obviously the Canadians were loving it! Haha! We got lots of good photos up there and had a few beers. We meet the Canadians and the guide for dinner, a traditional Chilean soup! Its was amazing, it had a lump of beef, green beans, potatoes, corn of the cob and pumpkin, really tasty.
4am start to see the geysers at sunrise, and I have never been so cold in my life, of course me and Rory were not dressed for an early morning desert adventure and was in the bus freezing and refused to get out, the temperature was -9 degrees!. I had to use my towel as a scarf! When we arrived at the geysers we were very impressed and were aloud 30 minutes to wonder round, after 6 and a half minutes we were back in the van huddling for warmth, and taking photos out the window. They laid on a breakfast which was nice; I have never enjoyed a hot chocolate more than this one! But again after about 5 mins we were in the van. From the geysers we went on to see a thermal baths where you can swim, we thought they were joking as it was only 8 o’clock and not much about freezing point, but low and behold a German couple stripped off and dived in, it wasn’t long before the entire bus where in, me an Rory watched in horror for a bit and then went back to the bus for a sleep (we really know how to get the best out of our tours!). After they finished we drove to a little 3 house place which was serving BBQ llama meat, it was amazing (I had 2!) and then we went to a beautiful green lake, again lovely, but by this point we were a bit fed up of it, also the sun was so hot now that we were roasting in the back seat! Bloody desert weather! Met the Canadians for another dinner.