San Pedro de Atacama

24th November - 28 November (Day 265 - 269)

The heat of the desert hit us in San Pedro de Atacama, dry and stifling. Coming from the Salt Flats all we wanted was a hot shower, feel clean and a comfortable bed. Initially there were lots of tours we wanted to do but after the salt flats we felt completely toured out.

We spent our first couple of days here chilling out and gaining our energy back. The town has a nice feel to it though it is overrun by tourists, tour agents and pizza - pasta restaurants. It was nice to have some decent food again after being in the Andes for so long. The town is full of stray dogs - they are massive, well fed and very docile; sleeping for most of the day. As you will have probably guessed I wanted to take every single one of them home with me especially a massive, fluffy St Bernard we saw.

Our third day we decided to take a tour of the Valle de la Luna. It is some rock formations that is famous in this part of the world. It didn´t disappoint. We were taken to several different locations to see the natural surrounding beauty by our tour guide and his little boy. We went to the Death Valley first and then on to the moon valley for sunset. This included climbing up a huge mountain for which I was not happy about and ended up having to go back down on my bottom the whole way.

We have had a good time in San Pedro de Atacama and have got a good first impression of Chile. Later today we have a 23hr bus all the way down to Santiago to meet Chris´ friends Dan and Pizz. Chris is looking forward to the bus ride as we have been told that the buses are amazing, spacious with fully reclining seats... we shall see.....