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The eight hour journey from Salta was wicked and not a litle scary driving through deep canyons and climbing switchbacks up over The Andes and back down into Chile...which made up for the fact that we felt really sick and weird after a prolonged stint at 4500 metres.
Decided not to partake in the emergency oxygen on board, choosing instead, rather surreally, Danny Zucco and Grease on video to comfort us instead!
On first sight San Pedro looks like a bit of a crappy border town with lots of dust and long distance trucks, but it is actually a very cute desert town with a little plaza, whitewashed church and adobe style restaurants with no roofs and huge fires to keep the punters toasty when the temp drops to below freezing at nighttime. It even boasts three smokin' volcanoes. This is not a town to be sniffed at.
Booked a tour to Moon Valley with a super annoying Dom Joly look-alike sporting a t-shirt stating 'masturbating is not a crime' before realising our error and paying the equivalant of ?1.50 not to take the tour with him. Cheeky arse compared the price of his tour to taxi's in London?What!!?
Braved the slopes again - the sand slopes - for a spot of sandboarding which was ace although absolutley knackering clamboruring up and down the dunes with no sign of a ski-lift in sight.
In the afternoon, we finally headed to admire the weird and surreal landscapes of Valle de Luna....which resembled...you got it...the surface of the moon.....and wandered through the salt caverns which creaked and cracked in the sun.
With our last remaining energy we scaled the so-called 'easy' dune to watch the sunset and the mountains glow red. It was a beautiful thing with hundreds of other eager beaver tourists sharing the magical moment.
Figured we had scored a top table right next to the fire for dinner, until we realised the American woman at the next door table thought nothing less of passing wind every few minutes. Apparently the altitude can cause this kind of effect, but still. Clapped along to the local panpipes band who amused us with a warm up of the Simpsons theme tune before snuggling under our many many blankets.
After not nearly enough sleep we got up a 3am for a 3 hour bus ride to see the geysers at sunrise, and at their most active.Got royally miffed when we realised our bus needed a new engine as other tours whizzed pass us on the mountain.Well, we missed sunrise, but still got to see a fair bit of action on the "4th most important geyserfield in the world" no less!!
Felt even better about things after soaking in a natural hot 35 degree spring surrounded by snow for an hour or two putting some life back into our bones after an hour standing around in minus 14 degrees without coffee because the water cooled too fast to dissolved the grains!
That night we got slightly spooked while eating dinner when someone dressed as batman came into the restaurant and just wandered slowly about, no web shooting or jumping onto tables on all fours, nothing! This after the previous evening when Zorro popped into the bar. We are sensing a theme here. Weirdos. So decided enough was enough, time to leave Chile for the last time and 10 Chilean passport stamps later to cross the salt flats into Bolivia....
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