05/05/04- 07/05/04 San Pedro De Atacama

We arrived very late in the evening and decided to take a room from one of the blokes hanging around the bus station. This is always a mistake I think as there is a reason why they haven´t been able to rent out their rooms. In this case it was definately a mistake as the room was the spare room in his house and his wife clearly wasn’t expecting us as she was wondering around the kitchen/sitting room in only a very small t shirt and kitten heels. So having dumped our bags and explained that we were only staying one night we wondered off in search of a nice place to stay and something to eat. Found both. We ended up staying 3 nights and did loads of trips to see geysers and the valleys of the moon and death. The best bit was watching the sun set at the top of the Grand Dune and then jumping down it.

Also meet up with a few people we had met earlier in Chile and met a few more. San Pedro is a great place, it looks a little like a set for the flintstones movie and everyone is really friendly as most are tourists or reliant on them.


Only place in Chile where the food wasn't god awful. Spectacular scenery of which we have no pictures at the moment but there are some here:

http://www.sanpedroatacama.com/excursiones.htm

Yes, Chile managed to rob quite a beautiful piece of land from Bolivia- this was Bolivia's only piece of coastline. For a more in depth story on the circumstances leading to the acquisition of this land, ask someone else.