Desert Livin´

Crossing into Chile was a completely different feeling than crossing from Peru to Bolivia. 5 minutes after crossing the border, you could already tell that Chile was and is a rich country. We had paved roads, police in nice SUV´s and rules. How can two countries who share so much border and landscape have such different economies? I mean, of course it makes sense but it was truly bizarre to see a country so prominent compared to where we had been.

Our first stop in Chile was San Pedro De Atacama...the Atacama desert (driest desert in the world). Right away we felt our lungs open up a little bit, as we were finally down to 2400 meters. But, our skin was so dry, that it literally was white! San Pedro is a very small desert town that thrives off of tourism and its surrounding valleys. After a rough 3 day expedition, we wanted to relax. The first thing we figured out was that Chile was uber expensive compared to Bolivia and that their notes (bills) are completely crazy. In my pocket I have $50,000 worth of bills. Yes, they use the dollar sign but really they are Chilean Pesos. I have huge bills but $50,000 is actually about $100 US dollars. Too bad everything in Chile is so expensive! In both Peru and Bolivia, Kevin and I were able to have nice dinners at white table cloth restaurants, drinks and dessert for under $20....now a pizza and2 beers is $15 just for lunch! So we are going to try and take advantage of kitchens in the hostels but we will see.

San Pedro de Atacama is well known for its Valley of the Moon and Death Valley. Death Valley is just a valley of very high sand dunes and mud/rock hills. So we took a ride on some sandboards! We joined a tour group and we went to the dunes and basically just boarded down them. If you snowboard, you would be really good at this because its almost exactly the same thing. But, fortunately for me, i was able to pick it up pretty fast. Of course, like surfing, I had my wipe-outs but its fun because you land in the soft sand. After we got tired of walking up the sand dune every time, we headed to the Valley of the moon to watch the sunset. The valley of the moon is just huge mud-rock foundations but it gained its name because of the similarities its surface has with the surface of the moon.

The next day in San Pedro de Atacama we rented some bikes for what i thought was going to be a frolick around the town....turns out our hostel host sent us on an all-terrain mountain biking trip! We took 4 hours and paraded outside of the city limits. After biking through a river, 3 times, we found ourselves biking through the Devils canyon which is a desert canyon and you have to weave your way through the rocks. Beautiful and peaceful but so tiring! When we found our way out of the canyon, we continued on the path, through rivers and into a small rock quarry where we found some Incan ruins. After the Incan ruins we continued on 2km more (total of 10 km each way) and found a very small church. We are not sure if its still in use but it was tiny, with a working bell, and very quaint in the middle of the valley. At this point, I could not feel my butt, my pants were wet from the river and my hands hurt from gripping the bike. No worries because then we just had to bike the 10km back to the city! We traversed back through the rivers, and the rocky paths, and we made it back to our hostel just in time for our 24 hour bus ride to Santiago, Chile! Bring it on!