CHILE, North towards Bolivia, Friday 12th October

I am rather warming to this. As we continue our journey northwards I am reconciling myself to the whole tour idea with the novelty of constant company and the comfy beds and private bathrooms of 3 star hotels...

Heads light from pisco sours drunk at the Barrio Inglesa of Coquimbo, a little fishing port close to La Serena, 7 of us were piled into a truck driven by the owner of our La Serena hotel. The deal was he´d drive us there if we bought him drinks. Hmmm, I could spot a flaw in the logic there. So with Tango blaring, we made our cramped and merry way to the bus station to catch our midnight bus to Antofagasta.
Stirring from a fitful sleep, I opened my eyes to find a very different world speeding past us. We were deep in a bleak, brown desert of rocky hills and dust storms. At midday we pulled into Antofagasta, a busy little city further up the coast with a cathedral that looked like it was made of icing sugar and plenty of cafes in which to while away the day. We were just treading water to break up the bus journeys.
After a hearty parrilla dinner Carla, Martin, Flo and I decided that 9.00pm really was too early to retire, even if sleep deprived like me, and so we set off in search of nightlife. Carla has a remarkable nose for a Happy Hour. So that was Antofagasta: Sugary architecture, a healthy cafe society, good pisco sours and awful 90s dance music.
And off again. Our bus took up further north the following morning and turned inland to San Pedro de Atacama an oasis town in the middle of a sparce but dramatic wilderness. What had previously been a small town for cattle farmers has become a tourist hot-spot, attracting those on route to Bolivar and the salt flats or those who have just come to see some of the strange and wonderful volcanic, desert surroundings. There are salty lagoons in which to float, eerie moon-like landscapes and volcanic geysers spurting towers of steam into the air. Plenty to keep a photo-opp-hungry tourist happy.
After 5 hours of relentless, never changing desert we arrived in the dusty little town which is mostly constructed with clay bricks bound with straw. "This place would melt in the rain." I pondered aloud before Carla pointed out that we were in the desert and it never did. There we dusty streets over populated with tourist offices and restaurants, a lovely little plaza with a pretty white-washed church, shady spots to sit and generally a feeling of holidays. Cap and short wearing tourists of all ages tramped about in the sleepy siesta heat lured into to shady courtyards for ´cervesas´ or ´cafe´ or were piling into minibuses to visit the nearby attractions. The identy of the town has transformed to one of total homage to the tourist dollar, real estate prices have rocketed and the original inhabitants have been pushed out into the desert to make room for the socks and sandels crew. Ho hum. Having said that though, it has remained picturesque and I am always loathe to condemn a place for providing what I have come for as much as anyone else...
I was already predisposed to like San Pedro de Atacama anyway, it is hot! I happily swapped flip flops, loose skirts and vest tops for fleece jackets, alpaca gloves and wooly socks. The heat seems to be suit me best.
We explored, drank fruit shakes, booked ourselves onto some tours for the following days and went out for dinner at one of the many restaurants. Desert being desert, the temperature cruely plummets as soon as the sun goes down, so no balmy evenings for me alas. Fortunately most of the restaurants provide an open fire as the center point of their dining areas so I was able to avoid the woolies for the time being.
What I took at first to be a tourist trap turned out to be full of locals (I was relieved to discover that there was such a thing) and Carla seemed to know them all so we were soon dancing around the fire to a mix of Latin and European beats. Being in the middle of nowhere puts no dampener on the Chilian party spirit and so once the bars were closed we set off into the desert to buy wine (?!) and then we trundled off to ´Sophies´s House´, Sophie leading, a group of revelers, and some dogs, trotting obediantly in her wake. We finally arrived at Sophie´s half-built dwelling under a stunning blanket of stars unlike anything I have ever seen before. The blackness of the desert night showed off the constlations of the Southern Hemasphere beautifully and I kept nearly falling in holes as I walked along gaping at the heavens.
A fire was lit, warming us but extinguishing the stars and our music filled the desert with the cheery but intrusvie noise of human-ness.
A lazy morning followed our revels and in the afternoon we were packed in a minibus and taken off to float about in salty lagoons. Oddly, as you lower yourself into the icy water, your feet are scalded by the piping hot water at the bottom. A strange reversal that had us bobbing about desperately trying to mix the hot water below us with the icy water that lapped at our shoulders. We watched a stunning sunset over the salt encrused plains and tourquise lagoons, illuminating a back-drop of mountains and volcanoes in a purple light. We sipped our complimentary pisco sours and felt serene.
An early night and up at what some of my fellow travellers have elegantly dubbed ´The sparrow´s fart´ ie. very early in the morning. 3.30am infact. I´m not sure even a sparrow is doing whatever sparrows do at that un-Godly hour. We piled into another minibus and set off on a 2 hour journey through the darkness up to an icy 4000 metres above sea level. The windows frosted and I began to wish I was wearing more clothes. Minus 7?! You have got to be kidding me. What in the name of anything reasonable would posess anyone to get up at 3.30am and go and shiver at dizzying altitudes, I wondered. But the sight of the geysers belching forth boiling water and towers of steam into the icy early morning air almost made it worth while. Dangling my frozen feet in some hot springs to thaw out, although excrusiating, cheered me up no end and I began to feel better about the whole venture. More pictures were taken, of course, and we decended to a more reasonable altitude where we could feel the sun and people were less likely to pass out or throw up. It is a funny sensation being so high, taking 3 steps too fast can have you gasping for air and your head spinning. Oxygen had to be administered to one girl and others felt painfully nauseaus. Once back in oxygen plentiful air we sampled lama kebabs (delicious) and made our way back to San Pedro before midday but totally exhausted.
Tonight is our last night of comfort before we hop over the boarder to Bolivia and embark on our 4 day safari to the famous salt flats which, I have been promised, are stunning and quite often the highlight of people´s South America travels. I have also been promised a minus 15 night tomorrow as we sleep out somewhere open and very basic and plenty of dust...
A half frozen, dusty, unshowered but satisfied Katie should emmerge in 4 or 5 days so watch this space...