You never call, you never write...

What have we been doing?

After a couple of nights in Arica, we headed on to Putre where we spent a night at 3000 meters (plus or minus) and acclimated to the altitude before heading to Lauca National Park the next morning (somewhere around 4500 meters).  The park was beautiful and surreal.  The altitude made the air thin and it was cold.  

We spent another night in Putre before heading back to Arica where we got bus tickets for San Pedro de Atacama.  This was a little bit of a change in plans for us; we had planned to go to Iquique, but given the travel time and our options, we decided to skip it and head back into the mountains.  

San Pedro was dry and dusty; it was also hot during the day with temperatures plunging at night.  We arrived in the morning after an overnight bus (don't get the idea that this was a restful trip, around 3 am we were woken and the whole bus went through an internal border check - being close to the Bolivian border probably had something to do with it).  

We ended up joining a tour that took us to the Valley of the Moon and Valley of the Dead that evening.  Words escape me to describe the bizarre and otherworldly landscape of the valleys.  Fortunately, we have lots of pictures.  

We watched the sunset over the mountains from within the valley and then headed back to San Pedro where we stayed up much too late talking with another guy in the hostel.

We had to get up before 4 a.m. for the trip the next morning.  The tour company picked us up as one of their last stops out of the town on the way to El Tatio Geysers.  

The visit had to be early morning when the temperature difference between the air and they geysers would create large columns of steam.  Our guide told us that we were very luck because the temperature was -6 Celsius.  Maybe it was that I was freezing, but I didn't feel lucky.  After breakfast, we visited the thermal baths which are fed by water heated by the volcanoes.  There wasn't anywhere to change and we hadn't brought our suits, so we sat this one out.

Then we drove to los Ojos de Salar - less salty "eyes" (two circular lakes) where we took the plunge into chilly water to remove the rest of the salt.  Shortly before sunset, we found ourselves at Salar de Atacama, a large salt flat.  We goofed around taking pictures and then joined our group for pisco sours and watched the sunset.  Heading back to San Pedro was an interesting experience as the van made its way through the desert, the headlights were the only lights over the barren terrain.

The following morning, we hopped on a bus to Antofagasta.  

Antofagasta was a bust. 

We walked about a bit and even tried to get out to some of the sights, but after unsuccessfully waiting for the bus, we decided to leave.  So, we got back on the bus and headed south to La Serena where we arrived before 7 a.m.

 

The election was the day we arrived and streets were blocked off for voters to go to their precinct.  Our cab driver had to drop us off before a blockade and pointed down the street to where the hostel was.  We booked a room on arrival and then walked around the city center.  When we got back to the hostel, it turned out that there had been some mistake.  Long story - short, they double booked us with someone who was already there, so we had to go to another hostel; they booked us with another Hosteling International Affiliate - but in the neighboring town, Coquimbo.  After a short stay in laid-back Coquimbo, we headed to the Elqui Valley to do some star gazing.

We spent time in the valley, visiting the Pisco factory and oohing and aweing over the night sky at the Mamalluca observatory.  We got a chance, the morning of our departure, to talk with a French couple, Elize and Guillaume, who were headed north as we were headed south.  We arrived yesterday evening in Santiago.  After a day of wandering around, we are spending the evening enjoying Chilean wine and TJ has told me that as soon as I am done with this blog that we will go take  dip in the pool.  So, I suppose that's where I leave you all.  I'm off for an evening swim.