Since we last wrote we have been on the move and have gained some serious miles!
We have done some serious bus rides, which were: Vina del mar to La Serena (7 hour bus). La Serena to Copiapo (5 hour bus) and the BIGGIE was Copiapo to Calama which was supposed to be 11 hours, but thanks to our bus breaking down before we had even got on it, our 11 hour overnight bus turned into 14 hours!!! Longer than the flight here in the first place!
So we are now in San Pedro de Atacama which is the desert right at the top of Chile... right near the Bolivian border.
So before we get onto what we are going to do, apart from long bus rides which have taken up our time, we have been mostly checking out local towns along the way. La Serena was a gorgeous beachside town (another resort beach type destination) which stretched for miles. Gorgeous! Copiapo was inland, and was our first taste of the desert. On the trip there we saw lots of wild cactus in the desert on the side of the road which had Daile pretty excited! Calama is the main centre to the biggest copper mine in the world, which we tried to get a tour on, but unfortunately it was Sunday, so it was a no go.
Calama saw our first taste of altitude! It is 2700m above sea level, and didn´t bother us. From Calama we caught a 2 hour bus to San Pedro de Atacama where we are now.
We have found it odd that for one whole week, we didn´t see any other foreigners!! That means, that poor Rodney had to listen to Daile as she used up her daily word count all on him!! LOL! We only spoke english to each other for a whole week! Then we arrive in San Pedro de Atacama and the place is FULL of tourists. There are hardly any locals and the streets are lined with travel and tour agencies who are selling tours for all over the region.
This place is pretty amazing with everything being brown, dusty and made of rock or clay of some sort. Check out http://www.sanpedroatacama.com/ingles/home.htm to read more about the region. We really like it here, apart from the steep tourist prices!
Today we are going on a tour called Valley of the Moon - should be a pretty stunning sight as we go at sunset.
Tomorrow we are hiring bikes and cruising around (with large bottles of water!).
Thursday is the exciting day, where we leave on 4WD and do a 3 day tour from here all the way across the Bolivia border to a place called Uyuni. We will see Lagoons with pink flamingos (Daile is VERY excited about this!) drive right across the worlds biggest salt flats/lakes, see giant cactus, and top out at 4900m above sea level!! This will probably see us gasping for breath in our sleep, and fingers crossed with our supply of coca leaves and coca leaf tea we won´t suffer from altitude sickness!
Bolivia is going to be very basic, but much cheaper. We are going from one of South America´s richest to the poorest country.
We won´t be on the internet possibly till after the weekend at the earliest and are on track - we hoped to reach Bolivia by the end of the month and we will!
A special CONGRATULATIONS to Kate and Jase who are getting married this weekend, we so wish we could be in two places at once.
Much love,
Dahlia xo
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