San Pedro de Atacama

Aha next the dryest place in the world as is told by people. First we had to make a pitt-stop in Calama. Nice place we found out. We had to wait here for about 5 hours and so we did, waited and waited. Than at 17:40 we should be leaving but we discovered that the bus had an hour delay. Too bad, so we went to the other side of the street where there was a beer sign, to stop there for a beer. Inside we discovered to our pleasant surprise that the waitresses were wearing all yellow tops and short very short skirts, later a few girls dressed up in black tops and short very short red skirts. All very pleasant, so we had a beer, and being foreign, the ladies liked us, like they liked us VERY much. But we left of course after a beer to get the bus and later a guy from Chile told us that they might have been prostitutes. Hmm that really puts things into perspective, hahaha.

So next stop, San Pedro de Atacama... here we really saw some beautifull things. So first a few pictures. This is the town in daylight and during a sunset. Not what you are used of of a normal town, the roads are not paved, but the atmosphere is great here.



Being for Chilian standards an expensive city, we decided not to stay here too long. So we managed to jam a few excursion into these days. So bicycling through the area resulted in pictures of very dry suroundings and vulcanos in the back ground. You just gotta love it.



Next stop would be the Moon valley and the Death valley combined with a visit to some caves. Sounds cool... thats what we thought, but it got cancelled because it was very cloudy and a bit rainy. Next day it was even worse, but we went anyway. Which was a big fiasco, with all the rain nobody was going to get out of the car. Not even the Dutch people, so no pictures and no visit, because the next day we went away. Oh a picture of the rain to prove it, the guy is working on dikes (we Dutch just love those).


What we did see was Los Geysers del Tatio and this is totally impressive. Is is located the highest and it is the most irregular field in the world. And we had the change to be there. The tour was very good, which means the guide could speak English, for us a benefit. The first picture is taken still at night, because thats the time they are most active. The water is about 87 degrees, so to bad we did not bring eggs.

The geyser field is surrounded by mountains, also known as vulcanos. And the area is quite big. It is not a national park, because six months ago this very special place is sold to the Italians to industrialize the place. STUPID


While we were there we had a bath in the very hot water and aaaaah, we liked it. Henk burned his hand a little bit, so it really is quite hot.

On the way back we toured the area by day light and saw some very nice looking sites and even animals. Yes, animals do exist in Chile, oh and the meat of the lama tastes delicious!!