San Pedro de Atacama.

An update from the most dry dessert on this planet (Atacama). This is truly a must see place for anybody. I hope the pictures will speak for itself.

Unfortunately it was not so nice and easy to get here. The Irish guy (from my previous) post and I decided to travel together to San Pedro. While waiting for the bus in la Serena, we ate an epenade (as almost every day for lunch) and while we weren enjoying this Chilean haut cuisine his small backpack got stolen. Probably I was watching it while it happened but I didn`t see anything. Too bas because his passport was in this bag so he was not able to leave and even wors
, he had to return to the brittish amabassy in Santiago for a new passport. Since I could not help him in any way I decided to travel alone to San Pedro. So this time no spanish course, no irish jokes, just 18 hours alone in a bus. But to be honest this was not even so bad, watching a bit the scenery, reading some books, learning some spanish and sleeping a bit and before you know it you arrive in ..... what the lonely planet calls, the shithole of Chili. That was fortunately not my end destination I just needed to wait there for a few hours and then finally I got my last bus for 1,5 hours into the dessert.

I stay in a Slovenian hostel and since I, obvioulsy, told Ela about this, my welcome was very warm. And even better Ela had left me a very nice welcome letter. This was a good beginning of 4 days pure enjoyment. Quite quickly I met an Austrian guy with who I spend a bit of time and some other people I that I had met before also stayed in my hostel.
The first day was about exploring the village. It is not more than a few sandy streets and some small houses but there is a cool and laidback vibe that makes you want to sit down, have a drink, enjoy the beautiful scenary and dream away for a few hours. So that is what I did.
THe the first night it was time for a few drinks...which leaded to one of the most cool parties I have ever been to. The bars here are not allowed to serve alcohol after one so people organize pàrties in the dessert. So that is where I went with my austrian friend. And if you have some drinks, nice music, a big fire and  the clearest sky (with stars) in the world...what do you want more????

The I had two days with tours in the area. As said I will not use to many words, I hope the pictures will say enough..... Just bare in mind that most of the pictures have been taken at an altitude between 2000 and 4300 meters. The temp changes from -13 to 40 degrees.... and the little river in which we took a  bath was  amongst ice at an altitude of 4000 meters and the water is 40 degrees.  Really incredible!!!!

Tomorrow in a 4x4 from here to Bolivia (Uyuni). This will take me three days in cold and basic conditions but I´m sure it will bring many more amazing moments and nice photos. Keep you posted

from surfing to the dessert

Hi,

Want to say that I have been kind of busy so I did´t have time to post anything on the blog but how can that be true if your are having vacation for a year... Let say that time is going fast when you are......haing a great time

Anyway a quick update on things I have been doing over the last week. I followed spanish and surfing lessons in Pichilemu (the surf capital of Chile). Initially it was very very quiet with almost now other tourists but finally I ended up spedning the week with a nice guy from Switzerland that also wanted to surf, (and still needed to learn .
So combining surfing with Spanish kept me busy enough. And after lots of psychical and mental training i was ayway too tired in the evening to go out etc. Surfing is cool.....but so difficult. (like spanish) but overal I think I didn´t do so bad. I was able to catch some pretty big waves but I also crashed many times. And just the paddling can be so tiresome. Even though Pchilemu is the surf capital this does not man that the sea is warm. There is this cold gurlfstream brining cold water from Antartica along the coast of chile and you need a thick wetsuit for keep you warm....and the paddling works. It was nice and sunny most of the days but one day there was this huge storm that kind of flooded our hostel. So because of this we moved to some,much better,  private rooms where i had some very good and long night of sleep.
Now I can also finally speak some spanish ,(mas o menos) At least I can ask for things and get things done. But now I need to start practicing. And that actually happened when I took a bus on Sunday to La Sarena (more to the north). I met this woman with who i talked for 7 hours........ wow that is even more tiresome than a good night out.
I actually decided to go to la Serena since the drive to the North of Chile is simply to long to do it at once. And by making this stop I was also ale to visit a national park where the endangered Humbold penguins are breeding... How cool are these animals... but I dont understand why evolution did not give penguins normal feet.... moving like that on land simply does not look comfortable.
 Beyond that we also spotted sea otters and many many sealions.

Now ready to move futher north to the atacama dessert. In an hour I will take the bus that will bring me in 18 hours to the San Pedro de Atacama. Fortunately I met up with an  irish guy, so at least I have somebody to talk to in ......english. Because practicing spanish for 18 hours is a bit too much..

And beyond the facts of wha I am doing......I am having an amazing time... so do not worry

Some photo´s from my previous post and for my next post

Just borrowing somebody´s compu to upload pictures. Will write more when I´m back in an internet cafe!