Chile - San Pedro de Atacama

We wave goodbye to La Serena, our splendid Chevvie Pick Up and the sea (for at least a month), and board the night bus north to Chile's desert region. The Atacama desert is apparently the driest on earth and therefore I suppose the driest place on earth - apparently parts of the desert has never had any rain - I feel thirsty already just thinking about it. Alas Chilean long distance buses, unlike their Argentinian counterparts who force whiskey down your neck, don't allow booze on board.

16 hours and several dubbed Tom Cruise films later we reach San Pedro de Atacama, our base for the next week or so. It appears like a oasis in the middle of countless miles of empty desert and red rock. Fortunately our hostel owner meets us from the bus and despoists us in a lovely room - out of the midday heat. San Pedro has a stunning location, at about 2000 metres but looking up to the Altiplano which acts as the border with Bolivia (of which more in the next blog). There are 3 large extinct volcanoes and 1 still bubbling towering above the hostel - snow capped and amazing at sunset. The town itself is all single storey whitewash houses, which helps in the heat. You feel like your walking around a Spagetti Western at times, the Church is right out of a Fist Full of Dollars. No one runs around, it has a very calm and tranquil feeling, which is good considering the altitude. It is however a town absolutely based on tourism - we've driven passed many villages and hamlets in the middle of nowhere and wondered what keeps people there - usually a bit of agriculture etc. But I can safely say San Pedro would be a mere spec if it wasn't on the tourist trail. It's a balance - you want a charming town to stay in but its also nice to have broadband internet and a decent red wine too!

We chose to visit San Pedro's famous "Valley of the Moon" - and as an added bonus we're due a full moon - what could be better? Well as you will have seen from previous entries, we're not having a huge amount of luck with the weather when we choose to gaze skyward. So in the middle of the driest place on earth, the full moon is inexplicably covered by a piece of the cloud the size of London - arse! It is still a beautiful location though, we hiked up an enourmous sand dune as the sun begins the set - and gazing over the valley of the moon you do get a sense of a lunar landscape so real that NASA could have faked numerous moon landing here in the 60s. As we perch precariously on some rock at the end of the dune, the sunset is dramatic with the cloud at least. Then all goes very dark - a bit of worry as we are clinging on and the wind is wipping up. But then as the moon comes up and clears the cloud - its like someone has turned the lights back on, throwing up long and very bizarre shadows across the moonscape. We scramble down to the waiting coach and get handed a glass of red wine - how very civilised.

Some new pics: http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/stokes_richard2004/album?.dir=49de&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/stokes_richard2004/my_photos