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The flight was a couple of
hours north and an hour’s bus ride to get to San Pedro. We
thought we would feel some more sun here! Well it was the
desert, but we arrived with some strong winds blowing making it
cold. The place felt a bit like a town in Peru. Adobe mud
hut/houses with dusty unmade roads. But with no time to waste
after we got rid of our bags at the b&b and we got ourselves on
a trip for the afternoon to the Valle de Luna for the sunset.
Well the valley of the moon was
blowing a gale. We walked through parts of the valley being
sand blasted by sand stopping many times to empty our shoes.
You could see why it was called the valley of the moon though,
even NASA test their moon vehicles there. It really felt like a
film set in places, really reminded me of Star Wars, we kept
expecting one of the Sandmen to jump out at any minute! As the
sun went down it got colder and colder especially with the wind
blowing but a great sunset from the top of a sand dune was had
once we had trekked across the top of it to the neighbouring
hill.
Next day we had booked a trip
to see the Tatio geysers. This trip had a pick up of 4am,
NICE! It was 6am by the time we got to the geysers, the geysers
are over 4000m above sea level and the wind was still blowing.
We’ve never worn so many layers of technical warm clothes…to
date this was the coldest we have ever been in our lives!
The geysers were great to see
steaming and spitting away. Until one girl in the group just
passed out and nearly fell in one. The altitude had taken its
toll, so much so she cut her nose from her glasses and spent the
rest of the trip lying on her back in the bus!
After a few more picture stops
on the way back (don’t want to see another fluffy llama/alpacha
for a while) we got back after an 8 hour trip and it was still
only midday.
Hmmm, by now the wind was
blowing the town around, the streets were slowly getting
deserted ready for the rest of the afternoon storm. The wind
was blowing people over, roofs off houses. We had to walk back
to our b&b which was on the outskirts of town, what a fun
journey that was! Couldn’t see a thing and breathing wasn’t the
easiest as the wind took your breath away. We managed to get
back to our b&b covered in sand. We had sand in places I didn’t
know you could get sand! We ended up having to stay there the
rest of the day listening to things breaking and smashing
outside including the skylight in our bedroom.
No surprise but the next day
was the perfect day, not a breath of wind in the air. It was
repair time for the locals, so we headed off to the local museum
as we had heard about some of the relics found, especially
people who had been well preserved because of the type of ground
in the village. One skeleton is known as Miss Chile. All bones
intact and with a great head of black plaited hair. How
bizarre!
Later that afternoon we got the
bus back to the airport to fly back to Santiago. As this was
the last flight into Santiago and we had the first flight out
down south we decided to crash out at the airport as best as
possible for the 5 hours needed. What fun that was…freezing
cold metal airport seats for the whole night…! Our flight out
was to Puerto Montt in the south so see
Torres del Paine link
for more info. |
