Early in the morning I am taking the bus from Santiago to San Pedro de Atacama.. a 24 hour busride is waiting for me! Its a long jurney but with enought reading material it´s doable. On the bus are also two other dutch people so I am not alone at all. We arrive in San Pedro the next morning arround 9.. and the first thing what I see is desert! It´s totally different from what I was used to. Small buildings made of stones, dust roads, and a different type of people. It´s a relaxed place to stay, but unfortunatly it´s not the cheapest place to stay in.

Together with my two dutch travelers we are searching for a nice and cheap place to stay in. After an hour we decided to stay at Hostel La Roca, about 1 minute outside the center. Its a nice and quite hostel with excellent rooms. The price is 18.000 chile pesos for two persons. Two? Yes, later that day I am meeting an old friend again!

The rest of the day I am spening time visiting all travel agencies to find out the best prices. There are sooo many and there is so much to do. The main reason I am here is the 3 day tour through the desert and a visit to the biggest salt flags in the world plus crossing the border to Bolivia! But at 16:00 I am moving my ass to the busstation - just a big open dusty place - to wait for the bus from Salta. Because Kelsey is comming to San Pedro as well. Our paths are crossing again so we can spend doing some things together here. After her arrival we went out for some té and a meal, talking about the happenings in Salta and my adventure in Santiago and Valparaiso. Also discussing what to do here and when.

Geysers

The next day very early - 3:30 in the night - we woke up and got ready for the 4 am pickup. Together with some other people we went to a place were we could see natural Geysers spitting out hot steam into the air. Arround 5:30 - still no sun at the sky - we arrived. We walked arround and waited for the sunrise. It was amazing to see and the Geysers made some good kodak-moments. The sun came at 6:30.

After the sun was out we drove further towards a natural pool.. with a water temperature of about 30 to 40 degrees, I quickly changed into my swimming suite and jumped into the pool. At the source of the hot water the water was so hot that you barely couldn´t stand there. After half an hour we had to get out because the out was over.

At half past 12 we arrived back in San Pedro, had a quick lunch with Christiaan from South Afrika and Gal from Israel, and made us ready for the next tour.

Valley of the Moon

Our next tour started at 15:00. We drove arround by bus, got dropped at some interesting places to walk arround. The hole landscape was so amazing and changing. The last stop was the Valley of the Moon were we walked upon a high hill to widness the sunset. It was magical. The hole sky changed colours untill it was black.