Bernadine takes South America: Adrenaline junkies

February 3rd, San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

Woke up this morning refreshed and clean! The place we're staying in is awesome, however it is expensive. San Pedro de Atacama is the border crossing town between Chile and Bolivia so it is touristy and very expensive, one night in this place is equivalent to one week in Sucre. However, this desert town is lovely, I am absolutely smitten. In many ways it's many things Bolivia is not, but it's got such charm.

After lots of hassle, we finally got some money out of an ATM, very weird how the ATMs here don't want to give you money even though they charge a hefty sum for foreign bank cards. We then ate our first Chilean steaks at a restaurant called Adobe and oh my god they were amazing. Absolute perfection, just what we needed. We've also encountered Chilean Spanish which is very fast, sing songy and full of slang. Gotta break out my school book again soon!

Then we decided to do some adventure sport - sand boarding in the Atacama desert with "Inka Atacama Tours". I've never done anything like this before, but I was really excited. We were two big groups in mini vans and drove into the desert passing crazy red rock formations that looked like dinosaurs tails. We got to Death Valley, got some brief instructions and down we went. I was really nervous at first, but it wasn't hard and falling down is not painful in the sand! Bernie was so good at it, he had one major stack but his next round was so good that everyone even clapped when he reached the bottom! I really enjoyed it except I kept falling on my bum to slow down. However walking back up the slope was a nightmare. It was so hot and tiring; but Bernie and I have already planned our next holiday snowboarding in France (they have ski lifts to get back up)!

After that we visited Valle de la Luna (valley of the Moon), the landscape looks like Mars with stone and sand formations carved by the wind and water. We went through some caves and hiked up a mountain where we watched the sunset whilst drinking pisco sours (without egg white though in Chile because of salmonella). On the way back, we made plans with the peeps in our van to meet up for dinner and drinks.

We landed back at Adobe and had a lovely meal, met some new people. We then asked a waiter where we could go to next and they told us to wait outside in the street with the locals and we'd all head to a secret desert party together. Ummm what?! Secret desert party, we were so in. Around 7 of us got out to see lots of locals sitting on the road drinking, playing the bongo etc. About 5 minutes later, we were on our way, people carrying wooden crates for firewood. On the way, we stopped to buy drinks from a guy with a bag at the side of the road. Next thing you know, we're in the desert climbing up a sand dune in the pitch dark, lots of locals ahead and behind us and 4 guys carry a huge log of already burning wood.

We got across the dune to see a fiesta! People chilling around a bonfire, guitars playing, people dancing, dogs walking around... I just couldn't believe I was actually there. I kept saying this to our new friends who brought us there from Adobe. They absolutely loved Bernie who was quite a star for buying a high quality bottle of Pisco and sharing with everyone, and just because he's such a happy bunny. One of them also told Bernie that "I'm not gay but your happy smile has made my day" :)

The stars in the San Pedro sky are so bright and clear and the atmosphere was so relaxed, it was definitely one of the coolest things I've done on this trip so far. On the way back, it was just the two of us walking and we pretty much got lost in the pitch dark desert. But luckily my in built GPS got us back on track, what a crazy night! Sad to leave, but we must as we get on a 23 hour bus to Santiago tomorrow afternoon. I hope to visit this surprising lovely town again!

San Pedro has many dogs in the city and all of them are very friendly and welcome everywhere. San Pedro is fondly known as 'San Perro' (Perro=dog)

The Valley of Death is only called so because the person who found it was French and he wanted to call it Valley of Mars, but because of his pronunciation, the local Spanish people heard Valley of Death. So actually, it's not that scary at all.