Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you

February 4th-5th, San Pedro de Atacama, Santiago, Chile 

Today was our epic 23 hour bus ride to the capital of Chile, Santiago. I was actually excited about this because Chilean buses are renowned for being luxurious and Bernie and I were planning to take the premium seats on 'Tur Bus Chile' which recline into full beds and they give you meals and drinks! Unfortunately, you cannot book tickets online as you need a Chilean ID card number as well as a Chilean bank account. So by the time we got to the actual office, there were only regular semi sleeper tickets left.

Bus tickets are pretty expensive here ($70 for semi sleeper compared to $20 or less in Bolivia). Bernie was really dreading this drive, I didn't even think about it. I vetoed taking a flight as it cost more than $250 per person and we have super expensive Brazil coming up where we will ultimately be forced into taking a $700 flight to Colombia. 

The bus was really nice and clean with a working toilet, and they even gave us a snacks! They played English movies the whole way (The Proposal, Thor 2, The Boat that Rocked etc.). In true form, I fell asleep at 10:30 pm and only woke up at 7:30 am the next morning. Love when this happens! Even Bernie slept for atleast 7 hours which he doesn't even do normally. This morning, I looked out the window as we passed through a town called La Serena and felt like I was in the USA! Huge long malls, lots of open space, wide roads, clean and well kept gardens... And McDonalds!!! Didn't see a single one in Bolivia so I'm very excited to try it out. 

We got to 'Almirante Riveros' and it is so calm and beautifully decorated I want to stay right here for a month! Seriously it's the best place we've stayed at so far and there's a lovely black lab pup here called Xika Da Silva who just made our day. We walked around for a bit in the warm sun (yayy finally!) and ate sushi and ice cream for tea. It feels like we're back in the first world, Santiago is such a huge city filled with beautiful gardens and parks and skateparks. It's really nice to see people lying in the grass and playing in the parks with their kids and dogs (they really seem to love dogs here). We walked a lot today but the main road that runs across the city is very long so I don't think we've seen anything really, maybe tomorrow we'll try the metro. Shipra put us in touch with her friend, lovely Sophia, so we met up for dinner. She's a Santiago local so she knows the good haunts and we ended up eating some yum steak and chips (again) in a traditional restaurant. I'm really interested in Chilean history as I know nothing, and since Sophia works in Politics, she was the perfect person to get us up to speed. Now I know why the Bolivians and Peruvians are so negative about Chile. 

Most tourists we've met who've already travelled through Chile didn't actually like this country as much as the rest. Maybe because it's expensive (though it offers quality so I'd expect it to be), so originally we'd planned to stay here not more than a week. However, so far I love it here and the people are so warm, so let's see what happens.

Waiting for the bus at San Pedro de Atacama

Xika

Next to the fountains in the arty garden

Lovely garden seating

Bernie and Xika

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.

Boards ready

San Pedro de Atacama main plaza

The view down

Looking up

Bernie in the red tshirt, superb form!

Nadine going down the slope

Secret desert party

Cutest dog next to the bonfire

Valle De la Luna

Giant steaks

Ciao Bolivia, hola Chile!

February 1-2nd, Bolivia and Chile

After spending a month in Bolivia, it's finally time to move on. When planning our trip back in 2012, I was so apprehensive about coming here and even tried convincing Bernie we should skip it. Everyone (who'd never been to Bolivia) kept warning us of the dangers, but I can say that never once in the whole time there did I ever feel physically scared. 

Bolivia is such a great country and if you are thinking of traveling to South America, do not miss out on this gem. I really have left a bit of my heart here and will have to come back at some point to collect it!

Anyway, as I mentioned before, we had to go back the way we came from the tour to get to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. There are no direct buses, so once again we had to drive through the desert in a 4x4. Since they can't drive through the desert in the night, we had to stop in a village called Villa Mar for a few hours. The other people in the jeep were 2 fun girls from Belgium and a retired French couple. It was super fun chatting the first 4 hours till Villa Mar; the French couple used to own their own candy supply business and told us some great stories. Old people are so wise.

Once we reached Villa Mar, I went straight to bed - the lack of sleep, changing temperatures and altitudes caught up with me and I had a bad cold. I woke up directly at 5 am to continue the journey. We drove till the Bolivia - Chile border where we had to to through immigration at what I can only call a tiny shed. After the formalities, we had to change to a Chilean shuttle bus to drive us into Chile. 

What a difference already! Roads are tarred, lots of road signs, buildings are painted! We went through Chilean immigration 15 minutes later and finally entered... Japan! Just kidding, but we were surrounded by scores of Japanese tourists! 

After that, walked in absolute hot sun, still in layers, to our hotel Mamatierra. The ATMs in the city all didn't have money so we exchanged our leftover Bolivianos and bought crisps and I don't remember any more of the day because it was so hot (we were advised to drink 4 litres of water a day) and I was so tired and was finally going to shower after 5 days. Welcome to Chile!

Bolivia migration border check

Wearing 7 layers, was so cold

Welcome to Chile