San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

16th September – 18th September 2017

Slightly earlier than planned, we arrived at the Bolivian side of the border at 4.20pm for the truck to get her stamp out of the country. We didn’t have to do anything at this point, we just waited in the truck. We drove a little further and at 4.30 we arrived at the Bolivian migration, but we didn’t have to get off the truck again because apparently Browleo has connections and he just took our passports and got them stamped for us – sounds a bit dodgy but we were done very quickly. We got our passports back and said bye to Browleo here, as he headed back to Uyuni and we continued to Chile.

We had to carry on driving for ages to get to the Chile border, as there wasn’t one where we stamped out of Bolivia – we were technically nowhere for about 90 minutes of our lives. Apparently Chile doesn’t have border control with Bolivia because it is so high up in altitude (at around 5000m), so they don’t see the point.

We arrived at the Chile border control at around 6 and things started to go wrong quite quickly. We were in front of Amber’s truck, so got there first but were told to stay on the truck whilst Lars went and spoke to the guards because apparently they can be grumpy sometimes. We did as we were told but once Amber arrived, they all piled off and we didn’t want to end up behind all of them in the queue – especially when our group is much smaller. We got off to see what was going on and we were told that we had lost another hour of our lives, so it was now gone 7pm and the border was shut. Luckily Rianne and Sara managed to sweet talk one of the guards to stamp us in, so we just had to smile nicely.

Once we had our stamps, the guards then wanted to check all of our bags and the whole of the truck (which was good I guess because no other country has done this yet, but it was a lengthy process). We started off by getting our day bags off the truck, before emptying back locker of all our things and taking them into a room. After we had done this, the guards got on the truck and checked every section, inside and out. We were then allowed to put our bags through the scanners (after filling a form out which the guards weren’t happy we hadn’t done already). After all our bags were scanned, we reloaded the truck and carried on our journey.

We only had to drive to the other side of the little town, before we reached our hostel. We parked up and walked to where we were staying. We checked in and dumped our bags in our rooms, before having 20 minutes to chill and catch up with ourselves.

At 8.30, we all met in the courtyard to go out for dinner together for Sabrina’s birthday; we also took Hayley and Tom along from Amber’s truck because they miss us so much. We went a few blocks down to a restaurant called Blanca and they managed to squeeze the twelve of us in, in the back.

For dinner, I ordered a hamburger, which wasn’t a normal hamburger: it was homemade and well over an inch thick, covered with camembert cheese. The hamburger came without bread, but on this strange mash potato thing – it was very tasty overall though. I had a cocktail with my meal to toast to Sabrina’s birthday.

During the meal a live band came on which would have been a nice bit of background music, only they set up right next to us and had the speakers right next to our table so we couldn’t even talk anymore. This ruined it for some people, so we paid up and left after we finished food.

I really pushed the boat out for Sabrina’s birthday and we went to another bar after the meal for another drink. I only managed one though before I was falling asleep, ready for bed. After we had all finished, we wandered back to the hostel, which didn’t take long because the town was so small. When we got back, I went straight to bed.

We had a free morning in San Pedro and because there was no breakfast included in the hotel, we could lie in and not have to worry about missing out on anything – it was a real treat! We decided we would meet around 10.30 to go out for brunch, so we really could take our time getting up and ready.

Some of us met (me, Sabrina, Katie, Hayley, William and Aaron) and walked back into the town to get something to eat. As the only ATM in the town was out of money, we had to make sure we found somewhere that accepted card. We went into a little café that had an outdoor patio in the back, so we sat there. I ordered an omelette and milkshake, which were both huge and a good combination for a brunch.

After we ate, we wandered through the streets and through the markets, before heading back to the hotel. We had some time to relax and organise ourselves back at the hotel, which was nice, especially as the weather was so hot! During the rest, I had to do my cleaning duty on the truck and because the weather was so good, it was like a sweatbox on there – it wasn’t so nice!

At 3.30, we all met and got onto the trucks for an included trip to Moon Valley. It wasn’t a long drive away, which again, was good because it was hot on the truck. We stopped off briefly at the entrance to buy tickets and then carried on to the cave.

We had a guide with us, but he was useless and didn’t do much guiding, so I literally know nothing about what we saw. We had narrow passages and low passages to get through the cave, but we did it and it was quite cool to see – it was even more climbing to add to the list of the last few days.

After the cave we drove to another stop, where we could get out and go for a walk. The walk lead us up to a viewpoint which was very busy but it had an amazing view of the land ‘Moon Valley’. I’m not convinced that what we saw was a reflection of what the moon looks like, it looked more like Mars to me but it still looked very cool. We took some photos and wandered slowly over the viewpoint, before walking back down to the trucks.

The tip of the viewpoint was so windy, that we were convinced we were going to blow off at one point, so all tried to take cover. It was a little scary but all the angry tourists in the queue for the photo spot didn’t see the funny side.

We got back to the trucks at around 6 and then drove a bit further to a final viewpoint of the day to watch the sunset. We got there at about 6.45 and as we knew the sun wasn’t setting until around 7.20, me Katie and Jack just sat on the truck for a bit because it was getting colder and we couldn’t be bothered waiting outside.

When we got out of the truck, the views were very pretty but there were that many people there, we couldn’t really find a good spot. Some of the other group had brought alcohol with them but they got told off by the rangers for having it up there. We were originally told that Rianne and Sara were meeting us at the sunset with dinner but they didn’t show up before we got kicked out of that place at about 7.45.

We drove to a different viewpoint and stopped there to watch the stars. Amber’s passengers were very noisy and all piled off their truck with their alcohol and sat outside; we were slightly more civilised and stayed on Yana playing cards waiting for Rianne and Sara. Hayley also joined us because she wasn’t drinking with her noisy bus. We were all so hungry but when they finally arrived with dinner at 8.30, we had a pizza each as a treat (apparently it was because they tried to book a stargazing experience but the company never go the booking and were then fully booked up, so the leaders wanted us to still have a good time watching the stars, so brought us pizza).

Although I ate my pizza on the truck because it was cold, I did go out afterwards to see the stars and try and get some decent photos on my camera – it took a while but I did get one.

After I got my photo, Lars was taking Yana back to the hostel with anyone that wanted to go back, so me, Katie, Jack, Joe, Char and a few from Amber went back with Lars – we didn’t want to stay and watch the rest of them drink and we had seen the stars, so thought we may as well go back and get ourselves organised.

Back at the hostel, we let everyone get off the truck, before me, Katie and Jack stayed on and redecorated her for Joe’s birthday – he was 70 the next day. We wanted to make an effort for him because we made one for Sabrina and it was a big milestone for Joe.

Once Yana was decorated, we walked back to the hostel and I got myself organised before going to bed. Just as I got into bed at about 11, the other truck came back, full of drunk and noisy people. Sabrina came into the room and was being a funny drunk telling me all about the antics of the night – I’m not sure they did much stargazing really. She then went back out to find a bar and I went to sleep ready for another border crossing the next day.

It was nice to pop into Chile and see the desert, but I don’t feel I saw the real Chile because San Pedro is quite touristic. I would have liked to have been able to see more of what Chile is really like, so maybe one day I will return but for now, it is time to head into Argentina.

To travel is to live, Katie x