Palegoldenrod

Poor old PGR, so neglected. Please prepare for a barrage of posts as I cover my adventures of the last two months

So, I spent a little over a week in San Pedro de Atacama while I waited for the Pachamama bus to return and take me back to Santiago.

So I stayed in San Pedro de Atacama from Thursday night, Saturday morning my group left on the tour and I moved with a friend to another hostel a bit closer to the centre of town and a bit warmer.

The next few days were quite relaxed… I walked around the town; I picked a direction and walked in the desert for a few hours; I found a book trader and a hammock in the sun and read; I went to the markets and the museum.

When my friend left for Bolivia I decided I would actually do something… I went to a tour office to arrange for a tour to the Geysers del Tatío, where I started chatting with a girl from Ireland named Grainne. We realised we were going to the same tour in the morning and that we were both travelling solo and got talking… we decided to go horse riding together too one day, and for dinner that night.

While I was relaxing that afternoon a strapping young Chilean man spotted me in the hammock and asked me if I could recommend any places to go. He introduced himself as Patricio (Pato) and he was visiting San Pedro for a week with his friend Rosemarie.

He and Rose joined Grainne and I for dinner - we all got along very well and had some fun. Over the next few days we hung out quite a bit together and were joined by others from Brasil, Turkey and the United States.

Grainne and I went to the Geysers del Tatío - a 4am start and -15ºC at the Geysers at sunrise, but beautiful. It was funny, on the way back you get to see cute llamas and then you stop in a village called Machuco and you get to eat them. Hahaha.

We also went horseriding in the Valle de la Muerte, again beautiful, though it was the first time I’d been on a horse in more than 10 years and I felt quite uncomfortable for the first hour. The saddles were also different to in Australia, and the horses were trained for single-handed control (I’ve no idea what the proper name for that is) which was weird to get used to.

Grainne, Rosemarie, Arturo, Pato and I decided to go for a walk to the Valle de la Meurte for some fun. We packed some water and a bit of food and trudged off into the middle of the desert. A combination of me being very unfit, walking on sand with bad knees, the heat and the altitude made for an easily exhausted Carly, so when Grainne and Pato (both marathon runners) decided to climb up the steepest part of the biggest sand dune in the valley, and Rose and Arturo decided they would clamber over the rocks nearby, I sat myself down in waved them on. It took them over an hour to scale the damn thing, and I could hear Pato repeatedly exclaiming “oh shit” as he and Grainne realised that they could no longer walk up the sand and needed to crawl the rest of the way… this was 1/3 of the way up.

But they finally made it and were (rightfully) very proud of themselves.

We also visited nearby Quitor, a ruin of a native village and fort which was the location of the first Spanish defeat in the area. There was a great feeling there, especially at the top with such a broad view across the valleys.

After all this I prepared to head back down to Santiago with Pachamama… (next installment)

As usual, more photos can be found on my Flickr Profile.