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Saturday, 06.04.2002: La Serena - Bush camp in the Atacama Desert
We had to get up at 5-30am. At 6-30am Prue started hurrying everyone up - some of us couldn´t even finish their breakfast - and we boarded the truck at 6-40am - 20 minutes earlier than the planned start! Prue made herself dick of the day because she thought it was already after 7am!
We continued north through great scenery, going up and down between mountains and then with mountains on our right and the sea on our left.
Great scenery along the coast of Chile
Our crew managed to find a scenic rubbish spot for our lunch stop!! It got very hot as we were heading for the Atacama desert where we would be bush camping for the night.
We are travelling parallel with the other Kumuka truck plus 2 other trucks (Bukima and SAS) so that we go over the difficult terrain into Bolivia and across the Salt flats together - safety in numbers. As the other Kumuka truck kept overtaking us there were various profane things going on - e.g. moonies and Brooke (tour leader from other Kumuka truck) kept showing her boobs, forgetting she'd stuffed all her money in there. So the locals got more than a handful!!!
Mooning
That night we had a camp fire as it gets very cold in the desert at night and Prue got in her head-shaving mood again and 4 of the new guys fell prey.
Sunday, 07.04.2002: Atacama bush camp - San Pedro de Atacama
Left at 6-50am and travelled through the desert to a large hand sticking up out of the sand that an artist had constructed and stopped again at 3pm at the tropic of Capricorn for more photos.
Visiting the Atacama hand
Spanish lessons and Valle de la Luna
We got to our campsite near San Pedro de Atacama at 5-10pm and quickly set up the tents before driving back out to the Valle de la Luna (valley of the moon), shapes in the rocks eroded by wind and weather. We had to climb the steep dunes to miss the sunset - we got there too late!
The campsite was the worst we had on our trip so far - the loos were disgusting because they don't flush and the shower (only one that worked and the campsite was full) was so cold you went numb! We were forced to use it as the next 3 days afterwards we would basically be bush camping with no chance of a shower.
Monday, 08.04.2002: San Pedro de Atacama
We had to try and find the hole in both our mats (flat as pancakes!). Fortunately there was a swimming pool at the campsite, which was being refilled that morning. The bad news was that both mats are leaking all along the seams and we used a full roll of Darrells tape trying to mend them.
At least we had a great day in San Pedro - wonderful little town to chill out in. At first sight it looks small, dusty and unimpressive. You look down a street and think there is absolutely nothing there until you actually walk down and find shops, small supermarkets and souvenir shops. We are so used to neon signs hanging everywhere so when there are none it seems as if there is nothing there! Great way to stop spoiling the natural beauty by tourism.
After getting our exit stamps at the border post many of us went into the museum. There were quite a few reconstructed mummies in there. Some said it was worth paying the entrance fee just to go to the clean loo!
We also found a super restaurant (Adobe) - the chocolate milkshakes are well worth flying over for!
That night one of the new people (Lisa) had her 30th birthday and Prue managed to get an ice cream birthday cake in the middle of the desert!
