LAST NIGHT I DREAMT OF A HEATER... SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA & EL TATIO GEYSERS

When she dreamt of San Pedro I don´t think Madonna dreamt about how cold it gets in the evenings! We were lulled into a false sense of security with the t-shirt weather with which we were greeted as we alighted the bus on the edge of the town.



We checked into a refridgerated cell once more as seems to be the standard for backpackers in Chile, the outside showers being a particular stroke of genius in the sometimes sub zero evening temperatures of the Atacama Desert.

When darkness fell we took refuge in one of the many (expensive) restaurants offering wine and food by the warmth of an open fire. This was cold like winter at home only I didn´t have my black shiny benetton puffa from last season´s winter range to keep me warm. We indulged ourselves with a few bottles of Chile´s finest, oh sorry did I say finest? I meant cheapest, wine before scraping the ice off our pillows and laying down our chilly heads.



Morning came and with it came warmth and positivity and we set about booking ourselves onto some excursions.

Valle de la Luna (the Valley of the Moon) is but a stones-throw away from San Pedro and was the unanimous choice for excursion number one. The Atacama Desert is the dryest place in the whole world and, although the guide only spoke spanish, we could see with our very own eyes that it was indeed very very dry and dusty and vast. I heard ye had a very dry june at home but believe it or not this was even dryer! The taste of desert dust was in our mouths as we drove further into the dryness. We stopped off en route to have a close look at some of the salt that forms on the rocks at a result of the dry air. If you listen you can even hear cracking and creaking in the rocks as the salt is forming. If only we had a plate of chips to go with it!





We got to Valle de la Luna as the sun was going down and we climbed to the top of the huge dunes to get a birds eye view. It looks just like the moon (hence the name) with it´s white rough surface and astronauts walking around (I made the astronauts bit up but you could imagine them here!). As the sun went lower and lower in the sky the entire landscape changed colour and then changed again and again til we were left with a hallucinatory barrage of colours that had us fighting over the camera. I didn´t know the sky could turn that many colours. I think we took about four million photos. Amazing!!









Excursion number two had us up not long past three in the morning. We layered on every stitch of clothing we had and left our cell looking not unlike three michelin men. Shephali´s eyelashes did look lovely and curled though, as they fluttered away in the little gap between her cap and scarf.

A couple of breakdowns on the way didn´t stop us getting to the El Tatio geysers, the highest geyser field in the world, before the sun rose. We arrived to a temperature of no less than minus fifteen, a temperature which I for one had never experienced before and again I found myself dreaming of warm coats. Nine top layers, two trousers, hats, scarves and a pair of fleece long johns were going to have to suffice this time.



The geysers put on a powerful display for us however, and made the cold alot more bearable as our digits became more and more numb. We walked and photographed til we were bluish-purple in colour. The sun came up just before frost bite set in and the temperature rose a few degrees as we tucked into our bread and cheese breakfast.

Next stop was the nearby thermal pools. While it was all very well in theory (I even packed my swim shorts), the actuality of the situation was that no natural wonder in the world could part us from our nine layers at that point so we stood aside and let it to a few of the braver youngsters in the group.







Lots of llamas, alpacas (like llamas except woolier) and vicunas (like a cross between llamas and deer) came out to congratulate us on our way home which was lovely. The Chilean landscape never fails to wow. The journey back to San Pedro was a cactus-spiked, icicle-hanging, stream-trickling, eagle-soaring, mountainous marvel of a drive and whatever cold faced us that evening in our refridgerated cell, we didn´t care!