June 2008

After a long bus ride and another ohmygodcanbordercrossingsgetanymoreexhausting Chilean border crossing we arrived in sunny San Pedro de Atacama. This place was somewhat of a nice suprise: this is a really small and cute town of low adobe houses and sandy streets. The feeling is really laid back and there are lots of small bars and restaurants where we can once again indulge in great food and wine. On top of that there is a sports bar where we can watch the football championships, which is, believe it or not, owned by a Finnish guy. This is the perfect place to relax before heading out to the saline lake of Uyuni in Bolvia.

When moving a little bit outside from the town you can really see how this tiny place is a small oasis in the surrounding dessert. The town is surrounded by barren landscapes of sand and mountains. How cool this place is. And how isolated you feel here with just what seems like quiet emptiness around you.

Well this is a midsummer we won’t forget for a while. We made two unforgettable trips while our stay here. The first was to Quebrada del Diablo (Devil’s gorge) a few kilometres out from town: a truly astounding place. We have never seen landscape like that! There were huge sand dunes that were surrounded by weirdly shaped mountains of different red colours and sizes. Some people had taken boards with them and were sandboarding down the huge dunes that took an eternity and an immense willpower to climb up upon.

For the second trip we continued our bicycle adventures by biking to Valle de la Luna (Moonvalley), which was an even more astonishing place than the previous one. It took an hours’ ride and the ascending of a giant mountain before we landed on the moon: