Last Night In Chile

I guess I should start from the beginning. Having finished in Concepcion, I headed North 6hrs to Santiago to meet up with Elle, a friend from Cambridge. I spent Thursday and Friday catching up with her, Claudia, and Ellie, all from Cambridge. I also said goodbye to Paulo, a friend from Conce who I kayaked a lot with (you make remember him from my post about skiing on a volcano). To finish up in Santiago I had a last minute opportunity to go and listen to Diamela Eltit talking. I know I've bored most of you with her story already, for the uninitiated... She is an amazing experimental Chilean author who wrote subversive literature during the Chilean military dictatorship. My year abroad project centres around a translation of her work, 'Por la patria', and what problems arise during the act of translating such a subversive work that tries to give voice to the Chilean subaltern. Academic part over. Basically, Diamela has been really helpful in answering all my questions via email and I finally got the chance to meet her in person to thank her. She invited me to her house to dinner, but I couldn't as I had to catch a night bus almost straight away. If only I'd tried to organise a meeting sooner!!! So both disappointed and incredibly happy, I got on board a 6hr night bus to La Serena with Elle and her friend Lucy.

La Serena is a very peaceful town in the North of Chile. The plan was to spend the weekend exploring the town and the valleys around it, before the girls headed back to Santiago and I carried on my journey alone. We had a great time on Saturday going to the Pisco Mistral factory for a tour in Valle del Elqui, pisco being a famous Chilean licour. The tour ended with some free drinks which we drank whilst watching Netflix back at the hostel, not how I expected to spend the evening but I'm not complaining.

The famous Pisco vineyards

An unexpected end to the day, but relaxing nonetheless

Sunday was a bit of a mixed day. We had a look around the Japanese gardens, I know, weird right? Went to see an animal rescue sanctuary, and spent a while on the beach. I then said bye to the girls and buckled up for the next leg of my journey.

No clue where on earth they rescued this giant tortoise...

I headed North to Antofagasta on a 12hr night bus, sounds horrific but it actually wasn't that bad. Turns out there is absolutely nothing to do in Antofagasta, so I booked another 5hr bus to continue North and get to San Pedro de Atacama. I've not got a huge amount of time to cover the 7500km I need to cover to get to Colombia, so sorry Antofagasta but you didn't make the cut! San Pedro is a small settlement very close to the Bolivian border and it is in the world's driest desert. Jesus it's hot here...

San Pedro, sleepy and dusty

I arrived last night in time for a basic dinner and a good night's rest. Today I woke up early to explore the tiny town, everything was shut but as it turned 9 everybody started to wake up and the place started to liven up, I booked my tour to Uyuni, across the famous Bolivian salt flats which leaves early tomorrow morning and will see me cross the border into Bolivia and go through the salt flats over the following 3 days. I also booked a really cheap tour this afternoon to go and see the Valle de la Luna, the Moon Valley. This is honestly a breathtakingly stunning place, located in the Atacama salt flat only 10 minutes from the town. Our tour guide Mauricio was very entertaining and explained everything about the area.

Flashbacks to 127hrs anybody...?

We saw some of the amazing rock fomations, caverns and salt flats that the valley has to offer. The valley is supposed to be so similar to the surface of the moon and Mars that NASA brought their robots here to test them out! There are lots of lithium mines near the area, 70% of the world's supply is mined here, but all of them are tucked out of sight behind various mountain ranges. After exploring the park with our guide we headed up to the Coyote viewpoint to watch the sunset. It was a beautiful sunset with 360 degree views and the kind of tranquility you can only dream of in London. From the viewpoint I could see the mountain range that currently stands between me and Bolivia, as well as the Argentinian border. Tomorrow I head to Bolivia and will try to update you all on my progress before I leave there.