Valley of the Moon: San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

Well, here we are in Chile, after crossing the border from the middle of nowhere in Bolivia. What a difference an imaginary line in the dirt makes!! Checking out of Bolivia was high up in the mountain in a small delapitated shack with Playboy posters on the wall to entertain the men who see only 30 people passing through a day. Entering Chile however, we pulled onto some nice fresh pavement which we haven´t seen in a week or so, and the border gaurds wore actual uniforms and scanned our passports on a working computer!!! That was the first sign that we were now in a fully developed country who like to distance themselves from the surrounding 3rd-World nations. Everything seemed different here - the streets are clean and quiet, hotel rooms have hot water, people dress like the West, restaurants are expensive, and cars stop at traffic lights. For some reason it all suprised me. When you think South America you think jungles and under developed countries. But for some reason I tend to forget that some nations like Argentina and Chile were setteled in the same way as Canada - only by Spain rather than England. The towns here seem rather like Moncton, only with a Latin flavour.
The first town we came to however, was San Pedro, a small oasis town in the middle of the driest desert in the world, the Atacama. Our days were spent renting bikes and cruising around the desert and to a region known at the ¨Valley of the Moon¨. From the pics you can see why it´s called that - its barren, rocky, and looks like another planet. Watching the sunset and the full moon rising in sync over the distant volcanoes as the sun changed the sand and salt various shades of blue, purple, yellow and red was a great experience, despite the screaming group of about 30 Chilean schoolgirls.

After getting our share of desert landscapes and freezing cold nights (it´s been a month in the mountains now), we decided it was time to get to the coast to warm up. So off we went on a night bus to Iquique, a glitzy beach town famous casinos and duty free shopping popular with Chilean tourist and suprisingly devoid of foreign backpackers. Of course it´s the middle of winter here, so it´s not quite beach weather, but 20 degrees is a pleasant change. Some beach pics to come soon......