mandy: recipe San perdro da atacama: tourist trap inthe middle of a masive, oppressive, gigantic( beautiful) desert the way in: a eleven hour bus ride,only driven in the day time due to the winding roads the altitude : enough to make most people on the bus loose there lunch( thankfully none of us) the price: your sanity and part of one leg the escape route: a 4x4 trek through the most incredible landscape known to man preparation: go to the nearest town, an hour and a half away and get a visa into bolivia as only south african and uraguay citizens need visas!????
San pedro really was an incredible place. `the sand pitī as i now refer to it is completely built out of bricks made from grass and mud, quite similar to that of the rural areas in sa, but enter into any one of these structures and you feel like you are in a trendy cafe in parkhurst. the whole place is out of a story book.. just like a old western movie set. The restuarants are so enticing with their huge fire places and trendyness. We were caught only once.. paying more than double of any normal dinner out in sa. It was a great evening though spent with two irish girls ( caroline and kristine), maggie our english friend and a few cuba libras. The next morning we spent changing money( quite difficult as they wont accept any dollars that are to folded or torn in any tiny way) planning our 4x4 trip and preparing to go on an excursiones into the desert. it was a great excursion. we saw the site of a possible meteor landing, a masive dune, the sun set from the top of another massive duin in a place called lunar valley, saw three eroded rocks called maria( who are actualy two and a half now as some tourist tried to climb onto one and broke it in half)and crawled through a salt cave and watched the moon rise from another valley... we like to call this place happy valley, and howl at the moon . If it sound a little boring its because they seem to pick anything to show tourists, i guess the photos will say more. `And over here we have a rock that an inca warrior tripped over and said bloddy el , and this in why the bloody thing is red...`
The next day wayne and i set off to get my visa in the next town. Unlike any south african home affairs experience we arrived at the office got the visa and were out not more than aprox 7 whole minutes later! twas great as this meant time for a great cheap lunch and some shopping for the braai we planned for that evening. Wayne and i made the most incredible chicken in the coals ever been made in the history of chicken in tinfoil, in the coals... everyone was jealous so we shared will little enthusiam. no really it was excellent. we chatted with an english couple who had retired five years ago and have been travellig since. They had so many stories it was briliant.