After 24 gruelling hours on the bus from Santiago we finally arrived at San Pedro de Atacama. My first impression was it reminded me of a what I would expect a Mexican small town to look like from the western movies i watched as a kid. The houses all looked like they were made from mud and bricks and were an orange colour, whilst others were whitewashed. I expected cactus to be growing and tumbleweed rolling through with some gun slinging mexican bandits milling around for good measure!! The only thing which took away this image was the huge snow capped mountains looming in the background! That I did not expect in the driest desert in the world!!!
We checked into hostel Rural where we were staying for the first night at least, as we have decided to do 2 nights here now, and they are full for the second night so we will have to find somewhere else. We then went for a wander around the town, which did not take very long as it is so small. We had lunch and then needed to find a doctor to check Nicola's abcess to make sure it was healing well and get the dressing changed. After that I was getting tired from the journey and went for a sleep while Nicola checked out the tours for our 3 day trip to Uyuni. I just wanted to do the horse riding in the desert so booked that up for the following day later in the evening, along with our Uyuni trip. We then had dinner and an early night.
The following day Nicola was up bright and early at 4am to do a tour of the geysers, while I stayed in bed and enjoyed a lie in until I needed to check out at 11am. I then met up with Lucy, my friend I met in Buenos Aires, and we went to add her and a friend to the horse riding tour for the afternoon. I then had to find a hostel, which was not easy as most of them were booked up as this is such a small town. It is also a very expensive town and eventually I found us a room for $40!!! The only saving grace was it was better then the last place and had a great shower, which is a luxury here. Nicola came back from the tour at 12.30pm and we moved our stuff across and went for a bite to eat with Lucy, then went to the hostel for a sleep as we were all still tired. I think it is the altitude as we are now at 2300 metres!!!
I woke at 3.30 and rushed to find lucy and her friend to meet up for the riding. We were given chaps to wear which was nice as my legs were still sore from my last ride, our horses were paired off with us and we were off. Jessica our guide is from France and has been working here for a year doing the riding tours. There is just the three of us and another couple from Argentina. We selected the 3 hour ride into Death Valley and I hoped to have some fun on this ride as we were promised some speed!! My horse was great and a bit feisty, he did not want to walk and just jog trotted everywhere, he was so much fun! We then went for our first canter, he leaps into action and we were off!! Later as we went for a gallop in the desert, I found out he has a tendency to get over excited and was doing a bronco across the sand. Now I know why she told me to hold him!! Despite that we did have fun and he was so good natured. After a break we started back towards home and the lady from Argentina had a horse that decided it wanted to roll while she was on it!!! She managed to move out the way in time so she did not end up getting buried alive in the sand!!! Then our Kiwi friend's horse started to get over excited too and wanted to run off so the guide had to canter it round until all its energy was spent….antics over, we eventually arrived back sore and exhausted and ready for a shower and dinner!
The next morning we were up bright and early for our 3 day jaunt across the deserts and border to Bolivia!!!
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