Chile Part 1: San Pedro de Atacama and Iquique

Hmm San Pedro de Atacama is a small desert oasis. Its one of those ultra touristy places that is still cool (like Banos and Monteverde). Very adobe. Kind of like a tiny Santa Fe without the nightlife and Santa Fe does not even have great nightlife. San Pedro however is dead. Really dead. I waited for Enzo and Rene in the main square. They only have two ATMs in town and one does not take visa so I had to trek out to the edge of town (All 200m) to uee the other one. One of the locals called me gringo. Oh well. Nevermind. I knew immediately that Chile was going to be better than Bolivia. We took a tour out to Valle de Luna as we did not have much time. The guys had to be in Peru for new year so we would move fast. The tour is actually pretty cool. We walked through the Valley of Death (which is like a mini Death Valley). Comparing the hottest to the driest place is to say they are similar. Atacama is probably prettier though. We went to some salt mines and saw some statues. Then we left the vehicles and went hiking along a ridge line to get sunset. Really cool. Was very impressive. Huge sand dunes had piled up amongst the mountains and the view from the top was spectacular as the colours changed with the ever fading light. Well worth the visit. Got blasted by the sun again and would do the following day as well. Need new skin. Came back to San Pedro and it was dead. Went to the square and played with some dogs. They were too hungry though and tried to eat my arms. Mental. Enzo went to sleep as the place was dead. Rene and I went wandering and were told there was a festival in the desert that night. Chatted with some local girls and they weren't going but said there weren't many people in town. I thought they meant locals for christmas as it was the 23rd, but they must have meant foreigners. This party is just for foreigners and a bit shit. We took a jeep out into the desert and they had a sound system and drinks. Don't know if drinks are expensive as I don't drink. Latin America and noone was dancing. Damn foreigners lol. It was a total sausage fest. Met some cool Belgian dudes and spent most of the night chatting with them. Was a bit of a waste of time. Asked one local woman where the locals were and she said they were boring and she preferred Germans and did we want some weed. Nope not really thanks and after that boring party and having visited a Chilean nightclubn here in Iquique, I would say its the foreigners who are dull. There was even an English guy who had lived in Lima for 5 months and did not speak Spanish. How the fuck is that even possible. You have to try to achieve that. There were the 3 Charlie Chaplins as well. Locals who were always hanging together, but never actually said a word all night long.

We grabbed breakfast and I got my change from the hotel as they had not had any the night before. Then we went to Calama. Being christmas eve it was not possible to tour the copper mines which was a shame. Damn christmas lol. So we decided to go straight to Iquique. The eggs from breakfast came back to haunt me. Slept a lot on the buses. The hostel was full so they sent us to another place. That had a dead rat on the doorstep so we opted for another place just across from Beach Hostel. Its not really open yet and has no sign but is cheap enough. We took the cheap room with no deep mattresses, no private bathroom and no tv. The owner said we were soldiers. Hardly. Just not pampered pussies. Iquique is a really pretty city on the Pacific coast with the cliffs overlooking the town. I like it here. Could live here for a bit. I love the ocean and never lived anywhere with it. Suppose that will change with BA sortof. They have a clock tower in the middle of the town and a Georgian promenade with old wooden trams that sadly aren't running anymore. We went walking around and met some tramps on the beach. We thought they were travellers, but they weren't. Had a fun time with them for a bit. Rene and Enzo always take loads of video diaries of their trips, which is cool as its like having a mini film. There were a bunch of people using the gym on the beach at midnight. Why they weren't with their families I don't know. The whole town was dead though, because the 24th is christmas here. Shame. We would never actually get to sample Chilean nightlife together. We ended up with rogue dog companions and eventually settled into a bar on the waterfront and got chatting with the barmaids. Noone showed up though and Enzo ended up paying $7 for an orange juice. This is not a cheap country. Really cool place though. In three days I have already done more interesting things than two weeks in Bolivia. Though admittedly I missed most of the famous tours there. Two consecutive dead nights. They also use European plug sockets in Chile. I think it is because in reality Chile is more European than South American. They can dance electronica, they use European plugs, apparently everyone is loyal and they like spicey food. They break all the stereotypes for this continent.

CHRISTMAS DAY. Well for the English anyway. The guys went and bought their bus tickets to leave at 2.30am. Not sure why they wanted to leave at that ungodly hour for the frontier. Then again I have an overnighter to Antofagasta tonight. Expensive the buses here. Well its expensive for everything so I won't mention that again. Its like Brazil. A taxi driver offered to take us to Humberstone for 40,000 Pesos ($75) with a wait of one hour. Ridiculous. You can get a bus for 2,000 each way from the market and we stayed there 4 hours so you need time. We got to the bus station at 10.55am and the last bus that day was 11am. The guys still needed to check out so they ran back to complete that while I stalled the bus. They came running back just in time and we set off for about a 45 minute journey. Humberstone is a UNESCO ghost town that used to be a nitrate mining community and is the ultimate children's playground. Awesome place as well. I had been to mining ghost towns in the States with about 10 buildings etc. This place must have had about 200, a swimming pool, basketball court, hotel and theatre. All deserted and all ready to be explored. We found one building with Rene 1986 on it, which is Rene's date of birth. We joked it was his house and where was the key. The dentist's house had Brazil scrawled on it so it must have been his relatives. You clan clamber around the pool and climb the old water tanks, fart about on the trains and we even filmed and Irish dancing performance in the theatre. There is so much to explor. Then at the far end is the actual smelting factory and all of the workplaces for the town. Rusting trains, heavy duty machinery and rusting corregated iron. This place is worth a visit. Santa Laura, the other location, is sort of more of the same, but the rolling wooden plant is great to descend into. There are much more interesting things to see in Chile than most of the other countries seemingly and I did not even have enough time to visit Pica here. We were knackered after 4 hours out there in the desert and we could not grab a ift back. After an hour we stopped a taxi and we managed to get the ride for 6,000 pesos in total. Nice. Same as the bus. We were sitting in a cafe when we bumped into some hostel owners whop invited us to a fiesta. Met two groups of French people that day who thought it was weird that I spoke Spanish when I am English lol. Its getting pretty good now. Can live in just Spanish easily. My face looked like gothic make up after the burns. I saw the guys to the bus station and then nearly shit myself walking home. Grabbed my mp3 player and went for an hour long walk on the beach. Good times.

I woke up at 1.30pm as I don't have an alarm and have no concept of time. Missed the Spurs game, but we got a decent 0-0 draw away to Fulham. Villa lost to Arsenal, but Liverpool and Man City won. Need to beat West Ham tomorrow. I finally bought some long needed socks and then met Rocio in the afternoon for drinks. I was going to go to Arica to meet the girls I had met in Arequipa, but had no solid contact details so did not go in the end. We went for a walk along the coast and got really good seafood empanadas. Not sure which seafood, but a type of shellfish. Maybe conch. We saw the caimans and they had a show of sealions for free. Then we went to her house and met her friends. They leave for clubs at about 1am in Chile as everyone drinks in the clubs, so not anticipating finding many great bars in town. There are some stunning girls in this town and everyone dances to electronica and can dance to electronica. Night life was thumping. We went to a club and one of the girls managed to get me in for free, which was nice as entrance was $10. I don't drink so I paid nothing in the end. Chileans tend to dance in lines facing each other, which is a little odd, but groups of guys go in search of groups of girls with the same number of people. I ended up pulling Rocio's friend Paula and we had a fun time dancing. Was great to be in a place with good music again. Also I was at ground level. After so much time in the mountains my energy levelw as immense and the dancing not even remotely tiring. I can see how athletes have advantages with this. I came back in the car listening to Snoop and Dre (so different to other countries here). I then went for another walk by the sea. I love the coast, just not enamoured by beaches. Chile looks like it will have banging nightlife and should be awesome. Even the French were telling me how great the fish sandwiches are in Coquimbo. Will have to eat one. French recommendations for food with praise are rare praise indeed from the master culinary nation.

Today I got up and Rocio was busy. Was going to go to Pica but did not have enough time. I went walking down the coast and then bought mu bus ticket. Decided to catch up on my writing while I waited for the bus. Went walking down to the duty free zone in the north. So many pretty, multicoloured buildings. It realy is a nice town. They pay reasonably well for teaching as well. Maybe I will come and live in Chile at some point. Really liking this country already and so much still to see. Oh well. Lets get this bus and start off on the long journey south. Will finally catch up with Lucciana.