Welcome to the desert

This post is long overdue, but better late than never, right? Right.

After arriving in Salta, we purchased bus tickets on to Chile. We were headed for the driest desert in the world: San Pedro de Atacama. The first obstacle was to find the bus ticket kiosk and find out when the next bus would leave as they operate 3 times a week. This really was not as difficult as all of the forums had stated and we were lucky enough to catch the bus on its last trip over to Chile for the week. We got our tickets with Gemini bus lines (Pullman was closed and I heard they weren’t as good – oh the world of buses) and in no time we were headed on a 13 hour bus trip (day time!) through the Andes, reaching altitudes higher than those in Lhasa. This was the most spectacular bus ride we had ever taken. The bus passengers were primarily tourists like us, with only a few locals on board. The bus company even served us a little lunch on board with the best mini alfajores. Alfajores with a side of amazing scenery = one bad ass bus ride.





We passed the 3rd largest salt flats in the world, the Salinas Grandes, before leaving the Argentine side. After about 8 hours of climbing and switch back turns through the Andes, we reached Argentina’s border control, Jama Pass or Paso de Jama, with Chile. At a little over 5,000 meters up, it was the highest point in altitude we had passed through thus far. We waited about 45 minutes at customs. Luckily we chewed our coca leaves the day before and we were feeling great. Others were not so lucky – several people in our group took off for the First Aid room inside customs and took the oxygen that was on offer. I was pretty pumped up and excited until I saw my face in the bathroom mirror. It was bright red. Apparently the altitude was having some sort of effect, but I wasn’t going to let it bring me down! By the time we loaded back up into the bus and took off for the next border crossing, neither one of us was feeling too hot. We were anxious to descend a little. So much for those coca leaves. 

 

We bused on for another 4 or 5 hours, passing out-of-this world scenery, the largest cacti we had ever seen, some llamas and random buildings in the middle of nowhere. We both had a headache, mine considerably worse, and were ready for some water and a rest.


 
 



Our bus rolled up on the most aesthetically unappealing town I have ever seen outside of Egypt. I was thankful this was just another border control station and not our final destination. It was literally in the middle of nowhere and all of the buildings were metal shacks like in Khayelitsha. After going through yet another border control and customs where our bags were searched (good thing we didn’t bring the coca leaves with us), we hopped back on the bus. We thought there was about one hour to go until we reached San Pedro. We were wrong. The bus driver said that he would drive another 5 minutes and we would be home sweet home. He dropped us off outside of the town, at an unmarked location, and we followed a group who looked like they knew what they were doing. The town of San Pedro (2,500 meters up) looks like a town out of an old Western movie. It was pretty cool and very, very hot.

A local herding some sheep down the road 

We took the main road through the little town and found our hostel for the night at the end of aforementioned road. We paid $60USD for a room with: 3 single beds, outdoor showers without hot water and outdoor bathrooms. We lathered on some SPF and headed out to find a different spot to crash the following night and an ATM.



-a