Chile & Hot

Hello All! Greetings from my new favorite town - San Pedro de Atacama! It`s great to be here relaxing after our 2.5 days on the Salt Flats of Uyuni.

The Salt Flats are amazing! They were once ocean floor, but years and years ago 2 tectonic plates collided, creating the Andes range, and trapping the ocean water in a lake. The lake eventually evaporated, forming the largest salt flat in the world. As per our guide, there are 64 billion tons of salt on the plains, which they use to produce salt for consumption as well as bricks for building. The very basic hotels we stayed in (limited power and running water) were made of salt!

Because of the unique landscape, there were opportunties to take lots of funny ¨perspective¨ pictures (see link above) - people sitting on people`s heads, people walking out of pringles cans, and my favorite...me eating my friend Ken on a spoon. :)

In between hours of being packed in Toyota Landcruisers, we made stops at lots of cool sites - Fish Island (where huge cacti grow), crazy rock formations, a red lake filled with thousands of flamingos, a green lake, geysers, natural hot springs. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous and very worth the dusty days of beating sun, no showers, and cold nights. When we woke up the last morning it was 12 degrees below zero! I could not feel my toes in the car (which I shouldn`t even have to say, but did not have heat :))

It was a wonderful adventure that led us across the border to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. Where the weather (and the men :)) are pretty darn hot. And Chile is a whole new world. As soon as we crossed the border, it was like time traveling. The buses were clean, there were seatbelts!, the drivers stop at stop signs (that NEVER happens in Ecuador, Peru or Bolivia - you`d get rearended!), the food quality is amazing...

It`s been the perfect spot for us to chill out. Two nights ago, we watched the Chile v Spain futbol game at a pub (they lost 3-0). The pitchers were flowing and soon our ¨low key night¨ turned into a crazy party at a secret house outside of town. The cops broke it up at 5am. There are actually laws here that all bars must close and no alcohol can be served after midnight. Oops :)

Yesterday we all struggled to recover from our fun. We went on a tour to the Valley of the Moon, which again was filled with fantastic landscapes. It really does look like the moon! We finished up the tour climbing to the top of a dune and watching the sunset cast red and purple colors across the mountain range. And it was great fun racing my friend Braden down the dune back to the bus (I won, just for the record :)). When we got back to the hotel, our guide had prepared a BBQ with lots of veggies, chorizo, and steaks for Braden`s birthday. It was really nice and very official with streamers, ballons, hats, masks, and Barbie napkins (an inside joke). We finished off the night with mojitos at a cool bar down the street that has an open roof and bonfires, where our guide played electronic music (cook AND DJ!).

Life is sweet!