Touch-Down in San Pedro de Atacama
2 December 2005 (Friday) – Laguna Colorado, Bolivia to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile
We got up even earlier today – at the ungodly hour of 3:30am to head off at 4am. What is the hurry, really? Well, our guide explained that we had to get to the border at 10am in order to meet a van which would transport us to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. OOOOOOOK…
Freezing cold at this altitude and at this hour!! Brrrrr… We wrapped ourselves in layers and sleepily climbed onboard. After 2 hours of more deserts and distant dry mountains, we came upon the geysers, just waking up as well. The geysers were spouting some really warm vapours. Nice to put our hands above them. Some of the holes had grey bubbling mud. I peered into one, the mud were trashing around noisily at the bottom. At the far end, out from a gigantic hole, spurts of mud were thrown out. It was as if someone was in there, like an alien, making disgusting gurgling sounds and throwing mud out of the hole in jest. It was magic! Just as last evening near Laguna Colorado when we felt as if we were walking in Mars or on the moon, this scenery again felt terribly out-of-this-world.
Little Jaillo, our adorable companion, came out to look at the flying mud with his father, our driver-guide. He just stood there, with his impish grin, giggling away in surprise. Everyone around him just fell in love with him. I could not resist and had already gone up a few times to pinch his full cheeks, repeating, “¡Como te quiero… como te quiero!” (How I love you… how I love you!), to which, he just giggled back in delight. Ah…
This section was around 4,800m above sea level. The highest for the journey before we started to descend down the plateau.
We went on to Agua Termales where we stopped for our breakfast. Some guys from the other jeeps stripped to their boxers and climbed into the tiny thermal baths. The water was really nice and warm, some areas were so clear and bubbly. Lovely. But without a towel at hand, forget about jumping in for us.
Our final viewing spot was Laguna Verde, a lake famed for its greenness. Unfortunately, the greenness, according to my guide, was created by wind that blows and agitates the water, thereby bringing up the green minerals. Well, now, there was absolutely no wind at all. In fact, as I gazed at the lake, which actually looked really lovely as well with its crystal-clear reflection, I kept very silent and heard the ringing sound of silence. Absolutely no wind. Absolutely no sound. Incredible!
We reached the Bolivian border, tipped our very nice driver and his wife a lot of money and a lot of remaining boliviano change and took the van to San Pedro. We had to fill out the immigration and customs form. On the customs form, we had to declare ‘Sí’ if we carried any form of food, plant or animal products. I was SO carrying coca tea-bags. In order to draw their attention a-w-a-y from them, heheh… I declared ‘Sí’.
At the Chilean border, famed for opening up every piece of luggage and searching through the items, I showed them my declared bottle of soya sauce, bag of pepper, cooking oil (my goodness, I had been carrying them since Olinda, Brazil!) and wooden chopsticks from Thailand (souvenirs for my Hospitality Club hosts) and they glanced at everything with disinterest and waved me away. Great!!
Gosh, descending suddenly from 4,800m into San Pedro de Atacama, Chile at around 2,800m, is not only a shock to the body system – it was now terribly hot in comparison… it was also a shock to our pockets!!
I paid for my hostel, had lunch at a local restaurant (not even a tourist one!) and then relaxed at the hammock, chatting with Monica from Poland and Mark from Wales. The hostel guys had earlier come to persuade us to join in for the hostel’s barbecue. It cost about the same price as or even lower than those ripped-off gringo restaurants around town, oh well, so we agreed. By around 6, 7pm, I did a mental sum – gosh, by just existing today, I had already spent more than US$20 today! US$8 for the hostel, US$3 for lunch, US$6 for the promised barbecue, US$2 for yummy ice-cream and US$2 for internet. Ouch!
San Pedro is pure GRINGO town (capital G-R-I-N-G-O!). In fact, I was to learn later that it is the most expensive town in Chile and Chile is the most expensive country in South America! Like Uyuni, the town existed for tourism. But unlike Bolivia, the prices here are so so so high. Argh, it was a pain to spend money on anything. For the essentials like toilet paper, blah… what can I do? I saw the same souvenirs for sale here in the Mercado Artesania. The same rubbish I saw in Bolivia was priced at US$2 there, but here, it was US$6. My alpaca sweater, bought in La Paz, costs US$6… gosh, the same thing was US$20 here.
Well, another country now, time to get used to it.
Tags: 10) It's Chile Here, San Pedro de Atacama
swesn