reluctant traveller

The Uyuni trip ended around 10 AM this (11th) morning. Everybody else was making the 8 hour journey straight back to Uyuni while Chinni and I took the transfer bus to San Pedro (2 hours away).

San Pedro is exploding with tourists (Chileans and non chileans), no taxis or public transport (its too tiny for anything) but looked like renting bikes was very popular here, everything is expensive with not enough nice places to stay and the food all italian or french or something stupid like that. Super hot during the day and didnt look like any place here had air conditioning or fans... so everybodys out sitting under a tree on the street or in their hostel patios. The whole place has this mud and hay village feel to it. I think the guide books describe it as Spanish-India. bah. Atacama means desert in Spanish and San Pedro is one of the driest deserts in the world (according to a Chilean kid i went sandboarding with). I think most tourists come here to check out the weird and beautiful desert landscape but we got plenty over the last couple of days. Plus I didnt like anything about San Pedro. So we got tickets to Santiago leaving the next morning (expensive at $80).

But we did take a sandboarding trip ($30 ish) this evening which was really fun. You can just rent a sandboard instead if you have done it before. I was being my lazy self and went only a few times (walking up the sand dune before boarding down was too much effort) and fell down all times. I had more fun just sitting on it and going down. But Chinni was at it like a pro within a few times. But just being up there on a dune with very crazy wind was fun enough for me.

Tomorrow we board the bus to Santiago which really Santiago a whole day later. I dont think I have ever been on a bus that long and am curious to see how it goes.

p.s. chilean currency is weid. they dont have a concept of 100 smaller parts (like cents) making the basic unit. so all the currency is in large denominations. So food is 3000 pesos and room is 32000 pesos etc. i´ll prolly be out of the country before i get a feel for it. 1 USD=460 chilean pesos