Ah Bolivia it was short but very sweet and now it was time to jump over the border and cross into Chile for the next part of our South American adventure.
The border crossing was arranged with the Salt Flat tour, which was handy as it was a hut in the middle of a cold windy desert that I doubt we could have crossed alone! They charged us 15 bolivianos each (around £3) and stamped us out before we took a bus for an hour on deserted rocky roads to the Chilean border.
There we had to have our bags x-rayed, forms filled out and fruit chucked away but they didn’t charge us a fee. A matter of minutes later (nothing like the Peru - Bolivia border crossing drama!) we had arrived at our first stop in Chile – San Pedro de Atacama, a pretty small town slap bang in the desert.
It is quite a pricey town so we could only afford to stay one night and first on the agenda were hot showers and a cold beer after roughing it for the past few days. I have never camped at a festival for a weekend but I imagine it is the same joyous feeling of cleaning the grime off afterwards! Plus I didn’t realise how much I take loo roll, toilet seats and running water for granted. I will never look at a roll of Kleenex in the same way again.
We changed our bolivianos for Chilean pesos (everything is in thousands!), had food and relaxed before booking a flight to Santiago for the next morning (at the most deserted airport I have ever experienced) as the bus would take 24 hours which is just a little out of our comfort zone. For the first time on this trip since Rio we were able to wear shorts and t-shirt as it is so warm and boy it feels good, although I did cringe at how pale and pasty my legs are after being wrapped up for so long. Here’s hoping a nice tan starts to develop!
