Current location: San Pedro de Atacama, a small town in the Atacame Desert, the world´s highest and driest. Wednesday morning, I rented a bike and rode out into the desert. In about 20 minutes, I arrived at some more Incan ruins. I swear one of these days I will be finished with Inca ruins, but apparently that time has not yet arrived.
After about an hour, I hopped back on my bike. It wasn´t an easy ride; it was every so slightly uphill (only noticeable if you´re on a bike), at a high altitude, went through deep sand that was hard to peddle through, and despite being in a desert, crossed a few streams that I hesitantly navigated. It was also very bumpy. I stood up a lot to avoid a bruised bum, but to no avail. I´m very sore.
But the scenery was amazing. I stopped to take pictures, but limited myself because I knew they would all look the same in the end. The ride back was much easier, downhill, and this time I didn´t hesitate, I sped through the streams, spraying water all over myself.
In the afternoon and evening, I went on a sunset tour of the Moon Valley. We had a few stops first, including a viewpoint of Dead Valley (I don´t know if it´s supposed to be Death Valley, but all the guides translate it as Dead Valley, so I´m just going with it), which inspired an "oh, wow" moment upon first glimpse. The sunset was pretty great, turning the mountains red and purple.
I didn´t sleep really at all last night, mostly because I knew I had to be up at 3:30am for a 4am pick-up time for a tour. Plus, for awhile I seemed to be the only person staying at my hostel. I hate that. It makes you wonder what´s wrong with the place. There´s nothing wrong with the place, and the night before, it was practically full. I had 4 roommates, all Australian, one of which was a champion snorer. I heard my neighbors come home a bit later, so I didn´t feel so lonely.
Like I said, I had a 4am pick-up time to tour a geyser park. My hostel is outside of town, so I knew I would either be the first or last picked up. The power was out again (the whole town was without power the first 24 hours I was here. Then it came back, went out again, came back... You get the idea.) so I sat in the dark front room, reading with the aid of my trusty headlamp. Headlamp= best investment I´ve made on this trip. At 4:35, I was beginning to think they had forgotten about me, when the bus finally pulled up. I was the last one on.
The geysers are at 4220 m above sea level. We climbed and climbed on a horrible dirt road. If dozens and dozens of tour buses are climbing this road everyday, don´t you think it would be a good idea to pave it? Just a thought. On the way back, I noticed we weren´t even driving on a road most of the time. Just your basic tour bus off-roading, I guess. The guide had warned everyone about the altitude and even had oxygen on hand. Not for me, of course. I´ve lived in Cusco, climbed the Inca Trail, visited Lake Titicaca. I´m an altitude champ.
However, the cold knocked me flat. I knew it would be cold up there. -10C, in fact. I wore my thermals, along with every other piece of warm clothing I have. But the cold cut right through my thermals. If I´m completely honest, I was too cold to enjoy it. My toes were so cold they hurt, and my sole thoughts were concerned with when I could get back on the bus. I was, however, actually looking forward to a swim in the thermal pool. Even though I was freezing, and the last thing I wanted to do was put on a bathing suit and get wet, I just remembered back to the Blue Lagoon in Iceland, and how cool that was. You could even get into the Lagoon via the changing room, so you didn´t even have to run in order not to freeze. I wasn´t really expecting anything that fancy, but I was at least expecting a changing room, and there definitely wasn´t one. I didn´t feel much like changing into a bathing suit in front of all kinds of people, but I did want to warm my toes up. I took off my boots, socks, warm alpaca wool leg warmers, rolled up my pants and long underwear, and stuck my toes in the warm water. It was just what they needed.
When it was time to go back to the bus, I dried my feet off and reapplied all those layers. When I stood up, I was face-to-face with a bare bottom. Since the bare bottom was in my direct path back (and there was no other way around) I decided to wait for the bare bottom to dress. I can´t imagine a more awkward situation than saying "excuse me" to a bare bottom. Can you?
No comments:
Post a Comment