Eating at local kiosks to aleviate the money seperation anxiety at San Pedro Atacama.
Top of Paso de Jamo
Chile

21 April 2006
Iquique
5) Chile
Day 34
Distance 5200km

Ouch! Chile is giving me money seperation anxiety attacks. It sure is not cheap on this side of the border.
San Pedro Atacama was a good bit of Fun. It is primarily a tourist village and is a very basic desert outpost with a good community feel to it.
The major attraction is the hot water geysers about 60km North into the mountains. It is beautiful and impressive to see the steam blasting out of the ground. We left San Pedro at 4am to see them at sunrise which was amazing. Later in the day I took a ride out to the Vale de la Luna ( Valley of the moon). It is equally amazing with a variety of rugged mountains and dunes in colours ranging from white, reds to dark greys. It is similar to Sossuesvlei in Namibia.
The evening was spent over a few beers talking to a medical proffessor who has travelled and still works all over the world and an Englishman who is also enjoying doing the midlife crisis thing. He sold everything and left London in Dec 2004. He has travelled through Most of Africa and now is doing the Americas. We had many stories to exchange and equally agreed that most countries around the world are great places.

600km later I am now at Iquique on the Pacific coast in Northern Chile. I was really excited to see the Pacific ocean. It was a kind of highlight to have ridden this little pony across South America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Adios
Ricky
P.S. Surfies.
This is the surf spot of Chile and the waves look good. Today they are pumping a good 8ft.