With my mind still in Isla del Sol, it was time for me to work again so I needed to get to Lima. Although I stopped in Puno in the Hotel Embajador and Cusco to spend a night, I didn’t stay to see the things there are to see. After my work block I will come back with more time to see the Machu Picchu and other things. From Cusco to Lima I took a regular bus and it was 22 hours, the longest I spent in a bus so far and it wasn’t much fun. Now I am in Lima and about to start my work. Stay tuned for more.

On my way to Peru I made a stop just short off the border in Copacabana on the Titicaca Lake. It’s a very touristy place. There I was told that I should go visit Isla del Sol. I spent the night in Sucre Residencial, a very cheap but still comfortable place. Then the next morning I took one of the boats leaving for the island. It’s about a 2 hour trip. First we visited another small island, Isla de la Luna with some Inca ruins. When we got to the shore on Isla del Sol, some travelers that took all their luggage with them didn’t like the sight. The town was up on the hill, maybe 200m straight up. Since I left my big bag in Copacabana I got there fairly quickly. A small boy brought me to Hostal los Lagos I think it was called. It was a little bit more expensive then on the mainland but it had an incredible view over the lake and the mountains on the other side. I left the Hostal to take a walk. It had been probably more then an hour but there where still people coming up the hill with their heavy back bags. The town is probably around 4000m over sea level and just walking up with my small bag made me breathe a lot. The walk was amazing; there are no cars or motors on the island. It felt like another time, donkeys are the only means for the locals to transport heavier items. The views over the lake are amazing; you can almost feel the spirit of the ancient Incas that used to live here. I liked it so much that I decided to stay another day. I started in the morning and walked to the other end of the island where you can see some Inca ruins. It’s about a 3 hours walk one way. On my way back I decided to leave the path and make my own way through the island crossing to a part where there are no paths. I climbed a couple of peaks and then arrived at the foot of another one. The sun was already pretty low but I wanted to go up this last one as well. Here there were no paths at all and it wasn’t an easy walk. I didn’t have much time on the top so I headed back down. It was equally hard as going up, no path and lots of plants and rocks. Finally I managed to reach the town just about when the sun went down. On the whole Island you can find mint, I like the smell, so I brought a whole bundle back to the hotel. I was really tired, I ate something and then went to bed. The next morning I took a boat back to Copacabana. I got my other bag and then boarded a bus to Puno in Peru.

Before moving on I signed up for a bike ride down the “death road”, supposedly one of the most dangerous roads in the world. I don’t give much to such names since everybody is claiming everything. Ok, the road is pretty scary at times and you have to be alert all the time, otherwise you go flying. I am sure there are more accidents than on other streets, but it’s nothing to be afraid of. I wanted to do it for the sole fact that the ride starts at an altitude of 4600 meters and you go down 3500 meters in about 4 to 5 hours and get to experience the change in climate and vegetation. You start very early in the morning at the top where it is freezing cold and you can see mountains with snow. Once you reach the bottom you find yourself in tropical rainforest with high temperatures. I didn’t think it would be too exhausting just going down, but at the end I felt pretty tired because half of the road is not paved and pretty bumpy, you have to hold on to your bike pretty good and you have to hit the brakes for 4 hours which at the end makes your hands hurt a bit. Still you don’t have to be a hardcore downhill biker or top athlete to do it. Actually the street was full of tour groups, there must have been around 150 people coming down that road on bike and that probably every day. There are some short climbs but if you don’t feel like doing them, then they take you up there in the mini bus. The unpaved road is one lane only, so there are many posts equipped with flags that signal you if someone is coming up and you have to wait. If you go by car then you have to know that you drive on the left side of the road when crossing other vehicles. Some trucks can not stop on certain climbs, so all the vehicles coming up have priority. Once we reached to bottom they took us to the hotel Esmeralda, a nice little Hotel in Coroico. There we were able to shower, eat lunch and enjoy the fantastic view. The town seemed very nice and it would probably have been nice to stay there a day, but I went back to La Paz in the evening. The ride up with the small bus was scarier then coming down by bike. With the bike you can stay in the middle of the road and have some space available for error. With the car you are always only a meter or less away from the abyss and there is no room for mistakes. Although I found the tour a little expensive I still think it is worth doing. The equipment seemed ok, the shower and all meals are included, and even the dust mask which is certainly useful when street is very dry. Most importantly, the views are fascinating.

La Paz on 3800 meters over sea level and the altiplano are really something worth seeing. I didn’t expect to see so many tourists here; especially the Israelis seem to like the place. So far it’s the only city I encountered where traditional culture is still part in everyday’s life. Of course I have seen other places where people were wearing traditional cloths but it has always been for the tourists. Here it is no show, it’s real and as common as trains in Switzerland, you see it everywhere. I had the impression that these people are quite impatient and hectic at times, nothing extreme, but enough to note. Another thing that caught my eyes here are the shoe cleaners in the street. At first I though Colombian guerrilla fighters have come to La Paz for holidays because most of them wear camouflage and cover their faces entirely with dark sky masks or other things. Fortunately they are friendly and they probably cover themselves that way because of the strong sun and the terrible pollution close to the streets. At first La Paz makes you feel uncomfortable because it is quite chaotic but once you get used to it it’s nice to walk around. Every thing is very cheap here. I went to buy peanuts with sugar crust, I thought 10 bolivianos (a little more then a dollar at the time) would get me a good bag to eat at once. She started shoveling more and more and I ended up with probably 1 or 1.5 kg of peanuts. I wonder when I am going to eat all this. There are many different kinds of nuts that you can buy and they sell a lot of popcorn like things, they are a lot bigger though and I have no idea what they are made of, but you certainly have to try them. Equally cheap are the DVDs and CDs, I bought some of the latest releases and to my surprise the quality was quite good. If you have a CD player or a Laptop then you won’t get bored here even when your hotel doesn’t have a TV. Of course I don’t have to mention all the cheap cloths that you can find here. Speaking of computers, I was surprised to find over 20 WiFi hotspots when I turned on mine, unfortunately none of them was open for everybody’s use, but still a record so far.
Every where I go I find local music that I like. Especially here in Bolivia I fell in love with the Bolivian instrumental music, mostly because of the panpipes and flutes, I love that sound and rhythm. I have to find some more CDs before I leave.

Again there were only night busses leaving from Uyuni back to La Paz. I didn’t like that at all because I would have liked to see more of the Bolivian altiplano and I am sure it would have been a very nice trip. After coming back from the trip in the salar I still had time to pack my stuff and so I took the last seat available in a bus that would take me to La Paz. Arriving at the terminal I was happy to see it open and quite busy, which meant that more companies were operating again. The first thing I had to do was to get my cloths into the laundry and look for a camera. Here and in most cities in Latin America stores are usually grouped together, so if you are looking for a camera then you can search the whole city without finding much because all the stores that sell cameras or computers are concentrated on one street. There you find dozens of stores selling the same thing for the same price. I really never quite understood the logic of that but it just seems the way things are done here. After some walking I found out that here there are two streets and after some more walking I found the streets themselves and surely there seemed to bee hundreds of little stores selling electronic devices of all kinds. I really wasn’t very happy about buying a camera here, who knows where these cameras came from, some appeared to be stolen since they didn’t even come with their original package, others tried to sell me the exhibition exemplar itself which I didn’t like either. After a few hours of walking and checking I finally found a store that made a half way respectable impression on me and had the camera I wanted for a good price. I got the original package with all the stuff except the warranty. I can kind of guess why they kept the warranty and I probably wouldn’t have gotten it in any other store. I checked the camera and it seemed to work so I took my chances and bought the camera. My old camera was a Nikon Coolpix 2200 and I really, really liked that camera. Now I have the successor the 4600 and I hope I will be equally satisfied with it. My old camera just took so nice pictures; I really hope this one does too.

(Photo kindly provided by Marcel Hurni)
In Uyuni I found a good place to stay Hostal Tati-Laura, it was very cheap and the only negative was that there is no heating. But unless you are willing to spend a lot more then you probably have to live with that. I signed up for a one day trip to visit the salar, took a walk around town and then went to sleep. It’s certainly a tougher life on the altiplano, even for travelers. In the morning I checked the thermometer on my alarm clock and it showed a mere 5 degrees Celsius. That was pretty cold since I didn’t have a lot to cover me during the night and I was surprised that I didn’t get sick. Taking a shower with these room temperatures is not much more pleasant, the electrical heating has little chance to heat up the freezing cold water enough and you have to run it with very little water, almost dripping which again makes you feel the freezing cold air around you. Since I would have had to ask in the reception for them to put the switch for the electricity in the shower and I already had the same torture the day before in Potosi, I decided I could live one day without a shower.
I really wasn’t too exited to visit the salt lake. I thought what could be so special about a big field of salt. My opinion changed quickly. Of course it’s just salt but there is a special and unique feeling to it, hard to describe. First we visited a place where the locals were taking the salt for processing. Like in the mines it was all manpower, the trucks for transport were the only machines to be seen. Then we went on to a hotel that is pretty much entirely made of salt. Heading about an hour deeper into the lake we reached a small Island, Isla Pescado. Climbing up there revealed beautiful views of the salar and the mountains in the background. The island was covered with cactus up to 12 meters high. It felt really like on an island somewhere on the ocean, only that the water here was salt. We ate lunch on the “beach” and then I helped some Israelis and other Swiss who took the tour with me to make some of those photos that you can only take on a salt lake. The pictures are playing with the perspective and the distance so that for example you appear to stand on a giant hat or have some little tiny person on your hand. Then we headed back towards the town. I asked the driver to stop in the middle where there were few tracks to take a picture of the structures formed in the salt. I still didn’t have a camera, to help out I bought a one time camera but I didn’t expect too much of it. Then we drove on. Suddenly one of the others discovered a large group of flamencos in the distance. The driver made a turn and we drove towards the group. The sun was already very low and the salar was cast in reddish light. The flamencos were flying very low, we circled and turned all at high speed and the driver finally managed to approach them very close without them changing course abruptly. Of course it was only possible here on the salar where the car could go any direction. We followed them for a while, almost being part of the swarm. The light of the low sun illuminated them perfectly and accentuated their deep colors even more. I took pictures with my trashy camera knowing it would never capture the moment as it was. It was painful not to have a decent camera. It was the most intimate moment with nature; it really felt like we were part of this group of flamencos, flying into the fading day. I was very exited to have seen this, it was a moment that you have only once in a lifetime and probably even with a good camera I wouldn’t have been able to capture the feel of the moment in a picture.
Just in time to watch the sunset we reached the “ojos del salar” where oxygen is rising from the depths and creates little whirlpools. In the dark we headed back to Uyuni and after a flat tier we got there safe.

The next morning I took the bus to Uyuni. It was all gravel roads, pretty uncomfortable but again with stunning scenery of the altiplano. Now it really hurt not to have a camera, the mountains have these incredible strong colors, red, green, brown, yellow and more. You pass through canyons and plains and at the end before reaching Uyuni you get a panoramic view of the salar. I really don’t understand how others prefer to take buses at night and miss al this. For me some of the nicest views I have seen were on regular bus rides from one place to another and not on special tours. Whenever I can I will travel during the day.

From Potosi I wanted to go straight to Uyuni but the next bus was for the night. So I stayed the day and took a tour into the mines. It’s really incredible and scary in what conditions these man and woman work. It’s basically all done by hand. I saw men carrying the stones out on their back; two men haul up stones all day long by playing motor for a simple lift. Everybody can use dynamite, without needing a special license. High voltage power lines without isolation for small trains carrying out the stones, sparks flying all over the place. I don’t want to know how many accidents and deaths they have there. The tunnels didn’t make the safest impression and there where holes and slippery climbs all the time. The indigenous people have shrines in the tunnels worshiping the devil, as I understood it out of a misunderstanding with the catholic teachings, where they say that god lives in heaven and the devil under ground. Since they are working in the territory of the devil they thought that they should ask him for protection and success. They offer coca leaves, alcohol and cigarettes.

The next morning I joined a taxi with some other people from the hostel to go to Potosi. It didn’t cost a lot more then the regular bus and the driver stopped in two nice places. One was an old church now being turned into a hotel and the other one was an old bridge. It was a large hanging bridge with tall towers on each side of the river. It was strange, for me it seemed out of place in this environment. It looked to me like a medieval bridge somewhere in Europe, but it was very impressive. It hurt not to have a camera.

I spent the day walking around in Santa Cruz and spent the night in Hotel Suecia which is worth mentioning just in front of the bus station. Unfortunately there was no bus in the morning to Sucre and I spent the day waiting, I am sure it would have been an interesting ride during the day. In Sucre I checked into a typical back bagging hostel. It has only been a few times on my trip that I stayed in such places and I regretted it soon. These hostels that are in the Lonely Planet books are overpriced or just bad. Everybody goes there and of course the people running it take advantage of that. I think most of the people that stay in these places don’t even know that for a little more money you can get your own room with bathroom; it just doesn’t say so in your guide. The longer the happier I am that I travel without such a guide, so I don’t end up in those places more often. I realized how different I really am from the typical back bagger. They follow those books as if there existed nothing else. They walk with it in the street and look for places to eat in the book. How terrible! I just like to walk around and when I see a nice place to eat then I eat there. They find the cheapest possible place to stay but eat in the typical tourist restaurants which are heavily overpriced compared to where the locals eat. They hang around with each other all the time. How can you get a good impression of the people and life in another country if you always hang around other tourists? Sitting at the table in the Hostel I got tired very fast of the talk. It’s always the same: “It was so great there, you have to go there! Oh it’s so dangerous there; you have to be very careful, this and that happened to these people there”. It’s the same boring crap all the time and I really ask myself how people can spend months and months in those Hostels.
The city has some nice old buildings. Unfortunately while shopping for some warmer cloths my camera got stolen or I lost it. I don’t know exactly what happened but suddenly I didn’t have it anymore, I went back to all the places I’ve been but of course nobody knew of anything.

Walking bare foot through the swamp without seeing where you step, swimming in waters full of Piranhas and Alligators are just a few of the less common things you’ll get to do as a city person visiting the Pantanal, the largest wetland on the planet. Of course once you learn a little more about it, it doesn’t seem so suicidal anymore. The Piranhas leave you alone as long as you don’t have any open wounds. The alligators, although sometimes larger then humans are only interested in eating fish and supposedly there are no real dangerous animals that you could step on when walking through the swamp. It is still a weird feeling the first time you get into the water right at the same spot were a day before the Piranhas within 10 seconds ate all the meat of the hook while fishing for them. I made a tour by boat, horse and car. The horse trip was pretty funny becuase for the largest part of the way the horse is knee deep into the water. The boat trip was ok as well and reminded me of my boat trip down the Amazon. Although you see some other animals on occasions, you see mostly alligators and birds; I mean lots of lots of birds. I stayed in a Posada right by the river so the setting was nice but you get a lot of mosquitoes and bugs when the sun sets. You even get visited by frogs that seem to enjoy it in the bathroom. I stayed two and a half days there and then headed back towards the border.
Arriving there I had to find out that the situation with the transportation in Bolivia hadn’t changed much, I couldn’t get a train ticket for the faster train on the same day, so I had to spend the night in Corumba and then take the slow “death train” on the next day. It took about 22 hours to get to Santa Cruz.

Fortunately the next day I found another “replacement” bus to Santa Cruz. There the bus terminal was an unwanted familiar sight, just like in La Paz and Cochabamba basically all of the offices remained closed. I usually don’t inform myself a lot about the countries and places I visit, so I was really surprised to find out that there is a train from Santa Cruz to Puerto Suarez on the border to Brazil and the Pantanal. Unfortunately the trains leave only in the night, which I don’t like because I don’t get to see any of the landscape. But since the only buses still operating were night buses as well, I thought I’ll try the train. There are 3 types of trains for that route, a regional one, a faster one and a comfortable express one. The next day there was only the regional and fast one leaving so I bought a ticket for the faster one. Coming from Switzerland and knowing only smooth rides by train I expected a quiet night, but I was badly surprised. I never imagined that a train ride can be so bumpy, it was worse then in a bus; the train shook and jumped heavily almost the whole night. The seats were ok, there was a TV as well and air-conditioning, but like in the buses with air-conditioning it just runs on full power and it gets very arctic. Finally the next morning we arrived in Puerto Suarez. When I got out of the train to my surprise there were Brazilians standing there offering tours and lodging in the Pantanal. First I didn’t pay attention since I wanted to check if I could get a tour from here. Then I met a Swiss lady that was working with one of the tour companies. She offered me a ride to Corumba in Brazil. There I looked at the tours that they offered and agreed to one. I had some time to walk in Corumba and then took a bus (what a difference from the busses in Bolivia) for 2 hours to an intersection where an old car waited for me to take me to the Pousada in Portal do Lontra. Arriving there I went to bed pretty soon since I had been on the way for more then 24 hours.

Before getting to know Bolivia a little more I wanted to cross it to get to Brazil and visit the Pantanal. There was a problem though; the immense bus terminal in La Paz remained closed because of the strike. I asked around and found out that some smaller busses were leaving for Cochabamba, which was one step closer at least. I spent one day in La Paz and then took that bus. It was a very uncomfortable ride because it was a small bus and there was little room for my legs. Even the local people seemed molested by the bad condition of the bus and we had to make pit stops twice to change tires. The route was fascinating though, incredible views and you can see the change of the vegetation from the grassland of the altiplano to tropical rainforest in just a few hours. Cochabamba is very different from La Paz, while you see many women with their traditional dresses, hairstyle and typical hats, down here there is much less tradition to be seen, the people are of different origin. I spent the night in Hostal Ecuatorial, close to the terminal; it was very cheap and included private bath room with hot water, cable TV and breakfast, one of the best deals I’ve encountered so far.

My last stop in Chile was the town of Arica. Historically an important town, I was more interested in the national park La Lauca which starts a few hours towards the Bolivian boarder. As always one of the first things I do is to see when I have transportation to my next destination. I asked in the bus terminal but all the companies crossing the border to Bolivia were on strike. Apparently the Bolivian government introduced a new tax for these companies which they didn’t like at all. There is another terminal right next to it so I went to check there. It was the terminal for the Peruvian and Bolivian bus companies. The separation shows that these countries don’t like each other a lot. Entering the terminal I got a first impression of how it would be in Bolivia. It was chaotic. All the terminals were full of women with giant mountains of cloths; it was hard to make a way through there. When their bus came they wrapped up all the cloths into huge bundles. I couldn’t tell what belonged to whom, since it was one big sea of textiles, but somehow they organized themselves. Fortunately I found one bus company that wasn’t on strike and I bought a ticked for the day after tomorrow. I usually don’t buy tickets in advance but I though since it was the only company still operating, they would probably be full very quickly. I found a very good place to stay Residencial Tres Soles, with nice people running it, very close to the terminal.
The park was too far away to do by bike in one day and it went up 4500 meters as well, so I booked a tour for the next day. I didn’t think that they would pick me up punctual but they did and I wasn’t quite ready. The tour guide had to wait a few minutes for me and didn’t seem too happy about it. It turned out that all the other people on the tour were seniors. We drove up to the park; stopped at some interesting spots on the way, conducted an indigenous ritual, ate breakfast and drank tea with coca leaves and received some “agua de flor” I think it was called, supposedly to help breathing in the height. Close to the border we reached a lake, 4500 meters over the sea level with a beautiful volcano in the background and llamas having their lunch on the shore. After that we headed back down to the town of Putre where we ate lunch. We had a little free time to check out the town and then returned to Arica.
The next day in the morning I took the bus to La Paz. I had to find out that the bus took about the same street that I took the day before on the tour. So if you want to see the park and heading for La Paz, then you don’t have to take the tour, you see about the same with the bus, only that it doesn’t stop on the way. It’s certainly one of the nicest trips I made so far. On the Chile side you have the lake with the volcano and after crossing the border you get to enjoy the beautiful “altiplano” of Bolivia. The high plains have something magic to it and I liked it a lot, the colors are very special.

Heading north in Chile I stopped for a couple of days in Iquique. A town on the coast but surrounded by desert. The whole area is a duty free zone, so you have to pass through customs getting in and out. The city has a nice old pedestrian zone and a clean beach with white sand which appearance I liked better then the beach in Vina del Mar.

The next day I made my sandwiches again and bought even more water. First I went the same way as the day before to visit other remains of an Inca town. This one was bigger and closer to the town. It was on a hill and about a half an hour up the mountain I saw a monument and it seemed like up there you had a really good view so I decided to walk up. It was the remains of a small fortress and the view was just amazing. I could see the green valley, the desert that rises continually to the altiplano, the high plains of Bolivia with the snowy volcanoes in the back. It was already about midday and I still had a lot of riding for today so I hurried down the mountain to the bike. I crossed town and headed out for the lagoons the second time. In the bike shop they told me that they are very close, and they probably are when you go by car, but with the bike it’s not that close. It’s about 20 km from town and more then half of it is pure sand road. Sometimes the sand was so loose that I had to get off the bike and push. I got very pissed at the people in the bike store because the information they gave me vas very bad and the hand drawn map even worse. First there were some trees but then it was pure desert. I had no indication of how far it was and I was getting worried about the way back. If the wind would start to blow as strong as yesterday it would be a very though fight. Finally I found the Lagoons but to my great displease, there was a guy standing there asking for an entrance fee. I didn’t like that at all and didn’t think of paying him, so I just took a good look from the distance and circled it a bit. I wanted to go to another valley now, but taking the way indicated on the map it would be close to 40 km, I knew that I couldn’t make that. So I asked the guy if I could cross the desert without heading back to town first. He told me that there is a way but couldn’t describe it to me because there are so many paths crossing the desert. Since everything was flat here and I could see more or less the mountains I needed to get to I decided to try it, I could always return to the town if I didn’t find a way and I still had enough water and sandwiches. It was a though ride, the wind was getting stronger and stronger now. Finally I reached the road that was heading to the “valle de la luna”, the moon valley. Unfortunately now the wind came straight into my face. The sun was pretty low already when a pick up truck past me. They stopped in front of me and asked me if I wanted a ride. I knew I could make it to the valley before the sun got down, but it would leave me with no time to see what’s there, so I accepted the offer. We got to the entrance where I had to pay the entrance fee, nothing is for free here. We took a short walk in another small canyon covered with salt and then headed up the valley with the car. On top there was a little plateau covered with salt, on its edge a huge dune and some peaks. We climbed up there and the scenery was amazing, we reached the highest point just in time to see the sunset. Lots of tours came to see the sunset up here and it was very crowded. It must be very spectacular I thought, but then realized that it’s just another money making thing since it was one of the less spectacular sunsets I have seen so far on my trip. It got cold very fast now so we headed back to the car. They asked me if I want a ride back to town. Although I would have had the wind in my back and it would probably have been an easy ride I decided to go with them. I made about 60 km already and most of it in the sand, so I was pretty tired.

I arrived in San Pedro de Atacama when it got dark. After I found a place to stay I went for a walk in the small town. It’s very touristy and things are not very cheap, yet I found a place to rent a bike for a reasonable price. So the next morning I made me some sandwiches, loaded my back bag with lots of water and headed out north to a green valley. It was a really nice ride because it wasn’t a paved road and I had to cross a small river several times; I don’t have to mention that there were no bridges. The temperature was nice, not to hot, yet I had to drink tons of water because the air was so dry that my throat dried out all the time. About an hour away from town I found the entrance to “garganta del diabolo”, the devils throat, a really narrow canyon, just about 2 meters wide that goes into the mountains for kilometers. It’s a strange feeling in there, but very cool with the bike. I didn’t go all the way because it seemed to go on forever and I headed back after some time. Leaving the canyon I headed back up the valley. Apart from some shepherds, and some few other visitors there is nobody to be seen. When I reached a small church on a hill, I climbed up there and then decided to return to the town. On my way back I found the entrance to the ruins of an old Inca town. Again it was a canyon, but this time I had to leave the bike behind since it went up a lot and I had to climb. The scenery of the ruins is very nice, there are moon like mountains in the near distance and snowy volcanoes in the far distance.
Back in town I got some more water and went west to another valley, the Death Valley. It looked a lot more hostile then the valley with the river. It went up all the time and reaching almost the top there was a huge dune on the right side. The wind was strong and blew a lot of loose sand onto the path so that I left the bike and walked the remaining way. On the top there was a canyon where you can see the different layers of sediments. I drank some water and went down to my bike. The way down was a lot more fun then coming up.
I got back to town about at 3 o clock and decided to head out for a Laguna that was also supposed to be close to the town. I rode for a while but then decided to head back because it was getting late and the wind was picking up so strong now that I was worried about the way back. I shouldn’t underestimate the desert.

The bus took me to Chanaral, clearly in desert like territory now. Desert in Chile is not like desert I had in mind from pictures like the Sahara, it reminded me more of pictures I’ve seen from the moon, more like dusty mountains. I stayed in Hostal Pan de Azucar which is really a good deal with a friendly person running it. I felt like I had to get on a bike again and since the park Pan de Azucar is about 30 km from the city I rented a bike for the next day. I was lucky because I had the wind in the back and it went pretty easy. The road to the park takes you along fantastic scenery and beaches and it is very nice to ride by bike since the road goes only to the park and there are no cars bothering you. The park itself is very big and you won’t get far just in one day, but I didn’t care because the ride to the park was so nice I was already satisfied. To my surprise I had to pay only the price for nationals to get into the park since I stayed so long in Santiago. Just after entering the park there are some huts and restaurants, from there you can make a boat trip to a near island to go see penguins. I didn’t do that, with my bike I headed further into the park up a mountain where there was supposed to be a nice viewpoint. It wasn’t an easy ride since the paved road ended soon and the rest was just sand road with the sand sometimes so deep and loose that you had to get off the bike. But when I finally reached the top the view was really rewarding. I was alone up there only joined by some desert foxes that probably eat the things that people leave up there since they came pretty close. Even the vegetation was somewhat different up here with lots of cactus populating the hills while it was all sand down by the sea. Clouds were forming while the air rose along the mountains and I took the opportunity in the shade to eat some of the sandwiches I made in the morning. The ride down the sand road was very nice and I reached the beach by the entrance of the park in no time. I made about 50 km so far and I catched a ride back to the town since it had been a long time since I’ve been on a bike for the last time and I didn’t want to burn out because I planned some more bike trips in the coming days in San Pedro de Atacama.

Heading further north I stopped in Caldera. It seemed like a small sleepy town and there wasn’t mucho going on. I was told that it is a busier place in summer since Bahia Inglesa is only a short ride from the town and it has crystal clear water to swim and nice white sand to relax in. As for me I couldn’t go swimming since it was quite cold.
All my time in Chile I didn’t really think of the fact that I am in a region with frequent seismic activity. Here I finally got a reminder when I was walking in the street to look for a place to eat, when it suddenly started to shake. I found out that there had been several occasions like this in the past days and that people were getting uneasy, fearing the small temblors were sings of a bigger incident. The earth shook 5 times during the day and in the night, the last, about 3 o’clock in the night I felt as the strongest one and it made me a bit uneasy as well because the place I stayed in didn’t make the impression that it would withstand a bigger earthquake. Fortunately the big one didn’t come and I took another bus heading north and to saver territory hopefully.

Just before leaving Santiago, I went to visit Los Angeles, a half hour ride from the city is a nice waterfall to see. Then it was time for me to leave Santiago, I spent almost 4 months there and I felt at home. My first stop on my way north was La Serena where I visited a small town in a valley with lots of vineyards called Pisco Elqui. It was the exact opposite of Santiago, quiet, small and very relaxed.