Arequipa  (Peru) 9 to 10 October 2004
All Map 3 >>> Decided we couldn't face a 13 hour bus journey after the Inca trail so we cheated and spent $50 on flights to Arequipa. We spent our time there in restaurant with waiter in very bad sailor hat & then watching  England beat Wales with a Chilean guy called Ronaldo (nice guy except he kept flicking the channel to watch Columbia playing).

Left there and  headed to Arica .... and a very strange day. We thought we could get a bus straight to Arica on the Chile side of the border, sadly this was not  the case.

Arica ( Chile) 10 to 12 October 2004

 To cut a long story short we ended up sharing a very large Cadillac kind of motor car with a couple of Americans (Patrick & Carrie, who seemed to be stalking us since Cusco) crossing no mans land desert at an impressive speed. A couple of days were spent in Arica for cooking, red wine & Sea Lion spotting (big creatures they are). A spot of hill climbing was also knocked off.

San Pedro ( Chile) 13 to 15 October 2004
Desert town, very warm, trips to moon valley gesers and then the salt lakes with Patrick and Carrie >> Volcanoes, steam, scenes, sunsets + fat man breaking toilets, all happening.

Next stop - San Pedro>>> After a night bus that stopped twice in the night for us to get out and have our bags scanned by the side of the road for fruit (protecting wine is the only reason we can fathom for this bizarre behaviour) we landed in the town of Calama at 6am. It was dark & we had no clue where we were. Luckily we got talking to a couple of English lads who agreed to share an over priced joe taxi wth us. For the 1st time of what was to be a regular happening for us, we saw the sun rise across the massive desert - very impressive.

San Pedro - the only thing to greet us on our arrival was a pack of stray dogs and lots of dusty deserted streets - not exactly Butlins! We then decided to do our trips in two days and get the hell out of there! That afternoon we headed out to the moon valley and watched the sun set from the sand dunes, very nice. The next morning - up at 3.30am (yes, that time actually exists sober!) Saw sunrise again on way to Geysers (so cold, about -5C)- steam etc. coming up from holes in the ground - highlight - egg sarnies at 4200 metres - eggs cooked in geysers. mmm. We travelled back through some amazing scenery and stopped at a small town in the hills for the savages on  our group to eat Lama.

Then the most cringe worthy tourist thing happened. People went up to the small mud church on the hillside to take pics of this strange place, just as they were all snapping a 20 strong party came out....carrying a coffin. and people still took pictures! what's wrong with these people?!! I felt slightly unclean! The afternoon was spent visiting salt lakes, watching sun set and having dinner with our two American friends / stalkers. a good time.