Terranova Expedition: San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

Leaving Bolivia, the last thing we did was pass the frontier (border) gate, which is a lonely guard post in the high Andes.

On the Chile side, was a semi paved road, miles better than anything in Bolivia, which after 10 minutes, took us to the main road, a beautiful blacktop that winds it's way down from 4300 meters to 2400 meters and into the valley where we entered San Pedro de Atacama.

San Pedro is an interesting town full of adobe buildings and unpaved streets lined with shops catering to tourists.

It's also way more expensive than anything we've encountered so far.

People here will gouge you for anything. Our first "hostel" was $65.00 per night. In Peru or Ecuador, it would be $10.00. We found a cheaper place the next day, about two doors down that is half the price, for basically the same experience.

We went sandboarding, which was fun. Vanessa has never skied or snowboarded before, so for her it was a totally new experience. The first "run" she was terrified as we stood at the top of the huge dune of sand, but after scooting down on her butt, she was eager to get back to the top and try again.

The only problem with sandboarding is you have to walk back up the huge dune. There are no lifts here. It's tiring!

After, we did a hike into the Valley de Luna and climbed up onto a ridge line to watch the sunset, which was spectacular... the horizon looked like it was on fire. When the sun went down, we then went into a salt cavern carved by water.

We had planned to be here for only a few days before heading into Argentina, but we've come up against some weather, and the road leading east has been blocked by snow for the last few days.

Our plans remain up in the air while the road is closed.

We met Dave at our hostel, he's on a BMW R1200GSA like mine, riding around the world now for 2 years. He got run off the road by two trucks in Bolivia, broke his ankle in three places, and had to have surgery. He is holed up in San Pedro healing up. Here he is holding up his hospital X-ray, showing the 9 screws and a plate they inserted into his ankle. The trucks didn't stop.