Sun, Desert, Colourful hills and Salt!!!

From Peru we headed back south to Chile, stopping for almost a week in Iquique, where we basically spent our time reading books on the beach. The weather was great, sunshine everyday although the water is freezing, nothing like our time at the beach on Gili Air.



From Iquique we headed further inland to the small town of San Pedro de Atacama. It is an Oasis town right in the middle of the Atacama desert. Supposedly this desert is one of the driest in the world, although both days we were there it rained a little. We spent two days in the town and we can honestly say we were extremely happy to leave. Mainly because the town is filled with grumpy people who shouldn´t have gone into the tourism business, it was probably the first time in our trip where we´ve had more problems with different people in the space of two days. However, the reason there are so many tourists is because of the dramatic desert scenery in the outskirts of town. You can explore these sites without too much hassle and basically you have the desert to yourself, which was very refreshing. We visited a site called the Valley of the Moon and it was like what we imagine the moon would look like, but dissappointingly there is still gravity so going up hills on our bikes was quite tiring.

From Iquique we travelled across the Andes once again back to Argentina. For the week before our bus trip we didn´t think we´d get across due to no one really being willing to tell us our tickets were legitimate. In the end we arrived without any hassles in Jujuy, in the northwest of Argentina. Jujuy is much like other Argentine cities, with its old colonial buildings, leafy green plazas and lots of Argentinos out shopping.

Whilst in Jujuy we managed to hire a car to visit to some stunning scenery in the region. It was the first time Nic´s driven on the right side of the road and after some brief glitches, a swarm of bees crashing into the windscreen and the window wipers not turning off, it was easy driving. Luckily for us the town centre of Jujuy is nearly all one way streets and layed out in squares so getting out of town was fairly straight forward. Surprisingly it worked out to be cheaper hiring a car than taking a tour with 14 other people. On our trip we took in the spectacular coloured hills of the Quebrada de Humahuaca and Pumamarca and the expansive Salinas Grandes, big areas of salt flats about 130km on the road back to Chile.

We leave Jujuy tomorrow to head back to Buenos Aires where we will spend a couple of days before flying back to NZ. Hope you all have missed us and are looking forward to seeing us again.