15 minutes in Chile

Once upon a time, long long ago, I wrote a measly 4 entries on my experiences in Argentina. Then I took a bus to the tourist town of San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, where the evil god of lets-make-things-complicated restricted my internet access to the daylight hours and scoffed at my wishes to write more. Not satisfied with this simple limitation on my plans, he shut down all ATMs in the town, and chained me to the San Pedro gates. Alas, I escaped, and made the three- hour pilgrimage to the nearest money machines. I found socks and sweaters and batteries and juice, and other such luxuries of which I'd been deprived.

I returned to the town refreshed and emboldened. I rented a bike fit for a 10 year old's barbie and rode under the hot desert sun to the Valley of the Dead. Lagging behind the Dutchman of the group, I convinced myself that the gorgeous volcano views were to blame for my petty pace. But just as I wondered when I'd see my first mirage of an ice cream stand, we pulled our bikes to the side of the road and decided we'd arrived. We climbed a massive sand dune and took photographs, squeezing distant mountains between our fingers and pretending like we'd died of dehydration.


Some sense of scale


Skillz.


I play a terrible fake dead. Note the full bottle of water to my right.


Squish.


While in San Pedro, we did our best to find the best travel agency to the Bolivian salt flats. With low expectations for our Bolivian living conditions, we rounded out our trip in Chile buying scarves, raisins, and toilet paper. We crossed our fingers that our tour guide would be sober and set off.