Aguas Thermales - San Pedro de Atacama: Sunny, -5° to start and 31° at the finish. 4700 m down to 2600 m

Race To The Border!

I’m sitting here at 19:12 on Wednesday night before dinner out somewhere after being out on a Chile tour into the mountains all day. We have also changed our hotel and after all the hassles are done I can resume updating my journal. The sunrise on our final day on the road in Bolivia. 

It seems that this location is the final leg in from the many routes available through Bolivia, depending on your budget and the number of days one crosses. It’s like a pit stop in a race with at least 25 4x4’s of all descriptions loading up early morning in the -5° morning. All mornings up here are freezing cold, but this day was the coldest and it remained cold until we reached our destination. We are at our highest point today which certainly explains much of the reason for the chill. 

Our weird place! Almost as cold inside as outside. Everyone wore something warm and the operators were never out of their down coats. Surely there must be some sort of heat? But there’s none. Our bed had a massive comforter on top of blankets. I used them all which is rare for me. Usually a blanket will do. 

The guys in front of our place loading up. 

It seemed like everyone pretty much finished up their loading at roughly the same time. There’s a bit of quiet for a moment as everyone has one last look around at the incredible scenery before boarding. Then it’s everyone for themselves as the vehicles stream out of town jockeying for position. It feels like a race, and then we realize that it is a race! 

There’s dust everywhere as each unit tries to be the first to each of the remaining sights to allow their people first view. At least it seems that way. Some of the cheaper tours just fly past everything and rarely stop and we can see the dust trails in the distance on different courses than our own. 

As I’ve said before, there are no really roads, but rather many patches across the plateaus. We are racing across the Desert de Dali.

We have the feeling that Edwin hates this race as he owns his own vehicle and takes great care of it. He is a true off roader and meticulously finds his way through the toughest terrain. We don’t ask him to stop for photos as we can see he’s concentrating while some of the other yahoo drivers fly past with reckless abandon, perhaps encouraged by their much younger passengers. Eventually he pulls off to go in another direction and we can tell he’s relaxed now as he chats away with Nancy telling stories and joking as usual. 

You know, even I wondered when I’d get tired of looking at the volcanoes and the rugged terrain. Never happened.

There was always some new and wonderful vista around each corner and always something to get our attention. See the dust from racing drivers?

Passing through the Paso del Condor. Dust from the racers to the left of the photo.

We then arrived at Edwin’s favourite place, The Laguna Verde, the Green Lake.

The lake actually does turn green in the afternoon when the wind howls through here. Not quite green when we visited.

Edwin tells us that it’s possible to climbs these peaks only on the Bolivian side as on the Chilean side there are still many land mines from the 1970’s and 80’s when the country lived under a horrible dictatorship. The mines still haven’t been cleared in certain areas as we read before leaving home.

From here we headed off across here...

to Laguna Blanc.

Finally the frontier, for what it’s worth, showed on the horizon.

We’d arrived in one piece!

This small super high border crossing called Hito Cajón is where Caitlin crossed some 7-8 years ago. Our experience.

Caitlin’s photo I have somewhere and will post later. (Later) it’s a better photo. We were so rushed as we passed through and a bigger lineup. When Caitlin passed through the 4x4 trips were less popular, therefore I think fewer people. Also a different time of year given all the snow on the peak. Nice shot Caitlin!

While at the border a guide saw our Canadian passports and approached us. Annemarie posted this on Facebook.

While crossing the border yesterday, a man (tour guide) at the desk at the same time as us got really excited when he heard we were Canadians. He told us that He had a “foster mother” in Ottawa, and because of her support he learned English, allowing him to make a good living. He had tears in his eyes, and hugged us both, and gave me a kiss on the cheek, saying “thank you Canada”. The boarder guards had grins on their faces as we all left. If you have participated in the foster parent program, sponsoring kids from from developing countries, this is tangible proof that it makes a big difference.

It took some time, but we were finally stamped out of Bolivia, no stamp in our passports just like when we entered! The Bolivian drivers are not allowed across the border, but there’s no official line so vehicles are parked all over the place! Not stamped out, but cleared to leave with all paper work completed we say our sad goodbupyes and get on a bus to cross the frontier where it takes over an hour to get stamped into Chile. 

We are the really old kids on the bus! Old enough to be parents to each of the 30 kids on board! We get underway and race down the slopes dropping some 2300 m. I can feel the air thickening! Well maybe not, but it felt better and warmer the lower we went.

Looking down to the Atacama salt plain far below as we fell off the mountain plateau. The white stuff in the distance.

I have some good photos of the area we dropped off which I’ll post tomorrow. For now we two pooped out but happy souls are off to find dinner. With luck I’ll catch up the past couple of days tomorrow as we plan a bit of a quieter day. Travel plans in hand for Friday and all is well. Really enjoying the food here, but more about that tomorrow!