The second driest place on Earth

After leaving Santiago we headed north on a 24 hour bus ride to San Pedro de Atacama, a town in the Atacama desert, which is famous for its lack of rain.

The bus trip was pretty uneventful and we had some great seats that reclined almost right back to horizontal, so getting a bit of sleep wasn't too hard. We arrived about 7:00 pm and it was dark, dusty and 3rd world in appearance, and we had no idea where to go, just an address. So we walked around dragging our packs behind us for a while and couldn't find any taxis. In the end we decided to go back to the bus station and managed in my very basic Spanish to ask someone to call us a taxi. The ride to our hostel only cost us $2 Chilean and once we got there the accommodation was excellent and about 10 minutes walk from the main street. The only bad thing was that there was no wifi Internet connection in the rooms, only a slow PC near reception which was occupied most of the time by the staff or people spending endless hours on MySpace.

San Pedro de Atacama is an oasis in a huge desert. The area itself is pretty flat in most parts but in the distance several volcanoes can be seen. Some of these are still active although none of them were when we were here. Strangely, given the heat and dryness, snow can be seen of top of these mountains. The town gets its water from aquifers fed by run off from the Andes. Apart from tourism one of the main industries here is lithium mining. As lithium is an essential element in the production of rechargeable batteries and as a treatment for bipolar disorders, it seems the area has a bright future .. that is until the snow melt stops anyway.

The area reminds you of the photos that were taken of the surface of Mars. Another connection with space is the array of radio astronomy telescopes that exist here. Also, the Viking Mars Landers were tested here to see if they could find signs of life - they didn't find any.

The dryness makes you really thirsty at night. You wake up in the middle of the night parched and have to gulp down water. When you have a beer or coke you need to drink about six mouthfuls before you start to feel quenched. The mucus in your nose dries hard and brittle. It is also hard to avoid breathing in dust.

While we were here we rented some bikes and that made it pretty easy to get around. No one wears helmets and no one uses lights. It felt pretty strange having to ride on the wrong side of the road. Another strange thing is that no one hassled us on a bike to come into a restaurant, otherwise, on foot you might have up to 3 people simultaneously gibbering indecipherably wanting you to come in and have a feed.

Also if there ever was going to be a dog heaven this is the place. It is like dogs are sacred here and have right of way at all times. You see dogs everywhere, mostly sleeping on footpaths, in shop entrances and on the roads. They don't even open their eyes when a car or a person comes their way, they just know that people will always do their best to avoid them. However, unlike Australian dogs that come up to you and slam their noses into your crotch, or jump on you demanding to be patted, these dogs just go about their business. The don't even bark much. I saw some of them getting into a bit of a scrap, where just like a fight in primary school, caused about 10 other dogs to wake up and run down for a look. However, by the time they got there it was all over so they skulked back to where they were sleeping the day away. Hence the saying "a dog's life".

On a final note, I had this song, America - Horse with no name, going through my head most of the time I was here. It is true, after 3 days my skin began to turn red.

To view the slideshow please click here.