Cycling the Atacama and volcano climbing: San Pedro de Atacama

Our breakfast spot on the morning of our volcano climb

So on the day we arrived in San Pedro we thought we should book something to do some we had ages there, even though we weren't very interested in what there was to do. If you're coming from Uyuni, it's pretty much the same stuff so you won't need that long.
We caught up with the English couple from La Pampas and they asked their hotel what they could do that was different and they said just the moon Valley... If only we'd known that before we would have booked an earlier flight to Santiago. Anyway, we booked tour for the moon valley for that afternoon and sandboarding the next one. We promptly missed the moon valley tour because we didn't realise Chile is on daylight savings. We rebooked it for the day after our sandboarding, with a fee of course. So we did nothing on our first day in town other than find a cheaper hostel than the first one we booked at, we ended up at eco explore, which was fine for what we wanted. Except that every morning except the last we were woken by people getting up to go to the geysers at 3am! First, who feels like steam that smells like rotten egg coming out the ground is a valid reason to get up that early, second who has a LOUD and LONG conversation at that time of the morning!! Have some thought for the sane people who realised the geysers were not worth it and stayed in bed. We had the best steak at Adobe that night.
So the second day we had a huge sleep in because the hostal (hostal hara) was super quiet and we had nothing to do in the morning. Then we sat/lay around in the room until check out at midday. After lunch we swapped our stuff between our hostals and then went for sandboarding. We didn't end up in the company we booked because they had over booked, so we were with one that is just in the main square. They were very good, the instructor was very helpful and we were given boots to use with the snow boards. We noticed other people had to use their joggers, this would have been awful. Also that company does three sandboarding trips a day, morning, noon and night. Others only do afternoon. We also got a free movie of the afternoon. Definitely wear long socks, I didn't and the sand rubbing between the boots and my legs was agony. Definitely don't wear shorts, worst chaffing ever. It was really fun, I definitely recommend sandboarding. You watch the sun set afterwards, which is boring because it's not a pretty sunset, but you gets snacks with sandboarding so that makes it ok.

The next morning we searched for somewhere to have early breakfast before seeing off to ride to Laguna Cejar. We had hired the bikes the night before from this guy in the main square who was so weird. We ducked in early in the day to see what we could do about wanting to leave before open time the next morning and he was totally like "yeah that's fine his them tonight and take them to your hostal and it'll be good". Then when we went back that night he gave us this lecture about how people could steal them even from the locked courtyard bla bla bla. So I was like, yeah they'll fit in our room. We didn't put them in the room and surprisingly enough they were where we left them the next morning... weirdo. Just a warning, you need to leave your passport with the bike shop to hire the bikes.
So the ride to the lagoon is pretty easy because it's almost flat. It's 16km each way and because we went in the morning the air was cool. We didn't spend that long at the lagoon, maybe 40 minutes. It was quite pretty but freezing cold, and somehow Brandon convinced me to get in to get a photo of me floating. The salt in the water had some kind of a reaction with my very dry skin and my legs still have a horrid rash on them. There are showers there, which is good because you come out with a coating of salt. After the ride back and lunch we went on our valle de la luna tour. First they took us to the three marys. Which is basically three pillars that apparently look just like the three marys. We climbed the great dune afterwards, which gives a pretty good view of the valley. It's not a difficult climb at all. Then we went to some caves which were cool, but there were so many people in them that we had to keep stopping and it got boring. The last stop was overlooking the valley of death, basically looking right at the sand dune we were boarding on the day before. We then went to the coyote rock for sunset. Apparently it looks exactly like the rock from wil-e-coyote cartoons. I think our sandboarding guide was most honest when he said that things around there have been named to create tourist attractions. The worst part about this sunset was no snacks...

Laguna Ceja

Valley of the moon at sunset

I can't remember when we booked it, but at some stage I suggested we climb Volcan Lascar because we had a day with nothing to do and it looked cool, with a smoking crater and stuff. So we were collected from out the front of the hostel at just after 5am and driven to very near the volcano and ate stale bread with cheese, fake ham and jam. There was a very pretty lake there. Then we drove to the bottom of the volcano and started the actual walk. Up to the crater was ok. It wasn't fun but it was ok. The crater was very cool, it wasn't steaming a lot but because it was clear we could see all the crater. The last bit to get to the actual top was... horrid. Somewhere on the way I started to feel like vomiting and it took me forever to actually get there. And i cried at some stage. I also put photos in Brandon's hands because I had to lay down. The view was spectacular, absolutely beautiful. We stayed at the top for about 5mins and then went back to the crater. About 10mins after we got to the crater one of the ladies from our group made it up, her husband had turned back. We rested there for a little and then started down. Frustratingly Brandon was unaffected by the altitude. The way down was no easier. About halfway down I started to feel nauseous again and lost all my strength. At this stage Brandon was a few hundred metres in front throwing snowballs with another lady from Australia, and I was constantly slipping over because I couldn't correct my balance. He did eventually realise I was struggling and wait for me, by which stage I was crying again. Just a little bit. Eventually we made it to the bottom and I fell into the back of the van and tried to sleep on the very bumpy ride back to San Pedro. We got to our hostel at about 5pm and I felt horrible. I spent a couple hours laying in bed with a wet face washer on my forehead. By the time we had to leave to meet the English couple we were in La Pampas with, I was feeling much better. Even though Adobe was shut, we went to Carmen Delicious, which has huge servings. It was a good night.

The crater

The top

Admitting defeat

This morning we skipped breakfast because the bus station cafe wasn't open at 8am. Instead we had some gross stale doughnuts from the bus station. Then we caught the bus to Calama. Before we left I asked the man at our hostel if he knew a place to stay in Calama. Instead he made it sound like we would get stabbed and robbed walking down the street, and that there was no average price hostels or hotels in town. Well, we haven't been robbed or stabbed yet and we we're currently in an averagely priced hotel. It's just not a tourist town, which is a nice change after the streets of San Pedro that are bloated with tourists and tour agencies. Tomorrow we leave for Santiago and the final leg of the trip!