Pachamama By Bus - Part 2

After returning from Castro I had one day in Santiago to get ready for the next leg of my trip with Pachamama By Bus - this time heading north. So it probably wasn't the wisest of ideas to go out the night before until the wee hours - oh well at least I was spending most of the next day on a bus.

My idea had been to take the bus to San Pedro de Atacama where I would then hop off and cross to Salta in Argentina before heading to Bolivia. However, as you will read below the weather had other ideas. My ticket for 6 days travel cost 148,000 pesos. 

There were five of us leaving from Santiago on the bus and unlike the southern one we were all of a similar age. Emily had booked to do this route too so we were reunited again for the fourth time. The other people on the bus were Meike from Germany and Tas and Kris, a couple from London. Kris is also the first Polish person I have met on my travels.

We were told we would meet our guide Catalina in La Serena, which was the last stop of the day. So it was just us and our driver Pedro until then. We stopped for lunch in Pichidangui, where I had my first cheese and shrimp empanada, it was a fried one so the cheese inside was like lava!

In La Serena we met Catalina and like Francisco the guide on the previous trip it was also her first tour. La Serena is well known for being a main producer of papaya products and we stopped in a market where you could buy pretty much anything made of papaya. I ended up buying some sweets, which reminded me a bit of fruit jelly sweets but not so artificial tasting. The city also has 29 churches so it isn't surprising that we saw a few while we wandered around.

Our accommodation for the night was in Hostel Nomade a wonderful old building, which at one time used to be the French consulate. Inside it had high ceilings and lots of period features. On arrival we were also welcomed with a shot of cactus Pasco it was really nice and didn't taste alcoholic at all.

The next day after being woken periodically by the cockerel in the garden from 4am onwards we headed to Bahia Inglesa stopping at Punta de Choros on the way.

In Punta de Choros we were able to take a boat trip to the National Reserve Penguino de Humboldt. We were given lifejackets to wear and I'm pretty sure mine wouldn't have been of much benefit had I gone overboard as it was far too big.

The boat trip took us alongside some of the islands in the reserve where we got to see pelicans, Peruvian boobys and Humboldt penguins. We were also lucky enough to spot a couple of sea otters and several bottlenose dolphins.
 
We were able to get off the boat on Isla Damas. The beach on the island was amazing and I don't think I've ever seen water so clear, unfortunately we weren't allowed to go swimming. The boat tour cost 10,000 pesos and entry to Isla Damas cost an additional 2,500 pesos.

We we were staying two nights in Bahia Inglesa and the following day the weather was good so we headed to the beach, which was a stones throw from the cabin we were staying in. However, the gate to the beach was locked and the only way we could access it was to crawl under a gap in the fence, which thankfully wasn't that well maintained. 

After walking up the beach and commenting that the sea didn't look that inviting the wind must have changed and brought with it a smell I have never smelt on a beach and hope I never have the misfortune of smelling again. It was akin to raw sewage.

Further up the beach we saw signs saying you couldn't swim - don't know who would want to with that smell lingering in the air. Thankfully it turned out we were walking in the wrong direction and the nicer beach was further towards the town. By the time we got there we only had 30 minutes before we had to head back and go to the fishing town of Copiapo for lunch.

In Copiapo we visited the fish market, which is where we had lunch and I had congrio again. At the back of the fish market in the dock area were loads of pelicans, gulls and sea lions, which seem to hang around waiting for scraps of fish from the market. 

Later that evening we had a BBQ and met a young German couple who would be hopping back on the bus the next day. The BBQ was really good although we had way too much food and a lot of steak ended up being leftover.

The next day we were heading to Antofagasta and would cross the driest part of the Atacama desert. During the night there was a massive thunder storm, but being on the coast we didn't really think much of it. However, the rain lingered and I can now say that I am one of the few people to ever see it rain in the Atacama desert. Thankfully it eased off enough for the two stops we made at the old cemetery of Oficina Chile, which was where there used to be a nitrate mine. It was quite weird and I felt a bit funny walking around the graves. After that we stopped at the Mano del Desertio (hand of the desert).

In Antofagasta we went straight to see La Portrada, which is a rock formation in the sea shaped like an arch. I was particularly fascinated by the colours of the cliffs here.

After spending a rainy night in Antofagasta we were given the bad news that due to the condition of the roads and flooding in places we may not make it to San Pedro de Atacama. This was particularly gutting as this day was billed as being one of the best on the trip. Needless to say spirits were a bit low, however we did get to stop at the train cemetery in Baquedano and had fun messing around on the old carriages there. However, I would recommend not wearing flip flops as there was a lot of broken glass along with excrement possibly human and animal in between the carriages. 

After leaving Baquedano we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn and reached Calama, which is the biggest town before San Pedro. While we were there we got news that the road was ok and we would get to San Pedro as planned. When we arrived the usually dry and dusty roads had turned to mud the main street looked like a scene from Glastonbury festival when it rains!

We stayed at Hostal las Kanas and in the reception we saw on the news that a state of emergency had been declared in Antofagasta, where we had been just hours before, due to the flooding. Copiapo was also underwater another place we had been just a couple of days ago. It was quite scary as we'd had such a narrow escape. Of course it took three days before the floods even made the news in the UK due to Jeremy Clarkson and Zayn Malik dominating the headlines.

As the areas affected by the flooding aren't geared for rain, a bit like in the UK when we get snow, many of the major roads had been cut off due to mudslides. This included the main route back to Santiago, the border area with Argentina and also the Bolivian border in the mountains above San Pedro.

Rather than spending just a couple of nights in San Pedro we had five, for me it wasn't too much of a problem as I'm not on a tight schedule but for some of the passengers it was a bit of an agonising wait to hear if they would be able to leave to make connections elsewhere.

San Pedro is probably one of the more touristy towns I've visited on my trip, mainly because it has become a good launching point for people wanting to get to Uyuni in Bolivia via the salt flats, but it is quaint all the same.

Most of the buildings in the town are made from adobe mud, which are sometimes whitewashed, in comparison to places I've been to up until now I suppose it looked a lot more like you'd expect a town in South America to look.

The main street is full of tour agencies and shops selling alpaca wool jumpers, textiles etc. If you aren't going on to Bolivia or Peru it is worth getting stuff like that here but if like me you are then wait as it is all available there and at a much cheaper price.

While we were in San Pedro we went to the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley), which has many rock formations akin to the surface of the moon and the Mars Rover was actually tested here due to the conditions being similar. We went just around sunset and at our last stop we were able to walk to then top of a huge sand dune and the views were incredible, some might say out of this world (sorry had to be done).

It was during my stay in San Pedro that I decided to reverse what I originally intended to do and go on to Uyuni followed by Salta.