San Pedro de Atacama

more pictures!! http://www.flickr.com/photos/45516081@N00/

I´m currently in a teeny little town in North Eastern Chile called San Pedro de Atacama. In the last ten years, it´s morphed into a launchpad for tourist attractions in the surrounding dessert (which is fantastic!!), thus as the town itself has a very artificial feel. There are Germans, French people, and Brits everywhere you try to spit. I haven´t met a single American here, it´s really weird.
That being said, San Pedro is still a cool place to be. In fact, it reminds me somewhat of Burning man as there are a bunch of colorfully dressed people running around, the streets are all dirt, and everyone is riding around on dust covered mountain bikes. But the best part about being here is, of course, the desert itself. It´s the driest desert in the world, thus it can be sweltering hot here and you wouldn´t even know it.
I did a tour yesterday to see some of the surrounding rock formations, and I felt my breath taken away (and not just cause we´re at such a high elevation!). See my pictures if you want to know what I mean. Walking through the valley of the dead was so surreal, like stepping into a Dalí painting or something. And when I would stop and taste the rocks we were surrounded by, they were all really salty! Our guide was awesome, I love Chilean people. They are more happy and down to earth than Argentinians. I wish I had more money to stay here longer, but everything in Chile is so expensive, almost on par with the states.
After the Valley of the dead, we headed over to the Valley of the Moon to catch the sunset. Unfortunately we were a little late and missed the sunset as it had just gone down. We did get to take a few fantastic shots of the Volcano in the distance, which was still lit up, and then walk down the side of the dunes back to our truck. It was a good 500 yards straight down, knee deep in sand. Twas lots of fun!
Today I think I´m going to rent a bike and head back out to the desert on my own, as there were places I wanted to explore but couldn´t because I was with the group. And then tomorrow morning I head into Bolivia, on the Salar de Uyuni tour. It´s the biggest salt flats in the world. I can´t wait to go, I am sure I´ll produce spectacular pictures for all of you. The only unfortunate thing is, I have to pay $100 to get into Bolivia because I´m an American (thanks for nothing Bush!).