10th week - Easter Island
The way to Calama was easy and good, but the city itself is just good for a stopover, not more. The flight to Santiago was really nice, you cpuld see a lot of the Atacama Desert and the Andean Mountains, the only "problem" were the windows, which weren't clean, so you couldn't get the best pics ;-) In Santiago I just went to the hostel and then enjoyed the pedestrian streets one more time and went a bit shopping.
The next morning I had the flight to Easter Island and here I got a "welcome-flower-neckless" it was really nice and friendly I just had a walk to the main road and bought something for dinner and afterwards I was so tired and slept very well. The next day I relaxed and read my book and after the hot noon I went up to the vulcano and had a nice walk around the rim. It was a beautiful view. On the way back I collected some wood for a camp fire the next day.
For the following day I reserved a jeep with a swiss couple and two german girls to explore the island. We started in the morning and first headed the southern coast road and there were plenty of Moai and it was nice and the coastline was beautiful. Then we went to the "Moai-Factory", because here all the figures were cut off the vulcanic mountain and a lot of them were standing around. Inside the crater was a small lake which was beautiful and a drink station for all the wild horses and they have heaps of them. Afterwards we drove to the Anakena Beach and had a little swim and it was refreshing, the Pacific water is naot the warmest. Then the road through the middle and see some more places at the north coast which was nice as well. In the evening we had dinner and afterwards a camp fireand beer, a perfect ending of the day.
The next day we get up at 5.30am to drive to the sunrise point but there were some clouds so it was not the best, but you could feel the myst. After breakfast we tried to get fishing, but it was really hard and a lot of waves so we weren't so lucky, I just got one fish as big as my hand that was it. But I had it so fresh afterwards in the pan and it was delicious, just a little bit less. We collected one more time some fire wood for tonight and of course we had one more camp fire after dinner and it was really cool.
We rented one more day the jeep to go to the beach again and it was lovely weather for it. We were driving a little bit around as well and I went up to the vulcano one more time, beautiful light at this time. The rest of the day was going to the museum and relaxing. Chrismas Day for me this year was very different, no family, no snow, just hanging around at the camp ground, go to the city and all this far away from any mainland in the middle of the Pacific on Easter Island. But I won't be on Chrismas Island for Easter, Sorry!! ;-)
For dinner we had a huge BBQ with fish and meat, salads and rice with all the people from the camping and it was really nice. We even had "Gluehwein" and one "Ferrero Roche". It was a nice setup and a beautiful sunset on Chrismas Day and we had alltogether fun till late into the night.
The next days were traveldays, I had the flight on 25th dec back to Santiago, waiting 4 hours for my plane to Auckland and arrived there on the 27th dec 4 o'clock in the morning. I lost one day ahhhhhhhhhhhh! I headed to the hostel and had a little nap. This was definitly the end of my Southamerica trip which was awesome and I will come back!!!
back in Santiago
Back again in Santiago and it was a great view from the plane, but here they have a f... tax on their book, so it's always double the price of a LP!! That sucks!
Tomorrow fly to Easter Island!!!
at the top of the desert
good place for hammocks
San Pedro de Atacama is a perfect place to relax after the jeep tour and just do nothing!
I really like it just lay in a hammock and read and relax. But the strage thing is, that this city is soo full of tourist and you don't see any local. By the way, they have grande pizzas here and grande means grande ;-)
9th week – Uyuni
After La Paz I took the night bus to Potosi,the highest city of the world, to have a stop over before Uyuni. I didn’t went to the mines because I had a little cold and don’t really want to see the circumstances how they work there. I just stayed one day and then I headed to Uyuni.
There I booked a typical three day jeep tour through the Salar de Uyuni and the desert to San Pedro de Atacama. The first day we went to the big Salar and it was amazing. The salt flats were so white like snow. It was sad that our “driverguide” was just a driver and didn’t explain us anything, but just the scenery was enough for me. In the middle of the salar, we had a lovely stop at the island Inkahuasi with huge cactuses over 800 years old.
There we also made some fun pics, I really liked.
The first night we spent in San Pedro de Quilmes in a small lodge. The second day we drove to some lanunas, which was really nice and some of them were full of Flamingos. In between we saw “just” the desert, nice for me, surrounded by the high Andean volcanoes. The jeep wasn’t so comfortable but we had a good chef on board which was important and we hadn’t a flat tire or something else. The second night we spend in a lodge near the red lagoon and it was about 5000m a.s.l and became really cold at night. In the morning we got up at 5am, first to see some beautiful geysers and then a lovely sunrise.
We had breakfast next to some Aguas Calientes and then the last stop was the Laguna Verde in front of the volcano Lincanabur. At the end of the tour I had a short ride to San Pedro de Atacama where I stayed with a UK couple from another jeep. There we joined the next day the Death Valley and moon valley tour, after we had a little exercise on a mountain bike along the riverside.
We had a lot of fun and good meals for dinner and here it’s really a good and nice place to relax in a hammock.Tomorrow I go to Calama where I have my flight to Santiago and then heading to Easter Island for Christmas.
