Phinally Done: The Atacama challenge part 1

Hi my friends, sorry for the delay of this blog entry but I was somehow...disconnected.

In my last blog entry I promised u to show u Chile. Me, MIKE and Markus planned to explore the North of Chile, great white sandy beaches, cacti, tornados, reptiles, lamas, alpacas, millions of dogs begging for food and the huge huge desert. We rented a wicked camper van…a very conspicuous car with graffiti on the outside. It is equipped with everything u need on such a trip: bed, sheets, blankets, table and chairs, a little kitchen and a cooler box.

Our plan was to drive along the coast and see some of the great national parks, then spending several days in San Pedro de Atacama, a desert at an altitude of 2500m, and then driving back to Santiago. In total a road trip over more than 4000km.

In this blog entry I will tell you about our stay in Santiago and the trip to San Pedro de Atacama; it took us 4 days to get there. The rest of the story u will hear in part II.

First we stayed a few days in Santiago de Chile to chill out…relax and buy all stuff we needed for our trip. I am sorry that I am not going to tell anything about Santiago because there is not much to see and me and MIKE are already a little bit fed up with cities. We stayed in a great hostel which was more like a 5 star hotel with a delicious breakfast. The owner had such a cute little dog which loved to chew on my flip flops.

Fight of cat and dog

Almirante Riveros hostel...5 stars!

As soon as we got our camper van we started our road trip to Valparaiso, a hilly city west of Santiago. Janine, our great new German friend we got to know in Rio de Janeiro, recommended this place to us. Our first stop and lunch break was in the national reserve Lago Penuelas:

Markus and MIKE in front of the wicked camper van.

Arriving in Valparaiso the houses reminded me on the favelas in Rio; the city was built on the hill facing the lovely beach. There we experienced the steepest streets in our life’s but Markus and the van could handle them all.

View over Valparaiso

Valparaiso

The first night we spent at a gas station near Concón. This is the great thing having a van…u can sleep (almost) everywhere. The only disadvantage was that it has no shower, but many gas stations in Chile provide good showers, toilets and sockets.

Our planned next big stop was Pichidangui…beaches! On the way, there were so many Chileans selling empanadas next to the highway. After begging the guys for a while to try some, we stopped and bought some stuff. We paid a little bit more than 1€.

Hmmm...empanadas with Guave jam...

On the way to Pichidangui I saw a nice hill with a ruin were I was begging Mike and Markus that we can go up there. The view was amazing and I loved these rocks and all the cacti!!!

On the way to Pichindangui

Great beach where the sea beats up the stones and u can get a great salty shower.

Careful, SPIKY!!

When arriving in Pichidangui we immediately headed to its great beach. After some refreshment in the cold sea MIKE abused me again as his bar for a squat workout :(

I should loose a lot of weight that MIKE has to find a new victim.

After that we headed further north to Fray Jorge National Park. Beside very impressive cacti there is not much to see there until u reach the top of the mountain. Although hard to believe but there is a tiny rain forest in the middle of this dry and dead area. And the view towards the sea made the entrance fee finally acceptable.

Markus and MIKE in the small jungle.

Best fence in the world!!

Crazy flowers

In La Serena, the next big city on the way, we did a big grocery stop where Markus lost his wallet and we almost our nerves. As long as we r all all right, life goes on :P
After that we continued our journey to llanos the Challe National Park which is actually pretty boring except its incredible beautiful Playa Blanca – the white beach. Have a look at these pictures:

Donkey Kong rock on Monkey Island!

We did not stay the night here because we read on a blog that the beach in Bahia Inglesia is the most beautiful beach in Chile…a lie! Don’t believe all s..t in the web! See the difference:

Wonderful white sandy paradise

Crowded and stinky beach: Bahia Inglesia

After those beaches we headed to the desert. On the way less and less green plants were beside the road. The landscape turned into a dead and dusty environment where skeletons and tornados greet u on ur way. At one gas station near Colón we get to know Daria and Wojciech. This nice Polish couple was hitchhiking to reach San Pedro de Atacama. They were lucky to meet us because we took them all the way up ;)

I finish this blog entry with some pictures from our road trip in the desert and the next time I will tell you about our adventures in the desert, where we lost our nerves, our mind and almost our life's.