Farewell Chile (again...)

Apologies for not having written in a while, the reason for it is that I haven't been on the bike since Jujuy. I crossed into San Pedro de Atacama last thursday, this time by bus though - it would have taken me at least 3 days to do it by bike, probably 4, carrying water and food. Plus, given that a fair bit of the pass is at 4500m plus the chances of getting altitude sickness were good to likely, so a bit risky to do it on my own. Of course, I cursed my cowardice as I looked out of the bus window, but that's to be expected.

San Pedro de Atacama is the tourist gateway to the Atacama desert, and fittingly, there seems to be little else here other than restaurants, hotels and tour companies. Nonetheless, the authorities strive to maintain the decidedly Andean culture and, to this end, have banned dancing (yes, dancing) in public places and throughfares. How dancing, and not the myriad of pizza houses and cafés that are allowed, would diminish the local culture is totally beyond me. It's not as if the village pre-columbine civilisations used to sit down and discuss the vagaries of alpaca rearing over a hot slice and a de-caf capuccino.

Still, Bolivia tomorrow. I had hoped to cross on the so-called train of death that used to run between Calama and Uyuni, but after being reliably informed (or rather, unreliably informed numerous times and then being reliably informed) that it didn't run, I am now crossing over on 3 day jeep tour and getting to see a fair bit of Southern Bolivia before being dropped off at Uyuni, so it's in fact probably better than the original plan.

No, I'm not crossing into Bolivia by bike either; if the crossing from Jujuy would have been risky to do on my own, then this one is reckless verging on suicidal. In fact, there's a good chance I may not be able to get back on the bike until La Paz (combination of bad and dangerous roads and lack of population centres). Until then I will keep you posted as to my meanderings, but it's the bike that makes it worth writing for me so don't expect much.

I have put more photos up by the way, these have been on facebook for a week so most of you may have seen them already. It's the same album as last time, you'll find them at the end.