3400km/ 35 hours

So I recently returned from an amazing and unforgettable trip to the Atacama Desert in Chile, the driest desert in the world. I can honestly say that it had the most beautiful landscape that I’ve ever seen (after India). I am not sure how to describe how impressive the huge mountains of sand and quartz were or how cute the fluffy llamas were, so I am just gonna put some pictures here (courtesy of friends cause my camera ran out of battery early).

First of all, this was my first legit road trip!! I went with 11 other exchange students, and we split into 3 cars. It was such a great time-- jamming out to some awesome mix tapes, avoiding near accidents, stopping at useless train crossings (which probably hadn’t seen a train in years), getting lost, and paying some ridiculous tolls. Since I have never driven manual transmission, and it is actually very different from automatic, I was designated as the person who would stay up and entertain whoever was driving. Unfortunately, I kept falling asleep on the driver, so thank God they had some heavy metal mix to keep them up! It took us 16 hours to get there, and we hit the ground running the moment we arrived. We found a super cheap hostel (around $6/night), and signed up for 3 tours with this old drunken bastard named Pablo who snorted cocaine- very entertaining.

Friday That afternoon, we went to some salt water lakes, and everybody jumped in. Now everyone who knows me knows that I am terrified of drowning, so I was hesitant, until I saw everyone floating on the water. So I went in, and I could tell this lake was super deep, but I could literally stand straight-up in the water. It was so cool, and probably the deepest body of water I will ever be in ever again. Afterwards, everybody’s skin was very salty-looking, but mine was so obvious cause I am brown. I either looked like a Dalmatian or a zebra, but Pablo and the other tour guides called me ‘chocolito’ cause I resembled vanilla and chocolate ice cream. Oh man Pablo. Afterwards, all the guys jumped into a freezing cold lake to get the salt off, but I heard that salt does wonders for your skin, so I didn’t. After that, Pablo gave us pisco and snacks, and it definitely warmed us up. Then we all went out for pizza, and found this place in San Pedro (lil touristy town in the desert) that served the greatest four-cheese pizza ever, so we went back there 2 more nights, and ate the same pizza : )

Saturday  We woke up at 3 in the morning to go see the Los Geysers del Tatio, which I can honestly say is the only part of the trip that wasn’t worth it. I mean it was cool to see smoke and water coming out of the Earth and to walk among all the geysers, but it was just too coldddd (In Atacama, it is very hot during the day, and very very cold at night). So everyone was looking forward to going to the hot springs afterwards, but the one we were taken to was only freakin lukewarm. I was sooo disappointed, but 3 crazy friends jumped in there anyway, and froze their butts off when they got out. hahaha. Meanwhile, I walked a bit too close to a glacier which was apparently surrounded by quicksand, because it almost swallowed my foot, and because it was near a glacier, it was boiling hot, and my foot was boiling as well, but only for a minute or two, so all is good.

Everyone wanted to take a nap after the geyser experience, but me and 2 guys decided to drive around a bit. They even let me drive because it was in the middle of no where, and I must say, I think driving manual is sooo much fun! difficult to adjust to, but fun. We drove right up to these random canyons, and the area around it seemed untouched, so we got out of the car, and forded some rivers, climbed some rocks, and went through some caves, and it was awesome, so we went back the next day as well, to see how far we could go, and I discovered a natural propensity for caving - I love it!

Later that day, we went to the Valle de la Muerte- sounds scary, but it’s actually quite romantic. We walked through some awesome caves and sand dunes. We also saw some volcanoes and mountains, and it was crazy because Bolivia was right behind these mountains.  Afterwards, we hit the Valle de la Luna, and climbed some sand dunes to watch a beautiful sunset. Drinks, more pizza, and stupid but highly amusing games followed this unforgettable experience.

Sunday We were sick of Pablo and his tours, so we decided to do own thing, especially since we had cars. Me and two guys went driving and trekking through our secret canyon place again, and then we met up with the others to go SANDBOARDING! It was awesome! We just rented some sandboards, drove out to some random sand dunes, climbed up the sand dunes (which was hell- very exhausting), and then took turns boarding down. I actually only did it twice because the climb back up literally took my breath away, but it was all worth it. I think we ate some more four-cheese after that.

Monday  We decided to check out the Reserva Nacional de Los Flamencos (flamingos!!). Unfortunately, we didn’t really know where exactly it was and we didn’t have a very reliable map, so we just decided to drive in the direction of it. I guess we missed it because after driving for an hour and a half, we ended up on the Argentinean border! But let me tell you, this drive was the best one ever. We were just going up and down a little desert road surrounded by amazing landscape- completely worth it. After we finished taking silly pics at the border, we jumped back in the cars, and had an equally impressive drive back. We decided to leave that night because people had tests and stuff this week, so we drove the 17 hours back, stopping only for gas and breakfast.

That night, after naps, and discovering that our car had a flat tire (which was deemed a result of our trip, so we had to pay for it), we went out to watch Wolverine and I thought it was pretty damn good, and the perfect end to an excellent trip!