Hangovers at High Altitude!!

So, I just wrote this entry, nearly completely, then lost it all!! Not amused!! Anyway... I'll try again... One thing Katy and I hadn't considered during our partying the ngiht before was the altitude and the effect it may have on us!! oops! San Pedro de Atacama is a lovely little town, with a bit of a 'wild west' feel to it that sits at 2440m above sea level. The pic here is one of only a few we have of San Pedro and doesn't do it justice at all, it's far prettier than it appears here and was somewhere that Katy and I would've both been happy staying in for longer given the chance. It was small and peaceful and just what we needed after our marathon journey.

Having never been at a high altitude before though it wasn't suprising my body was crying out in pain for putting it through not only excessive amounts of travelling but also plying it with Gin and sending it to ridiculous heights!!! When sipping on our Pisco Sours under the Chilean skies at our random party the night before we hadn't considered the althitude thing, trust me though.. we couldn't help but remember it the morning after.... Hangovers at high altitude are anything but fun!!!

We managed to drag ourselves out of bed and into the peacful suntrap of the hotel courtyard for breakfast and I don't mind admitting that I went straight back to bed afterwards. I know I should've been exploring the place but I had a warm bed waiting for me and felt shocking so that was the place for me. Not only was I dealing with a hangover but I wsa trying to adjust to the altitude... nose bleeds are just one of the lovely symptons I had to contend with... hmm, nice!!

I did manage to see most of the afternoon though and after a unbelievably lovely hot shower and a mooch around town we headed to La Cave; the restaurant the our new friends Ian and Ceaser worked in, for dinner.. where despite our resolve to not let a drop of alcohol pass our lips, free Pisco Sours were presented to us and well, it would've been rude not to really!! We did however manage to stick to our guns and fulfill our plans of getting to bed early and sober... annoyingly though I found myself unable to sleep.. what Ma would call Sods Law I believe!!

We did wake to find ourselves feeling slightly more humn the following day luckily and after a leisurely morning and lush fish lunch at a cheap local restaurant we took leave of our senses and hired mountain bikes in order to cycle to the Valley de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) approximately 12km form San Pedro, to see the sun set over the sand dunes. The Valley is one of Chile's (and South America's) many amazing parks with stunning mountainous and volcanic landscape. As we set off about 3:30pm, the sun was blazing and it was hot and dusty....

The pic on the left here is me having a little rest at the entrance to the park and the other (below) is me contending with the hills.... Katy's fitter than me and managed to stay on her bike for most of the hills, unlike me although it was steep (the sign says so) so I think I can be forgiven!! It really is an amazing place though, you can easily see why its named so, resembling the moon's crater immensly. And just to prove to those skeptics out there.... the pic on the right here is to prove I did actually ride the bike, not just wak next to it the whole time!!!

The sunset is best viewed at the top of the masive sand dunes, so along with all the people that had been sensible enough to book themselves on a driven tour of the valley, at 5:45pm we climbed the masive dunes and settled ourselves down to watch the sun disappear behind the Northern Chilean mountains... not a bad sight, I tell assure you!

Now, we do have a little confession to make... while sat there watching the sun go down, we contemplated our return journey to San Pedro... and weren't exactly relishing the thought of it... as we'd been on planes and buses for so much of our time recently, we were both feeling quite lethargic nd had wanted some exercise.... now, though we were just shattered and so decided to hatch plan... there seemed to be several half empty tour buses all heading back to San Pedro so we figured a ew Chilean Peso's ought to convince one of the drivers to take pity on us and our bikes!! As it turned out though, we did one better.... on our descent from the sand duens we spotted at Australian couple in a UTE (obviously!) with 2 empty seats and a big fat empty trailer on the back... we cheekily asked them to take us and our bikes back to San Pedro (luckily where they were heading anyway) and offered them some money for their trouble... they wouldn't take the money but thankfully would take us... so, 2 weary girls and their bikes hitched a lift back to town and were more than grateful to be back in double quick time and showered and off for dinner at a respectable hour. This time at La Casona... which served the most delicious Salmon. The rest of the evening was spent just chilling out and chatting with Ian (shown in pic here), who'd joined us (Ceaser was home nursing sunburn!!!!!! p'ah, call himself a man!! ) we were leaving early the next morning on our Salt Flats tour so it probably wasn't wise to not go to bed til about half one but it was a fun evening and had been a really good day. We were both sad to be leaving San Pedro, it's such an easy place to be and we'd had fun... but time was ticking so we had to go... xx