Atacama, La Serena and Valparisio

San Pedro De Atacama is a nice place, a welcome change from the general mess and disorganisation of the previous countries. After eating at the most expensive place in town (not by choice I might add, but by generally blundering about trying to find somewhere quiet in the shade) I bumped into Jade and Luke who I'd first met in Nasca, and again in Aquas Calientes, and then in Bolivia on the Salar de Uyuni tour several times. Meeting them made me feel like there was some sort of order in the world and discovered their hostel was not only much cheaper but much nicer, so I moved to their place.

The guide book says its 17km to Valley De Luna, local operators say its 14km, its actually only 6km to the control point where you buy the ticket, and the area then continues for another 10km ish to the end where you turn around and come back. So facts and figures are some what misleading. Myself and Jade hired some bikes from the internet cafe on the main street for 3500 CLPs for 6 hours, where we were given a badly drawn map with some vague indication of the locality. The area features an exciting cave system, requiring a torch.

Antafagasta

Antafagasta on the coast is 5 hours away, its a big rather dull town on a grid pattern with roads sloping up a hillside. The waterfront area is quite nice and has a massive shopping mall surrounded by a promenade, the Bond film A Quantum of Solace used the town as a base for some filming around the area, including some scenes in hotels, Observatories and scenes in the Atacama. I was pleased to get back to sea level and the sea as the altitude was playing havoc with my sinuses.

La Serena

Further south after one final overnight bus* we arrived at La Serena, a lovely place. A perfect place to relax, most of the time was spent discussing dinner, making food, eating food and drinking coffee. Plus I finally managed to catch up with the remained of series 2 of A Game of Thrones.

Vina Del Mar

Valparaiso

Vina Del Mar and Valparaiso are nice places to wind up the trip, (more dinner planning, preparing and eating and even a game of scrabble, we are getting civilised now) Jade and Luke were heading over to Mendosa in Argentina and for me Santiago's the end of the line.

Notes:

*The bus showed 2 films, both American films but dubbed in Spanish, this is normal, but then at about 10.30pm on came Bobos Fantasy. At first I was quite annoyed by this as the volume was cranked up but ended up watching the whole thing.

• Hostel Florida in San Pedro, El Arbol in La Serena and Jacaranda in Valparaiso were really nice hostels, homely, welcoming and just perfect.