Salar de Atacama

As usual, it was an early morning for us the next day. We were up at 7 to go to the Salar de Atacama, aka the salt fields in the desert. Our book described this place as looking like god went crazy, which it really did. The landscape was wild! Plus there were some little pools of water where flamingos were. It was really really neat looking, as our pictures will tell. From there we stopped off in a little town about 40 minutes outside of the Salar. I can´t remember the name right now. But it was basically to snap some photos. I found this amazing soccer field at the base of one of the volcanos that was the epitome of what I´ve been saying throughout south america: you can find a soccer field anywhere! no matter how small the town, or how poor, there´s always a soccer field. and voila! at the base of a volcano.
From there we headed another hour back up to high altitudes and the lake area (again, can´t remember names, will have to find that). It was gorgeous! Kind of reminded us of Torres del Paine, but more lakes. We hiked to the top of a hill and had this spectacular view. Then we hiked down and had a fantastic lunch at the lake. Tired from the hiking we piled onto the bus and headed into the desert desert.
We went to the Hidden Valley which was this amazing forest in the middle of the desert in a valley. It was really really cool! But so unforgivingly hot. We climbed down into the valley and walked along a path by the water. It was really bizarre to be down in a valley walking along all these fruit trees and gardens and then look up to see canyons beyond the trees. But lots of people live down there since they can grow all these crops. Plus there´s a big swimming hole, which i was very sad not to take advantage of. Esp. after being so hot.
But we piled back on the bus and headed to our last stop which was another small town. The town was very lovely but at this point I was toast from the sun and in desperate need of water. Unfortunately we had spent our very last cent of Chilean pesos and had no money. we were seriously considering our options: give the woman in the store $20 for two bottles of water and suck it up, Steph distract the woman and I grab the two bottles and run, Attack the girls sitting next to us on the bus and grab their water, or borrow money from anyone who will take pity on us, or.. just wallow in our agony. We opted for the last. I thought I was going to die. When we got to the city and changed our money it never felt so good to drink water. Note to self, make sure you have enough money to provide food and water before you leave a country.
Anyways, despite my near dehydration, the day was again, perfect. I´ll have to look up the name of the tour agency, bec. I really think they were the best ones. WE had great guides, great groups, plenty of time in each place and really saw a lot.