Chile feels like such a long time ago

But really it was only about a week ago. And we were only there for two days. Our visit started with a border crossing experience. One must sit in the bus for an appropriate amount of time looking miserable before you can cross. Sitting in the sun outside the bus is not allowed and god forbid you get out a pink frisbie and start throwing it around. They will let an entire busload of people in front of you.

Once we passed that test, we were officially in San Pedro in Chile. There is not a lot there. A lot of restaurants and art and craft shops and markets but no pharmacy or supermarket. We made the most of the restaurants and shopping (surprising I know).

We did go sandboarding which was heaps of fun and both Debbie and I were very successful. The photos look very impressive. The video less so as you can see how slow we are actually going. But we managed quite a steep dune without falling over. The downside is that our driver was probably stoned and later in the day he was having a wee tipple of pisco sour before driving us all home. But wait, I{ve skippéd a bit. The Valley of hte Moon was included in the tour and he tried to charge us extra for entry (we did{t pay) and then we were late for the sunset. The views were still pretty awesome though.

We had a little trouble leaving Chile as they had moved the bus stop, but the border crossing was fairly tame (form, stamp, empanada, leave). The drive from to Salta across the Andes was pretty cool though. Lots of great views and a very dodgy game of high-low going on in the back seat. I wasn{t game to play, but I did get a good laugh at some of the antics of the others in the group. Not sure if Jeannie walking down the aisle as a chicken, Nurain with his pants down or Anish working it and kissing his guns was the funniest. Others were in rather less good taste.

We had very little time in Salta. We had a bus trip along the route of the Train to the Clouds for the whole day. There was some really lovely scenery but we were all day in a bus having just spent the previous day in a bus. And we didn{t really have time to see Salta. Debbie and I were a bit grumpy when we go back so decided to go out for dinner by ourselves. After a bit of shopping (Debbie bought art) we turned up to the best restaurant in town according to my travel book and found the rest of hte group. Had a really nice meal with them as we were in a much better mood after some retail therapy.