Desert Adventures

The first excursion in San Pedro was to be Sandboarding on the sizeable dunes that are sporadically spotted around the town. San Pedro is not necessarily the kind of desert that you would expect from seeing Lawrence of Arabia, but the barren, craggy land is still as inhospitable as any of ubiquitous sand. It does, however, have some sizeable dunes spotted around, waiting to be graced by a smooth board or two. Rhys, Dr Mike and myself were yearning for some action, adventure and adrenaline pumping pastimes, hence this beauty being the first thing on our list.
If I'm honest I expected pretty much everyone to be awesome at this whilst I spent the day falling off and cursing. However, although I didn't manage to get the whole way down I got some good runs and didn't fare any better or worse than anyone else. Unsurprisingly my competitivity had me attempting higher and steeper dune before I was ready which resulted in some pretty impressive rolls down the dunes. We returned, three happy pioneers covered in sand, to discover that the showers were no more than a freezing trickle of snowman's piss, and sand was to be duly discoved in all kinds of random places over the coming days.

The night was to be passed in a much more relaxed yet totally spectacular fashion as Rhys, myself and two swedish girls headed off into the middle of the Valley of the Moon to a stargazing observatory.

We were met by an enthusiastic French man who began by excitedly telling us about the rudimentaries of space, which despite being told facts that we learnt in school, was awe inspiring. After 30 minutes of animated lecturing, the group was led outside and presented with the most beautiful sky that I think I will have the privilege to see. Furthermore, we were in the company of the French guide, who began to point out each star, constellation and visible planet accurately with his laser pen.

We were then led into an area that contained a number of massive telescopes which were primed and aimed at Jupiter, Saturn, a Supernova and a section of the Milky Way to name but a few. Like excited children we ambled round enjoying the perfect sky and learning all sorts of wonderful things. After warming up with hot chocolate we had to leave but I for one left humbled and keen to know more.

The next day I booked myself on a three day tour through the Salt Flats to Bolivia, which would leave the next day. I made haste to grab all of my provisions as I was to leave presently to the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley) to watch the sunset. So I ran around the small town to purchase sunnies, water, fruit, cookies and toilet paper, returning just in time for my tour. We set off, at first, to the top of the valley to look out over the area, whilst the guide told us the history. However, of late the photography bug had returned and I was more interested in playing with my camera, including a few shots of me doing heel clicks on a cliff edge (which looked deceptively unsafe but wasn't really). We continued to death valley, which overlooked the dunes that I had been snowboarding on the day before. Very pretty, but not a lot to relate back.

Our final stop was the national park of the Moon Valley. I was thoroughly enjoying the literal moon-like landscape and the haunting black and whites that I was able to take. This, however, was sadly marred by some fat idiot trying to give me camera lessons, in spite of the fact that he was using his camera on automatic point-and-shoot mode (which a monkey could master), whilst I, who have now totally mastered my SLR, was setting every detail in manual mode and getting great results. To further my frustration, he had the damn thing attached to a tripod for no reason at all. Eventually, when I had managed to escape him, I climbed, along with Rhys and an English guy called Ed to sit on a cliff edge to watch the sun set over the spectaculor landscape.

The next day I was to leave San Pedro for Bolivia, and I was brimming with excitement. San Pedro had been a great mix of exciting adventures and humbling moments, I was able to have time with my thoughts whilst being in the mix of fun people. As when moving on to every new place, uncertainty awaited me as I took to high altitudes; perfectly white deserts of salt and every changing landscapes to the north.