After Salt a little bit of Sand

Due to some mess with my travel agency, I had to take a local bus from Uyuni to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. It was not only a long ride (almost 13 hours), but it was also pretty rough and dirty. Until the Chilean border, it was a dirty road. Bumpy and Dusty. And as the bus was pretty old, all the dust found its way into the bus. We had three and a half hours of the border crossing at the Chilean border, one and a half to leave Bolivia, and 2 hours to enter Chile. On the Bolivian border, it was mainly due to paperwork for the locals (as it wasn’t a bus for tourists, only four were tourists, and the rest were locals). On the Chilean side, it was as they checked every luggage in detail, as drug smuggling is a big thing there. Locals had a lot of food in small boxes, so every box was opened and approved. Some of the locals got a free body inspection, too…
I usually never post pictures from “border crossing”, but as this was the weirdest border crossing experience ever, here you are 🙂

The Chilean side of the trip was better, with highways, less dust, and a better internet connection. In the evening, I arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, one of the driest and hottest areas in the world.

What does the Mandalorian and James Bond have in common? The Series and the movie “Quantum Solace” were recorded in the Atacama Desert. They sell it that the Mandalorian was recorded fully here, but the truth is, the main part was done in Death Valley, California. Nevertheless, the bus driver will most likely play the Starwars Theme if you enter the desert. Trying to correct them that the Mandalorian has a different theme does not help 🙂

The Atacama desert is not the hottest spot in the world but the driest nonpolar desert in the world. I also learned the term “nonpolar desert” for the first time. The Arctic is also desert but not dry, so there is a difference between polar and nonpolar deserts. (Yeah, traveling is the best education 🙂 )

The area itself is stunning, even if it just ROCKS and SAND:

But unfortunately, a third thing is in the desert: 100,000 unexploded landmines! Augusto Pinochet was scared that Bolivia was attacking Chile. Therefore, he placed them all over the desert to avoid a surprise attack—unfortunately, the used plastic mines are entirely undetectable. Second, the land mines sometimes even move across the desert due to nature and the moving sand. Therefore, a lot of the area is not explorable… Thanks to Pinochet.

After our group visited the desert, we went to a mountain for a stunning sunset view.

Unfortunately, you are not alone out there. In the desert, and especially at the sunset, you are surrounded by hundreds of people.

The other day in San Pedro, I had to stand up early to see the El Tatio Geysers. Why early? The Geysers are mainly steam; if it gets warmer during the day, the steam would be gone, and the impressive scene of steam chimneys combined with some water fountains would be gone.