Our taxi arrived promptly at 3am, and we were ready for it, feeling surprisingly sprightly for the time of day - and dosed up on travel sickness pills (all of us), and Imodium (just me…).
Hilariously, when we arrived at the bus station, it was four doors away from a bar where people were still enthusiastically partying to a live band (they very kindly gave me some change for the taxi driver). Quite a contrast…
The bus was a bit late, but we were reassured by another waiting passenger, an Argentinian currently living in Berlin who spoke immaculate English (and an experienced bus-taker) that they do turn up in the end - and at 4am, it did: a single-decker coach.
We stowed our suitcases, and climbed aboard into a dark womb-like space, with curtains covering all the windows and blocking the space to the driver. It was also full of sleeping people - the bus had set off from Salta two hours previously so most passengers were well-settled in.
The seats were “semi-cama”, or semi-bed, so were quite large, padded and reclined with a footrest - a bit like aeroplane Premium Economy but weirdly much more comfortable. We all fell asleep pretty quickly.
When I woke up about 7.30am, I opened the curtains to see the sunrise shining off some distant mountains behind a flat barren plain. I could see Jemima was awake and listening to her audiobook, while Kevin was asleep next to her (I was across the aisle). I thought she looked a bit pale, but then it had been a strange night.
By this time we’d been at 4000m altitude for quite some time - we were crossing the Andes, after all. We’d been that high going over various mountain passes in the previous week, but not for long periods - and it became clear that something was not agreeing with Jemima. It was either delayed llama poisoning - or more likely, altitude sickness.
The bus driver stopped at a petrol station and very kindly they gave me a paper bag…
An hour or so later, we stopped at the border between Argentina and Chile. It was organised bureaucracy: everything and everyone off the bus (including bags); then one queue to be stamped out of Argentina; another queue to be stamped into Chile; then collect your suitcase from the pile on the pavement and go through Chilean customs, handing in your customs form, and putting all bags through a scanner.
We all felt a bit weird - I hadn’t eaten anything all day and felt like I couldn’t stand upright, Kevin was nauseous, and Jemima was white as a sheet and really struggling. When we finally got back on the bus - the whole process took about an hour - she was sick almost immediately. She felt a lot better - but we still had a two hour bus journey to go…
I went back into the building to ask if they had anything we could use as a sick bag. A massively unhelpful young man just said a flat no. Desperate I spotted a waste paper bin with a plastic bin liner in it, so I asked for a bin bag. He still said no. But a very nice woman at a desk saw my urgency, and took the plastic bag out of her own bin and gave it to me - I bet she has kids…
And it’s a good thing we had it - back on the road about half an hour later, Jemima was sick again. And it’s not surprising - the highest altitude I recorded during the trip was 4800m - which is the equivalent to driving over the top of Mont Blanc.
The views out of the windows were extraordinary - white-tipped triangular volcanoes, barren deserts, scrubby plains. I had thought crossing the Andes would be like crossing the Alps, all hilly, but a lot of it was flat - they call it the Altiplano, or high plain. We saw the odd llama, but mostly there was nothing stretching for miles.
About 11.45am - so only 15 minutes behind schedule - we arrived at San Pedro de Atacama, the town that’s the main base in the Atacama Desert, back down to 2400m. Everyone felt very relieved to get off the bus…
Our hotel had sent a man to meet us - we had a short drive to the outskirts of the town. The hotel is part of a chain created in the 90s by two young Chilean men who liked exploring wild places, and wanted to make that more accessible to others. It’s a clever concept: a comfortable all-inclusive hotel, but a key part of the all-inclusive is guided excursions into the local area.
And that was the key goal for the day: to plan our trips! After lunch and settling in we met a lovely guide called Eloisa who spent a while finding out about us (riding experience: me - some, Kevin and Jemima - none; cycling: yes from Kevin and Jemima, only on the flat from me…), and constructing a personalised plan around that. We sat at a glass table with a map of the area underneath, and she used a marker to make notes, and show us possible routes, before writing it up. A very effective process, and very exciting!
Then a quiet afternoon (catching up on the blog!), a little walk around the grounds, dinner, and an early night before the excitement of our first excursions tomorrow!
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At the bus station |
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Right next door |
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On board |
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Dawn view |
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Jama border crossing |
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Andean views |
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| We’re off the bus, thank goodness! |
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| View of volcanoes from the hotel roof garden |
