![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/20130328_124713.jpg\" "\\"20130328_124713\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe desert – Team DeCorso loves the desert! \u00a0But even we desert lovers are tiring of the thousands of miles of desert we are traveling through. \u00a0It is very, very hot here. \u00a0We are also at a mere 9,000 feet elevation but the sun is brutal and Chile is missing ozone. \u00a0And plants. \u00a0And water.<\/p>\n
Drinking red wine while hiking through an Andean salt lake gives you a headache.<\/p>\n
Our destination: San Pedro de Atacama. \u00a0People told us that it is touristy and they were all right. \u00a0The salar, the lagoons, the rock formations are meh+. \u00a0Not too bad. \u00a0You can swim in a salt lagoon and then emerge badly needing a shower (and more red wine). \u00a0But when the sun goes down and the candles and lanterns light up the town, it is very pretty. \u00a0A full moon and a sky full of stars makes for some pretty wonderful camping. \u00a0We even got a date night in!<\/p>\n We were faced with a big, monumental decision. \u00a0We were sitting on the border of Argentina and Bolivia. \u00a0One straight (one could say almost vertical) drive up the mountain and we would be in Argentina heading towards Uruguay. \u00a0We sat one night and watched the trucks from Uruguay and Paraguay drive down the hill. \u00a0We could see the lights of the trucks and watched them snake down a nearly vertical hill. \u00a0The road northeast would take us to the southwest Bolivian circuit, back up into the high altiplano. \u00a0Some destinations are above 16,000 feet and after spending the last month on the high altiplano, we were happy to be at the low elevation of 8,000 feet where water boiled at a reasonable temperature and we did not wake up in the middle of the night unable to breathe. \u00a0The road south was over 1000 miles of desert on the way to Santiago. \u00a0We left the decision up to Ryan. \u00a0It’s his trip. \u00a0For awhile, we were certainly heading to Argentina. \u00a0There are several other overland travelers ahead of us with blogs and they all love Argentina! \u00a0We were headed that way until I mentioned to Ryan that all the overlander folks love Argentina because of the meat. \u00a0The seven stages of grief followed as Ryan worked through the truth of this fact. \u00a0Blogs were visited and phrases such as “meat coma” and “meatapalooza” were bantered around. Next, we turned our sights on Bolivia but none of us could stand the thought of more time on the altiplano. \u00a0We are just not an altiplano family. So we headed south – Calama, Antofagasto, La Serena… more than 1000 miles to Santiago. \u00a0And then another 1000 miles to Puerto Montt. \u00a0And we are still not to Tierra del Fuego. \u00a0We are passed the vernal equinox, too and days are getting shorter and colder.<\/p>\n The good news is that Chile did<\/em> get cheaper the farther south we travel. \u00a0The bad news is that it is miles and miles and miles of desert with crosses marking terrible car accidents every few miles. \u00a0The car accident markers range from simple crosses to elaborate shrines with LED lights and posters of the deceased people. \u00a0Some have water for thirsty travelers. \u00a0Many of these crash sites have people sadly sitting there. \u00a0On the way south from Atacama, we saw an accident and a dead body.<\/p>\n Chile gas stations are all inside towns, requiring us to drive inside to get gas. \u00a0We spent the night in Calama and went shopping at a mall, a real mall with a food court. \u00a0We were so shocked at the food court that we could only walk around it several times wondering at all the amazing things – fountain sodas, ice, ice cream and there was no manjar to be found. \u00a0We needed to go grocery shopping and the store at the mall was Hyper Lider (aka Walmart). \u00a0We steeled ourselves for this but it was not to be as carts are a competitive venture and we could not procure a cart. \u00a0Hyper Lider was unnaturally, crazily busy with lines winding to the back of the store and 45 check out lines open. \u00a0We missed the mercado and the old cholita ladies with the cocoa leaves pasted to their faces. \u00a0We left Calama on Good Friday, a day that was clearly a mine holiday and headed toward Antofagasto.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The desert – Team DeCorso loves the desert! \u00a0But even we desert lovers are tiring of the thousands of miles of desert we are traveling through. \u00a0It is very, very hot here. \u00a0We are also at a mere 9,000 feet elevation but the sun is brutal and Chile is missing ozone. \u00a0And plants. \u00a0And water.… Continue reading San Pedro de Atacama<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[351,266,267],"class_list":["post-1875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chile","tag-chile","tag-desert","tag-salt","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1875"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1911,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875\/revisions\/1911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>