More biking and sad goodbyes

back again, this time to ramble about Chile.......

Back on the bike

We went biking around San Pedro yesterday. Again showed how hard it is to to DIY tourist in these. Hired out a few bikes for the afternoon with the plan being to see some of the sights around the town and visit Valle de la Luna for sunset!

With a few maps we hit the road and were going fine up until the time we cycled off the map so to speak. We knew we were on the right road but as there were no signposts or people to ask we gave up on the place. Cool little trip though as involved cycling through/across the same river about 8 time (not deep don't worry).

Back into town and headed for the Valle de la Luna, differing distances there depending or who u asked or what u read (ie 12k, 15k, 16k or 19km!). Also the forgot to tell us a few other minor details...... (A) that 3/4s of the road was gravelly offroad stuff and (B) mostly uphill and I mean UP. After a few breaks along the way (and action photographs!) we got to the entrance. Every one was pissed off with the entrance as it was at the bottom of a big dip and just as we had built up enough speed to get up the other half we saw the barriers. I mean like do they ever think of the poor cylclists when the plan the positioning of these entrances, why not at the top of a damn hill....

Time to split up at the entrance as people wanted to see different things, options were (A) salt caves (B) just sit at view point and wait for sunset (C) see the rest of the park. Ben and myself opted for (C) and went off to see the much talked about Amphitheatre and Tres Marias. To be honest they were crap, not even worth mentioning more and the killer was it was more kms up and down hills on crappy roads.

We all met up at the sunset viewing areas, everyone was shocked with the amount of people there (I´m talking 8 - 10minibusess) as this aint the fanciest of towns. So where all these "grey movement" or snowflakess" came out of was anybodies guess!. Sunset wasn't the best either just to really cheer us up, oh and the thought of cycling back into town wasn't helping!

Bit of an experienc cycling back, great full moon helped the dark cycle and to all of our surprises it wasn't all that bad, def know now that the way out it worse- not that will ever be doing it again mind you!

All in all a very energetic day was put down (oh there was a mini competition to see who had gone the longest stretch with less exercise- some of the answers were double figure months.....). It was a nice place to see, they say it looks as close to the moon surface as anywhere on earth (related to all the salf comming up through the rocks etc) so that was interesting. Tip for anyone heading this way- go with a bus tour.......

Goodbyes......... a sad day in the Moya and Mick travels

Yip a sad day in our travels as we said goodbyes to the English girls that have been following us around for the past month (started in Hunchaco, then Huachachino until today!). Only messing Naomi and Suzie, it was mighty fun, enjoy the rest of Chile, hope ye have fun and don't forget to keep practicing those "Irishisms".

Dont worry our paths will cross again, sometime.......

Where to now

Back onto our favorite overnight buses at 20:45 tonight and arriving in Arica at 7:15am tomorrow. The plan is a bit of R&R by the beach for a few days. This life aint all about traveling you know, have to chill out a bit every so often. Afterall Im back to work in less than 3 weeks, oh no that cant be right

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