I've had adventures on remote islands, high mountains, and tropical jungle so far... in the past month. Next stop, the desert.

I got to the hostel in the morning and relaxed on their awesome hammocks.  Needed the break.  I tried booking a flight to la Serena... Turns out Chilean credit card transactions are near impossible for foreigners. More on that later.

San Pedro is a very tiny desert town, but expensive due to bring touristy. Still, the surrounding landscape is beautiful, and the prime source of tourism.  On the first day I took a tour of moon valley, a series of dried up lakes turned salt flat.  The lakes originally formed over millions of years during the ice age after shifts in elevation and the latitude of the continent itself resulted in the nearby mountains' ice melting into nearby valleys.

Certain areas, after the rainy season, dry up and leave a huge collection of white minerals, including salt and volcanic minerals, everywhere.  The areas where this happens seems to be limited, I can sometimes see them ending but too far from the tour bus.

On the second day, I went to a nearby town and canyon called Toconao, 30 minutes from San Pedro, with a tour guide from the hostel and someone else staying at the hostel.  It's a huge rocky path with a small stream in the middle, but historically the steam was once a huge river.  The rainy season being recent, some new plants recently started growing, but most plants were next to the stream.

Every now and then, you can sometimes see a small house on the path or on the mountain across the canyon, but these are largely abandoned.  The houses themselves are basic one room places, with a nearby cave to store fruit to keep it cold.

The commonly considered best bus company in Peru, Cruz del Sur, who I took from Cusco, doesn't run buses between Arequipa and Tacna, the southernmost city in Peru.  Luckily, another bus company, Flores, runs one almost hourly.  I originally planned on starting my bus trip at 10:30, but with all the commotion in my hostel room at 5:30 and again at 7:30, I was out the door at 8 and on a bus with breakfast at 8:45.  The ride to Tacna costs 20 soles!  To contrast, I paid 115 soles to get into Arequipa.

Bus and train rides are often the best times to see some beautiful scenery, and this is no exception.  While I've seen the deserts in Nevada, those were mostly dry grass deserts, not those big sandy deserts you see on TV. The Atacama desert (or at least what it's cashed on the Chilean side) is exactly that, big beautiful sand dunes further than the eye can see, and every now and then a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, with little indication besides the town name on the side of a mountain, and some rocks stacked up or lined up.  Not a person in sight though.

As the bus travels closer to Tacna, the sand color changes from tan to a dull red-brown color. Still very little in sight outside the towns. Every now and then a condor can be seen flying around.

It's crazy to stop and think I was in Arequipa yesterday, Cusco the day before, and Machu Picchu the day before that.

From Tacna, I found the international bid station, which along other destinations, had many buses and collectivos that take you across the border. I found one collectivo who loaded up the car with five passengers quickly and took our IDs to print immigration forms out. Despite having read and knowing these guys are reliable, it's so scary being separated from your passport.  As of writing this though, the driver still owes me 9 soles in change.

I arrive in Arica around 5:30 and buy my ticket for my first destination in Chile, San Pedro de Atacama.  The bus leaves at 9:30.  I'll be here for a little while. Might as well get comfy.

I went to the departure gate at 9.  Good thing I figured out Chile time is 2 hours ahead of Peru despite being directly south.  That makes sense.  (Actually I just looked at the map and Peru is the weird one.)  Anyway I then accidentally boarded the 9:15 bus from another company to the same place I'm going. Oops.

Found my bus eventually. Oh and it has a leg rest in front if each seat. Hell to the yes.

It's 3:45 when we're all woken up (not to say I can really sleep on these things).  Everyone is getting off of the bus and getting their luggage, and I am sure we aren't there yet.  I check Google maps, sure enough we're at the border between one state and another.  Sigh, security checkpoints between states?  Even the US can't claim that kind of insanity.

Incidentally, there's no toilet paper in the bathroom for a 10 hour bus ride. I'm going to say now Chilean buses are not all they're cracked up to be based on that fact alone.

7 am, time to make my connection for the bus to San Pedro.  It is now that the other confused tourists come out of the woodwork because there really isn't a big bus terminal here like there is in Arica, or at least I don't see one. They just open a date with another bus behind it and board us there.  By the way, because 7 am is the same as 5 am in Peru, it's still really dark and cold, so we want to get on the next but ASAP.

As the sun rose around 8:30, the desert immediately became hot again.  Thank god. I arrived in San Pedro around 10 am, over 24 hours after leaving Arequipa.

After a 3 hour train ride, I arrived in the town of Aguas Calientes, where I stayed for one night.  It's a small town where you can walk from one side to the other in about ten minutes, but being the closest town to Machu Picchu, is really touristy and expensive. It's pretty telling when half of the prices in town ate listed in USD instead of soles.

The next morning, I went up to Machu Picchu with family friends (Ellen, Don, Sasha, and Shamus) from SF; the older of the kids (Sasha) just graduated high school, and really wanted to see this as his graduation present.

And despite the $50 ticket, the $150 train ride, and the $25 bus ticket from Aguas Calientes, Machu Picchu did not disappoint.  Don, Sasha, and I first went up Huayna Picchu, a nearby summit with one of the best views of the Machu Picchu ruins. Online it is described as a straight shot up, but it's just a lot of stairs. The stairs can be a bit dangerous if you're not careful though.

At the top, you can see the ruins, but also a beautiful sight of the surrounding mountains. It's absolutely humbling to see such a grand and beautiful set of mountains.

After, we descended and found the others (including Ellen's sister and family) and I wandered the ruins with Ellen and Sasha. The town was likely never abundant in resources, plus relied a lot on forced labor, so the set up of the town was mostly made to function, with little emphasis on art.  The temple to the sun god was small and carved out from rock, in contrast to most of the houses, built of stone.  The most impressive feat was the building of rock brick houses with nothing holding the rocks together; they were likely grinded strategically to fit perfectly together.

There's an additional trail, the tail end of the Inca trail, which is where most shots of Machu Picchu you see online are taken.  I didn't have time to hike up though.  The "cheapest" train to Cusco was leaving soon.

Cusco, high in the mountains of Peru, is one of the nicest places I've seen so far in South America.  It is characteristic of colonial times, and has a mix of Incan and Spanish tradition.  There are plenty of cute cafes, gift shops selling alpaca clothes and many many traditional handicrafts.  The main plaza is a big happening cultural center, with a lot of little alleyways leading to more craft shops.

It's also a huge hippie destination, most likely because of the Incan culture and the clothes.

There are ruins near the city, not nearly as awesome as Machu Picchu but it just goes to show how tenacious the human civilization has been over the last few millenniums.

And the mountains, oh the beautiful mountains.

That said, it doesn't hide itself as being a major tourist destination.  The city is littered with travel agents and Machu Picchu tour groups, plus many things are listed in USD (this not being the local currency).  Very expensive city too.

Someone in my hostel got a terrible stomach bug and threw up constantly all my first night.  Yikes.


The first two days were spent just wandering the city.  My third day, I met some people in the hostel and went with them to a local festival.  Every. Single. Stand. had the following foods: G