Holla everybody:

Well it's been quite a journey from San Pedro to Arica. We are now at the border with Peru and will be leaving for Bolivia and La Paz tomorrow morning. I never imagined that this part of Chile would look like it has. It is so incredibly bare that it's almost frightening. From San Pedro to Iquique which was our first stop on the Pacific Coast the great Atacama desert extends. If you can imagine massive mountains of rocks and gravel or both mixed together punctuated by endless flat stretches of desert with not a speck of vegetation in sight. It is f...ing wierd is what it is. We saw two little scrub brushes on our entire bus trip which lasted about 10 hours and involved 2 different buses. When you finally get to the Pacific it doesn't get any greener.

You have these huge mountains which drop into the ocean not just rock but enormous sand mountains as well, we're not talking sand dunes here. This is such a different coast that it's even difficult to describe. Nothing grows not even cactus. It's hard to imagine people living here and yet they do. Ostensibly Chile is fairly modern but there is still a great deal of poverty here with slums on the periphery of the big cities. Life for many is pretty hard. The hours are driving Stan loco. They open late, close early and open late again. If you want to have supper at a regular restaurant you have to wait till 8:00. Iquique was one of the most boring cities you could imagine. There was a square, not a bad one, and a pedestrican street with no pedestrians. It always felt completely deserted. We are definitely off the gringo trail here and have only encountered a few other hardy souls mostly Europeans from Germany, Switzerland and France and even those are not too common. We are still healthy in mind and in body even though these kinds of trips can sometimes get hard because, of course, you have to take care of everything yourself. It can get tiring and frustrating. I'm always fine though because I love adventure and a little challenge. Sometimes Stan gets homesick for his bed and home cooking but he's doing well overall. We have seen some amazing scenery and the best is yet to come.

La Paz and Bolivia are going to be a bit of a challenge, road conditions are not great but the people are welcoming and the sights are going to be mind blowing. I bought some pills for the saroche. We started taking them today. When we leave for Bolivia we will be going into one of

Chile's most beautiful parks, park Lauca but we will also be climbing to an altitude of 6,370 metres and I was a little worried about that. That is pretty damn high. There are going to be glaciers, volacanoes, lakes, wildlife and giant candelabra cactuses. I want to try and download our pictures in La Paz. I have to because we are running out of room. You could take a million pictures here and still not capture it all. Lots of love to everybody who is reading this and keep sending the odd message. It's fun to have them to keep us in touch, along the way.

Gros bisous,

Josiane

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