The Atacama Desert

Heading east, the snow capped peaks of the Andes came into view like clouds in the sky.

We descended from about 3200 metres, like a plane coming into land, to the old town of San Pedro de Atacama, 800 metres below.

With houses and the second oldest church in Chile made from mud cob. The scenery around it was superb.

We visited El Tatio geiser field at 4300 metres. This was a good start to our altitude acclimatisation. We also took a dip in a thermal pool.

The next morning we started our journey back to Argentina towards Bolivia over the Paso de Jama. After about 50 km (30 miles) we were already at 4500 metres (using our camera's altimeter, which reads a bit low)! To put this in perspetive, the highest mountain in the alps is about 4800 metres. We were amost as high as a neighbouring volcano. Thats a climb of 2200 metres in 50 km! The AT coped well considering the cold and lack of oxygen.

We then entered the high altiplano where the altitude varied between about 3300 and 4800 metres. Apparently about half of the 400 km pass is above 4000 metres! After a quick border crossing we entered Argentina again and many more miles over the antiplano. The scenery was stunning and we hardly saw anyone else - it was like meeting an old friend! We were also back with the wildlife and animals - llamas, vicunas (Altiplano version of a guanaco), donkeys, cows, goats, flamingos etc.

We had a picnic here, in the green oasis below, with llamas for company!

And more on the road ahead.

We passed the Salar Grande salt flats before starting our descent to Purmamarca where we would sleep at a similar altitude to San Pedro.

The descent included an incredibly twisty road with plenty of hazards - stones, sand and gravel all over the road, a landslide over half the road, random ripio hairpin corners and thats before mentioning the animals!

An overnight in Humuhuaca before we cross into Bolivia. It felt as if we already had due to the locals and feel of the town being very different to the rest of Argentina.