San Pedro de Atacama to Salar de Uyuni in a 4x4

The ride from Salta to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile was only 8 hours, but no one told me that we go on a road that brings us up to over 5,000 meters elevation. I couldn't figure out why I had a migraine the whole ride and couldn't lift my head more than an inch off of the pillow. We got to San Pedro, and I'm not sure what I was expecting but I felt like I was in a scene from a western movie from decades ago. The bus let us off in a dusty parking lot. There wasn't a bus station, and there was a main square but nowhere in my eyesight. Luckily I met Esther and David, who were staying in my hostel, and we found the place together. Minus the odd fact that the hostel owner had 7 cats running around the place, it was decent, with hot showers from 6 am-9pm, which seems to be all it takes to get me excited these days. My first night I went out to this place where a cool French astronomer shows you different stars, planets and constellations with these giant telescopes. It was amazing how clear you could see the sky from the middle of nowhere. When he was naming all the constellations, I couldn't figure out why I didn't recognize any of them but I realized it was because I live in the northern hemisphere, so the sky i see is actually beneath my feet here. Which made me feel sad and far from home. Luckily that night I met really nice people from my hostel, and we sat around by a fire and I felt less sad by the time I fell asleep.

Day 2 of San Pedro I had to cram in a thousand activities because I decided I wanted to go on the salt flat tour the following morning. There were enough activities to keep you busy at least a week, but the town is super expensive so I didn't want to spend too much time there. In the morning I went sand boarding. The day before my friend from the hostel said their group had 16 people and they shared the dunes with other groups. When I went it was me, a German girl and our pervy tour guide and that was it.  It was really cool having the whole place by ourselves. My first couple of times down I was scared, but the sand hurt less than cold snow would on a snowboard, and since we were in the middle of cool rock formations in Death Valley I was too busy having fun to realize that i was actually pretty good. Of course I managed to split a hole in my leggings and thought my sandboarding days were over, but luckily the German girl had a spare pair and we finished our 3 hours of boarding on the dunes.  I got back to town, rented a bike and set off to try to squeeze 2 days worth of site seeing into the 5 hours I had left until the sunset. I made it to the ruins  in Pukara de Quitor, and then set off for the Moon Valley, which has more crazy rock formations that look like craters like you're on the moon.
I ran into my friend from Salta, and the group rode around the moon valley until it got close to sunset. I had been warned to hurry back before sunset because the roads got pitch black and it gets cold at night. I started rushing everyone, and of course on the way back it was super steep and rocky. My friend Sofja and I were in the middle of saying that we wishes we had worn helmets because this was really scary, and we turned a corner and saw that one of our friends Andrew was laying on the side of the road, off his bike covered in blood. We were in the middle of nowhere, about half an hour from the town and no way to get Andrew there. A tour guide found us and said he called an ambulance, but no ambulance ever showed up. Thank god a tour group was coming through to see the sunset at the valley, and they had a doctor on board who helped Andrew and the van brought him back to the hospital. Turns out he had to get stitches, surgery and his teeth replaced because he knocked them out. It was an awful experience and thank god he was okay. I swear I will always wear a helmet from now on. We raced back to town just as it got dark and made it back to safety to prep for our morning tour.

Our group, with the tour agency Atacama Connection, had 18 people in total, split up in 3 4x4s and 3 drivers. The guides all spoke Spanish , which was good for me to try to make sense of what he was saying. I had a really good group in the car and we got along amazingly for the 3 days. On the first day we stopped at a million lagunas, all different colors because of the minerals in the water. There was a white one, green and multi-colored lake that had flamingos living in it. It was all so beautiful, but the wind that day was insane so we had to keep running in and out of the car so we wouldn't get blown away. We had to get to the hostel early because driving through the desert, there aren't lights so we can only drive during daylight hours. The hostel was a few rooms made of big cement bricks with hay for a roof held down with rocks. Once the sun set, the temperature dropped to about 5 degrees below freezing. I literally thought I was going to die that night. I already lost my winter coat so I've been only wearing a wind breaker jacket and lulu hoodie, which was not enough to survive this cold. Combined with the fact that we were now eating Bolivian food and at an elevation of 4,900 meters, I felt like I was going to die. I took all of the extra blankets from the spare beds, took a sleeping pill and eventually stopped shaking enough to fall asleep.

In the morning it was just as cold, but as we set off and the sun came out it got more tolerable.
We went to see some rock formations that people say look like a Dali painting (I didn't see the resemblance), more lagunas and a volcano. We stopped in a village where we were able to buy beer made from quinoa and twix. I didn't realize how excited I would be to see American candy so far from home, but when you're this far removed from warmth and civilization, it's the little things that count.  The 2nd night we slept in a hotel made of salt. The floor, the walls, the beds - the whole thing was SO cool. Unfortunately, no warmer. But for 10 Bolivianos, they gave you  hot water for the shower. I think I spent more money on bathrooms and hot water than I did on food for these 3 days. We played travel scattegories (clutch purchase) until we were too cold to be awake, and froze to death for the second night in a row. This night I couldn't take a sleeping pill, because we had to be up at 6 for the sunrise, so I don't think I actually fell asleep that night.

On day 3, still cold, sleep deprived and suffering from altitude sickness, we set off for the salt flats. This was the whole reason for the journey, and it did not disappoint. The salt flat extends for 12,000 square miles. It's insane how you can look around for miles and only see blue sky above, salt below and nothing else but the other jeeps on our trip. We took the traditional salt flat pictures, which came out SO cool. I still don't understand how it works so luckily other people knew how to do it. After we played on the flats for a few hours, we headed off to Uyuni. About 10 minutes from our destination, the back tire on our jeep came flying off of the car and rolled away. Our car fell into a ditch, and we were completely stranded. Our tour guide was such a trooper and was able to fix the whole thing somehow, using flat stones to hold up the jack high enough to get the at lifted after we scoured the road for the missing bolts. By the time we got to Uyuni, I was now sick from the constant weather changes, altitude shifts, lack of sleep and now sunburn from sitting on the side of the road while our car was mended. I decided against spending the night in the town, or continuing to the mines in Potosi, because I needed recuperation time before Melissa gets here on Sunday. I splurged for the nicer bus, which meant I had heat and it didn't break down on the side of the  road, and made it to La Paz in time to check in to my first private room and relax for the first time in weeks. The salt flats were an awesome experience, but definitely one of the most difficult things to survive.