San Pedro, Northern Chile

Typical street in San Pedro



San Pedro´s Church




Main Plaza, San Pedro


I spent the last few days in the desert town of San Pedro. It was great to be somewhere warm after the nightly freezing temperatures of Bolivia. San Pedro is very much geared towards tourists. There are plenty of things to do in the surrounding landscape and the town has plenty of bars and restuarants.
I signed up for sandboarding, basically snowboarding but down sand dunes. It was a night excursion billed as Lunar Sandboarding. We took pick ups out of town and parked by a huge sand dune. I met a nice English girl, Jo neither of us had snow or sand boarded before so we decided to stick together. Unfortunately I discovered I must be REALLY allergic to dust. As soon as we began climbling the sand dune I started coughing, it was really horrible as the sand was flying everywhere. By the time I reached the top of the sand dune I was sick and felt like I was going to have to call it a night.
After about 20 minutes of watching the others sandboard I started to feel better. I really wanted to try boarding, so I discovered I´m a "goofy" (something to do with leading with my left) I strapped on a board and began to slide, very, very slowly down the hill. I discovered you need to wax the board first, this really made a difference and the second time I was a lot faster and somewhat out of control!
I´m covered in bruises from were I fell in the sand, but it didn´t hurt at all at the time.
I spent the rest of my time in San Pedro relaxing, thinking I could get use to a desert climate.