I woke up around 4.30am. I did sleep fully dressed because of the cold on one of the most uncomfortable bed since the beginning of this journey. Strangely enough though I wasn’t feeling too tired. We left the dormitory around 5.15am to reach an amazing formation of geysers half an hour later. We were on an altitude of 5100 metres and the temperature was almost reaching the freezing level. The steam of the geysers was not really enough to warm up the atmosphere and the smell coming from them wasn’t either what I call a refine French perfume. Minerals of all sorts where boiling in pond of melting rocks; nature can sometimes display all its power in such amazing ways. Not too far away from there, there was a semi natural pool for bathing in the thermal waters. Some managed to get their clothes off in that cold and jump in. I personally for once, preferred to sit and enjoy the steam sitting on a chair by the border of the pool.
We continued our journey to visit the Dali Desert (called like this because it resembles one of the paintings of the famous artist) and the Laguna Verde (Green Lagoon) with its amazing effects of changing colour (into green) of its waters once the sun and the wind appear together. Another amazing landscape in a place which seems forgotten by God.
Around 9.30am we reached the frontier with Chile. It was time to say goodbye to Francesca. I felt quite sad of leaving such a genuine and sparkling person, full of life, laughs and smiles, with an incredible addiction to my sense of humour. But this is the game of this kind of journey: you meet people, you share a lot in such a small amount of time and then you are forced to say goodbye. But as per Raul before, I have found a true new friend.
We reached Chile and San Pedro de Atacama around midday. Together with Shudip we found a very nice hotel and we decided to share a room to cut the expenses. The room was comfortable, clean, with Wi-Fi and a nice patio outside the room. San Pedro has got good infrastructure, considering that it is a proper town for tourists. I left the room around lunchtime even if I really wanted to get some rest and a good shower. I thought it might have been better to see if there were some tours or excursion to do while I was there and take my time worth. I realized, as I expected, that the tours were pretty similar to what I had already experienced in my last 3 days. The surroundings are pretty similar to the Bolivian one, considering that this land belonged to Bolivia until the end of the last century. I heard however that the Valle de la Luna (moon valley) was worthy a half a day tour. So I decided to book my bus for Argentina, buy some food for the journey and book the mini tour for the afternoon. I didn’t have much time to rest and around 4pm I went to the bus stop where the tour started. It was a very nice little journey around San Pedro with breathtaking images of the desert; this time the desert was formed more of pure sands rather than rocks. Pink sunset and steep Canyon were the best last images of this breathtaking nature that I could have ever had.
I returned around 8.30pm. I was tired. It had been a very long day. I met Shudip and few friends for dinner and then quickly back to the hotel. I was alone. A good shower and packing. I really felt I wanted to talk to a friendly voice to tell everything I had seen, especially about the ‘ghosts’ of Potosi. I had a bomb inside me ready to explode if I hadn’t let it out. Unfortunately it was too late to make any phone calls.
I felt my eyes closing so I thought that I would have hit the pillow for a dreamless sleep. And I was right.
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