Despite a few of us feeling unwell while we were at our prior stop in Uyuni, Bolivia, we all survived the 12-hour bus ride out of Bolivia and into Chile without any problems. The bus ride wasn’t too bad but for two things: First, just our general feeling of being unwell and second, the roads were awful. Our bus was taking what was presumably the “main” road from Bolivia to Chile, but we were essentially driving (for hours) on just a dirt road through a desert.
However, we mostly slept and the journey passed without incident (incident = vomit) and as soon as we entered Chile the roads improved dramatically (actually became a road).
As we’d set off later than planned due to illness we didn’t get into Atacama until around midnight. Our pre-arranged taxi did not turn up so we walked to our accommodation. A fitting ending to a difficult travel day.
Fortunately, the accommodation was nice enough because we were all tired and at that point A and M were feeling quite sick and got their money’s worth out of those beds.
The main attraction for us in Atacama (and the reason we were determined to go ahead with the 12 hour bus ride from Bolivia and not delay it until we were feeling better) was an astronomy tour during which we could look at the stars and planets through very powerful telescopes in the middle of the desert with minimal light pollution. The Atacama Desert is known for being one of the best stargazing spots in the world. While we didn’t have the best conditions that night because of the brightness of the moon (it was the last night they were offering the tour until the next new moon), we did have an excellent and truly memorable experience.
Our guide was really very good – enthusiastic and knowledgeable – the two key ingredients for any tour guide! We’ve done enough guided tours on all our travels and had enough bad guides to really appreciate a good one. In addition, looking through the telescopes was amazing – we saw the rings of Saturn, stripes on Jupiter, different colored stars and, very clearly, craters in the moon.
The only downside was that it was another very late night, something those of us in a weakened state really didn’t need. So, we hunkered down, found a decent french restaurant and a park to play in…
Even though we still weren’t feeling 100%, we were feeling bad about doing absolutely nothing so we booked a tour of Valle de la Luna, a valley in the middle of the desert (but near town) known for its moon-like environment and rock formations, at the last minute.
The tour was fine (the tour guide was great – enthusiastic AND knowledgeable) and offered some great views of the desert.
The highlight of the tour was supposed to be the desert sunset. However, on the drive to the lookout M, basically empty of all bodily fluids for the last 48 hours, started feeling very unwell. Other passengers on the bus noticed it at first and called on the guide to help out. He came to her aid just in time as she had actually passed out! The guide yelled to the driver, ‘to the hospital!’ and slapped her until she came around. Scary stuff! C was trying to get all the information about what to say and do in the hospital. At one point he asked the guide how to say ‘fainted’ in Spanish and M, who had just come round, slurred ‘desmayarse’…impressive Spanish knowledge under any circumstance!
We pulled up to the hospital and apologized to our fellow tour passengers for the detour. They were, of course, very understanding and sympathetic. C promised to buy everyone a beer safe in the knowledge that we’d never see any of them again.
Once in the hospital there was a long line of people waiting. We asked one person how it worked – where do we check in? – for example. She just said you wait here and you’re seen in the order you came in. After a while, and absolutely no activity, a nurse came out and explained that there were only two people working that night and they were about to admit a child who’d been having seizures. As such, if your illness isn’t very serious you can go home or face at least a three hour wait.
What happened next was both comical and scary in equal measure. All of a sudden these seemingly healthy people in line all had unseen, but life threatening complaints. “I can hardly breathe!” cried one as she approached the nurse with the ease of someone who could, in fact, breathe quite well. “I have a sharp pain down this side!” yelled another, raising his supposedly afflicted arm. He was clearly better versed in how to jump a line in an emergency room, but needed work on his method acting.
Soon the poor nurse was swarmed with everyone in the waiting area arguing back and forth about who was closer to death. We slipped out quietly and walked slowly back to our accommodation where we did some serious internet searching on fainting. We read enough to calm ourselves (confirmatory bias?) and went to sleep.
Fortunately, M woke up the next day feeling fine. We missed the desert sunset, but we live on a beach and get some amazing sunsets. Nothing really lost. In fact, the worst part of the whole ordeal was at the airport the next day when we saw one of our fellow tour passengers and C had to hide in the airport bathrooms for half an hour in case she tried to claim her promised beer.
Before that, however, we did have some problems getting transport back to the airport. One of the nice ladies that worked at our accommodation offered her husband’s services. He had a van, but wasn’t willing to take us to the airport because we didn’t use him for any tours. We started wondering, ‘Is this a shake down?’ And ‘Was this the guy that didn’t show up to pick us up when we arrived?’ It was weird.
As we were stuck, we came up with a plan and asked him to take us (those of us not sick in bed) to the desert hot springs that morning then the airport in the afternoon. He seemed satisfied with that and not just because he charged us an extortionate price. He accompanied us on both trips, with his driver. Why? No idea, but we had fun at the hot springs and got to the airport so who cares?
