SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA DESERT - CHILE...Breakdowns and Blow-Outs...

We again took another 20 hr bus ride across the Andes to a remote yet thriving dusty little town called San Pedro.  The ride freaked me out somewhat as Russ and I chose to sit at the front of the upstairs double decker, the coach screamed to a halt, moments before a truck came onto our side of the road and then flipped rolling off the embankment, the man was dead, it was the most eerie feeling and very sad, this happens quite often apparently. Besides being over 3500m and havig major altitude sickness San Pedro was awesome. We took a tour to go sandboarding (see pic below looking like a complete douche!) and climbed a mountain at the Valley De Lunar to watch the sunset with a whisky sour in hand, incredible...

With copious amounts of research we went with a company with the least complaints to take a 3 day tour 4x4 across the Salar. I noticed prior to getting into our so called 'safe' 4by that 2 tyres were completely bald...he eh, wouldn't it be that within half a day the back tyre blew out, followed by a breakdown, another tyre blow out,  the driver had no phone or radio, we relied on a bike pump and passers by (not too many in the desert!) with spares (as we didn't have any!) a breakdown and finally the car just died...

 Besides the 'dramas', the salt lakes, hot springs and geyser's of the Salar were unbelieveable...