The race through northern Chile

Due to what was later discovered to be a totally unnecessary need to race to Argentina for visa purposes, we had only one day in northern Chile. The landscape of northern Chile is much like Peru, very dry and barren. In fact, it is home to the driest place on earth, the Atacama desert. Some parts of the desert have not had rainfall for over 50 years!

It is a beautiful place to visit. There are some unusual, otherworldly landscapes. There are also very clear skies at night for stargazing. Despite the lack of water and vegetation, we saw many llamas, and at higher altitudes, their wild cousins called vicunas.

The drive from San Pedro de Atacama over the Andes and into Argentina must rate as one of the world's best drives. It is mindblowingly stunning. Luckily for us there was not too much snow, and the border crossing was open. Here the Gladiator had its first real customs search. The border patrol unscrewed a bunch of the interior panels, and they even inserted a special camera to check the roof cavity. We were a bit worried that Tom may have had a stash in there he had forgotten about.

We also saw our first salt flats of the trip, including the huge Salinas de Jujuy. Due to the aforementioned "wild visa goose chase" we unfortunately missed the famous salt flats of Uyuni, and the country surrounding them (Bolivia). Seeing some big salt flats ameliorated this somewhat.