Two days later I was in the middle of the desert, with parched throat and sun beating down on me like I was in some weird South American Western, wondering why and how on earth I came to be there. It was my own fault.

After returning to Santiago from Peru, I had a conference with Marcia. With the time I had left in South America I was hoping to see some of its extreme landscapes. Plus I was less nervous about travelling alone now. One option was Tierra del Fuego, the coldest (due to its proximity to Antarctica) and southernmost tip of Chile. The other was the Atacama Desert in central Chile. This appealed to me more because it was close to Bolivia, and I had always wanted to see the famous Salt Flats there – unique photos of perfect reflections seeming without a horizon. Marcia told me of the other attractions in the area. She really should have her own travel company. She also told me that it can get very cold there – up to minus 15° at night. I said I’d packed for Iceland and not to worry. I’d brought my thermal underwear and other things I’d bought in Australia. But, even though I’d been in cold temps before, living in a part of the country that doesn’t have snow meant that I was unfamiliar with this particular cold weather gear, what I think is a neck warming thingy.

 

I was not put off, however. I bought a plane ticket, and my fate was set.

My destination was San Pedro de Atacama, but the planes land at Calama, 100km away. My plan was to stay the night in Calama, expecting it to be a bustling town. It appeared like a mirage in the haze – just a modern airport terminal and a few streets. I asked my taxi driver at the airport to take me to where I could book a tour to Bolivia. His advice was to go to San Pedro and book it from there. Which is why – after a two hour bus ride through a flat grey and dirty brown landscape whose only points of interest were enormous sails of wind turbines and, closer to the town, dramatic rock and salt formations of old mines – I found myself in a kind of oasis in the middle of the desert pulling my bag from the bus and looking around a deserted town. I stood there drawing in dry dusty air surveying what looked like an empty main street, waiting for a tumbleweed to roll past, and asked myself, “Jen! What. The. F. Have. You. Done?”

Why do I do this to myself? Just rock up with nothing pre-organised and hope things will work out? Because this is what it is to travel, I tell myself, unconvincingly.

There is a kind of café at the bus terminal. A few foreigners lounge around in states of what appears to be midday stupor. I roll my bright purple suitcase (I chose that colour for ease of spotting on airport luggage carousels, plus I like purple) – which by the way is a great contrasting hue to the ochre browns of the mud-bricks around me, meaning that I stand out even more – toward a small group and ask hopefully if any speak English. Yes, but not well. I ask if they know of anywhere I can book a tour. They don’t; they are just passing through. This makes me think that people believe it is not a place even worth staying in.

I ask the owner of the café if he knows of any hostels nearby. I say it in a tone where I’m not expecting any kind of high class hostels. I am prepared for shared dorms, shared bathrooms etc  – that doesn’t worry me – but also hope they are clean-ish. What I mean is hostels that are fair to not awful, but instead of saying ‘bien hasta peor’ (ok to a bit worse than ok) I use the word ‘peligroso’ which means dangerous. He looks at me in shock and shakes his head no, there aren’t any dangerous ones around here. He waves his hand in a general direction as if wanting me to leave. I walk away dragging my suitcase. It’s not until I reach the other road, wondering at his reaction, that I realise my language mistake.

The first decent place I see will cost me USD $40 per night. Fortunately, they have no room, though I should have asked the price fist before asking about vacancy. It is hot and even though the air is dry I am sweating through my layers that I have worn on purpose to not get too cold.

Further down the dirt road I find a hostel where the lady appears amenable. It costs 25,000 Chilean pesos per night (about AUD$40) but includes breakfast, private bathroom, huge clean comfortable room and bed, and the most awesome and powerful wifi I have been able to get since landing in South America (maybe it’s the remote air that enables a great signal?). She informs me that there is a local tourist information office and warns me to use only registered businesses as some can leave foreign tourists high and dry, and, as well, there are tales of drunk Bolivian drivers causing accidents. The tourist office has only one registered business that goes to Bolivia. As I walk with trepidation down the dirt streets to find it, every corner brings a new hope. A lovely treed plaza with an old church, a courtyard with music playing, and a relaxed vibe, almost hippie-like atmosphere. Maybe Bolivia is the next hippie destination? It really seems like I misread this oasis.

I see many foreigners, and businesses with odd names – World White Travel (maybe supposed to be World-Wide?) as well as Lithium Adventures – possibly a contradiction in terms. Lithium is the outlet I’m looking for and is staffed by friendly, helpful, organised girls. I book myself in for a 3 night/4 day tour starting the next day and my excitement grows.  I have to walk around the corner to use the ATM in the pharmacy to withdraw cash to pay (no-one uses credit cards here it seems), change some money to Bolivianos, then I find a small hole-in-the-wall café and order an empanada (a type of pastry/pastie stuffed with meat and onions or veges and lightly fried) with a beer; I am in heaven when the waitress brings out one the size of the plate.

Once replete, I walk around a little and plan to visit the local tourist spots on my return, as well as the stalls selling tourist trinkets, once I know what money is left. I sort my gear in the hostel, checking and rechecking everything before I settle for the night.

But something is wrong. I am missing my credit card! I mentally retrace my steps and almost run back to the pharmacy whose ATM I had used with my card to withdraw cash. I am cursing and swearing under my breath while freaking out and worrying that it is gone and going through how I will now survive without that backup, how I will cancel it, if anyone has accessed the funds – all these thoughts go through my head as I return to find the pharmacy is still open at 930 p.m. But there is a line-up. And to make matters worse, I have to take a ticket and wait til my number is called. It is an excruciating twenty minute wait, and I check the ATM to make sure it’s not just still sitting there, but what is worse – that it is or isn’t? And the crowd does not seem to understand my stress, especially when a small group dawdles at the cash register asking inane questions – I can’t understand them but they are laughing and hanging around and surely theirs is not a mission like mine and therefore inane – and then finally my number is called and I approach the pharmacist and say in a low voice in Spanish, “I think I left my card here in the ATM” and she nods and asks what name. I have to say my name with a Spanish accent, but I tell her my card is sky blue in colour. She nods and disappears out the back and I am trying not to lose my shit, hoping and praying. She reappears with a whole handful of them. She asks my name again and picks it from the handful and holds it aloft. Relief spreads through me and I impulsively hug her and walk out feeling jubilant, at the same time telling myself, “stupid, stupid, stupid”. I have backups and second account cards but the incident rocked me. I thought that anywhere else, even at home, and it would be gone. The fact that I was not the only person to do it made me feel marginally better.

I am told a bus will pick me up at 730 a.m. but later this is changed to 830. When no bus arrives by almost 9 I have recurring nightmares of chasing buses like on my Lima City Tour. The hostel owner makes a few phone calls and a bus finally turns up about 915 a.m. I enter to find two young American guys and two Brazilian ladies already on. We collect a girl from Spain next and that is our group for the next few days and nights. I introduce myself and this kick-starts conversation among the group. Only one lady cannot speak English or Spanish bur her friend can speak both, and between all of us we converse in a mix of English and Spanish for the rest of the time. The bus climbs the foothills of the nearest range toward the border with Bolivia, about twenty km away, and I can feel my ears popping.

The ‘frontera’ or border is a remote outpost that looks like somewhere you’d be sent if you did something very bad. It is minus 1°C when we alight and line up in the freezing wind to be processed. We are changing to a 4WD here as well as a change of drivers.

 

Our new driver is a man of few words and he speaks only Spanish, rapid Spanish, so I have to check often as to what’s going on, plus his Bolivian accent is strong, plus plans change as we go. Our spirits are high as we enter the National Park and drive on unsealed but reasonable roads through paintings of landscapes left by Dalí, where you can imagine his dripping clock, and broad horizons with endless mountains, lakes, and valleys. It is breathtaking. I practice my selfies and my phone’s panorama capabilities.

The lakes are crystal clear with icy edges and pale fragile looking tufts of grass barely clinging to existence. I wonder how recent the volcanic activity is here; you can tell that this is volcano country with a promise of geysers tomorrow and local birds enjoying steam rising from what appears to be frozen sections of lake. It is pristine.

We arrive at our hostel destination mid afternoon. It is a short day for day one as we have a pre-dawn  date with geysers tomorrow. We relax in the thermal pool and then drive a short distance to another awesome vista, a small lake filled with flamingoes who have more sense than to come close to us humans. Our driver leaves us and will pick us up later after we walk for an hour or so.

I cannot believe the beauty I am witnessing.

When we return to the hostel, eat, and prepare for bed, I am told it will only get down to minus 5 tonight but I will still wear every piece of clothing that I brought just in case. However, the toilet – a non-flushing toilet bowl of questionable cleanliness – is outdoors, meaning I will have to rise from probably the worst bed I have ever slept in to navigate my way from our six-bed dorm, trying to not disturb the 5 other people I just met today, using the flashlight on my phone, undo or lower 6 layers of clothes and hover my bottom over the bowl, exposing it to subzero temps, hoping that my aim is straight. At one point during the night I get locked out and have to bang on the flimsy door until a grumbling someone unlocks it for me.

One benefit of the outdoor bathroom: the night sky is astounding  its clarity.