Dune biking

This was one of the greatest things I've done on this trip - mountain biking in San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. The town is an oasis (literally as well as figuratively) in the driest desert on Earth, and a great place to hang out after the freezing cold conditions of the Bolivian highlands. The border crossing itself is pretty interesting- the road is basically dead straight and downhill all the way from the Andes down into the desert, giving great views of the area you are entering. Which happens to be centred around a great little town - also was lucky enough to meet some top people, which always helps of course! 

 The biking was something myself and Eli (below), a friend from Israel we met in the salt flats (of "D'ya like dags" fame, see below) who was travelling South America with his girlfriend Ilanit, got stuck into one afternoon. We had a vague idea of where was good for riding in the area - what we didn't realise was just how interesting the place was. The shot above is the top of the climb we did via a bit of a made-up route. The reward for the hard work of pushing ourselves up there on the bikes (kind of steep - at times the roles were reversed and the bikes went up on us) was that we then got to try out a whole new adventure sport - dune biking. 

 The idea is as follows; get to the top of a massive sand dune, the steeper the better. Throw self down sand dune on bike, and attempt to stay on as long as possible. I highly recommend it. A further bonus was that at the bottom we found ourselves at the start of a dried up creek bed which wound its ways through the sandstone rock formations that you can see in the background. This was awesome - the creek made a naturally smooth, winding path with sloped sides great for banking the bike up, as well as providing plenty of spots to do jumps. We did run into a few difficulties, at one point having to dismantle the bikes a little to squeeze through a tunnel made by the river and at another a 4 metre drop (in wetter times a waterfall) which provided some challenges, but definitely added to the fun.