Atacama's last adventure

I know you might start to get bored with all those pictures of the desert, but bear with me, this is the last Atacama post: a 5h horseback ride through a Canyon and then up a cattle path, the one the cattle used to take to walk from Argentina to Calama and Antofagasta, that's up a very steep climb to a plateau, and then back down through a sand dune to the local Death Valley, a bliss!!!

Pukara de Quitor, 

ancient indian fortress before the Inca conquest

through the Valley to Catarpe: my guide looks like a real cow-boy

and through the Canyon:

 I look like a real tourist..

Some scenes of "The motorcycle diaries" telling the story of Che Guevara, were filmed in that Canyon

and up the cattle trail,  the pics don't really show how steep this path was, even more impressive when being at riders' heigth.

On top of the plateau

and looking at the sand dune to Valle de la Muerte

So, I don't know if it's the Valley's name that inspired them, but I think that at this point our horses were whispering something I didn't ear in each other's ear, like "I'll race you down" or "the first one down gets a free beer", as a few minutes later, going down the dune, my horse who had been pretty relaxed until then suddenly took off like a rocket and over passed the guide without showing any signs of slowing down......Thank god my very ancient riding skills came back to me at that point to save me and my camera from landing in the sand!

managed to take a couple of pics before loosing control of my cheeky beast

That's it for Chile, see you back in Europe!

PS: in case you are travelling to San Pedro and are looking to horseback ride, I do recommend Rancho Cactus, they are nice and have very good horses for all levels: http://www.rancho-cactus.cl/