Argentina & Chile November 2008 - Day 7 - Antofagasta to San Pedro - 350km

[David_L]

A tour operator on the the main drag. Plenty of aging hippies have come to rest here as well as the new adventure travel and extreme sports crowd.

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[David_L]

A shot of the pretty main square.


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[David_L]

I think this is the post office. Love the art deco telephone booth.


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[David_L]

Did I mention well fed dogs? No mangy curs here; these were living well off tourist leftovers.
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[David_L]

Lots of greenery around the town. If you wondered where all the water is coming from here is the answer.


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A fast flowing irrigation ditch with water straight from the mountains.

[David_L]

Finally here is our resting place for the night. The very pleasant Hostel Lickiana. We had separate little apartments and breakfast in the morning was served at tables outside. The only problem was he altitude. Night time is worst if you are suffering from altitude problems. I had one bad night and this was it. I woke up convinced I was having a heart attack, and found I had to try to sleep propped up on a pillow as this was the only way to feel more able to breathe.


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[Mike P]

After a pleasant meal and some wine David and I settled down in the hostel courtyard to try and spot the Larger and smaller Magellanic clouds which was another of the thing I had always wanted to see. I had carried with me star charts for this night and geographic location (wonderful thing planetarium software) Looking South the sky was populated by several unfamiliar constellations and eventually we found the larger cloud.
Retiring for the night I found I was unable to sleep and developed a persistant cought every time I lay down. Not really knowing what to make of this my first reaction was that I had caught Jacques cold. Oddly this vanished when I got up the following day. The real reason for the cough did not really dawn on me until the same thing happend on the following two nights.
San Pedro lies at approx 8,000ft and sleeping at this height seemed to have a very advese affect on me bringing on sleeplessness and a persistant cough every time I lay down. Not good.The air was bone dry and this no doubt made things worse although it did lead to my washing drying in record time hung on the line outside of the room. (Well the hostel seemed to be geared up for backpackers.)

[iann]

Looks very pleasant. Plus the southern skies are superb. I can only imagine how superb from that mountain spot.

[IanW]

RE: the coughing, that reminds me of the first time I walked out of Ottawa airport in Canada in the winter.

The air was so cold (it was -32C that day) that walking straight out of a heater terminal into it I just felt the icey cold yet dry air go straight down my throat and hit my lungs making me cough non-stop until I made it to the rental car area.

After that I always made sure to cover my mouth when heading outside! It's not the same thing certainly but I can imagine how you felt - differences in air, be it humidity, pressure or temperature can really have an instant effect on you or was it something else in your case?

I'm suprised that 8000ft made quite such a difference though, the top of the grand canyon I believe was around 7000ft and I didn't find any problems there, although I suppose an extra 1000ft can make all the difference at that height!

[iann]

Grand Canyon South Rim ~ 7,000', North Rim ~ 8,000'. I didn't really notice the altitude there. Very comfortable temperatures probably helped. I've slept at ~2,100m (7,000') without noticing anything and skied at 3,000m (10,000') without noticing the effects, but at 4,000m (13,000') I definitely felt short of breath with just moderate walking. I was younger then

Probably long periods spent constantly at high altitude contribute to the problems. Skiing is just a few minutes at the top and then down a few thousand feet for lunch