After leaving Argentina behind us, it was time for one last stop in Chile. This was actually one of Mathias´ must-dos on our trip: The Atacama Desert. But before we even got there, he already had an introduction of what will await us for the next few weeks – high altitude. Passing over the border from Salta to San Pedro de Atacama meant driving over a mountain pass of 4700m altitude. As we started our trip in Salta at midnight and went right to sleep, we woke up to a big surprise at 8:00 am when we reached the border.
We were both feeling unwell and had a headache. Welcome altitude sickness. We had a little bit to eat and started drinking lots of water. We hoped that we will be through border control quickly, but unfortunately this border was not well organized at all. We actually had to wait 2 hours until they asked our bus to get through the border and then it took another hour for the whole process to finish, as they checked every single bag. I laid down on the benches while everyone was waiting and took a 30 min nap. When I woke up, I was feeling totally fine and I had no problems any more. Mathias however kept feeling really bad and was almost close to throwing up.
Even when we got to San Pedro de Atacama 3 hours later, he still had a headache and felt bad. We then got told to chew