A desert night and a killer headache

Our first evening in a desert, in fact this is one of the if not the driest desert on earth, the Atacama desert in northern Chile. The impressively inclined, windy route through the mountains between Argentina and Chile was a sight not to be missed...but what did we do??? Slept for the first 4 hours of this great journey to the Atacama desert....duhhhh... See last night was our last evening in Argentina so naturally we had to celebrate! We had some help from Vicky, Lorraine and Justin ( 3 British friends) who began dancing salsa and would not stop until way too late!!! Yesterday in the day we all took a white water rafting trip in one of the coldest and the longest river in all of Argentina. To say the least yesterday was an exhausting day with the full day rafting trip and then the all night drinking celebration so by 7:00 AM earlier today when we had to be on the bus for the 12 hour bus journey from Argentina to Chile we were simply dead!
After a few hours, I managed to wake up and check out the views and was in shock with the amazing salt flats that dotted part of this desert "Mars-like" mountain region. Apparently this does not compare to the Bolivian salt flats which go on for hundreds of miles, but we'll get to that later next week.
Besides being at almost 4000 meters during some of the bus ride and really gasping for air, the hangover that set in was the worst. You see hangover headaches at this altitude and with bumpy, winding cliff side roads on top of that, are the mother of all headaches and I hope never to encounter again. My head still hurts, but we'll see if getting a good night sleep in a bed now will help out.
We are not doing the full 4-day desert excursion until Sunday or Monday so I'll let you know what the real desert is like then. For now we are in San Pedro de Atacama, an adobe styled town that is at the very outskirts of the desert. We are staying with Alvaro ( a friend we met earlier on this trip back in Brazil) and he's got a great adobe and rock built home with a modern wood thatched roof, it's a very chilled out place! Good thing, cause we can clealry save on hotels since Chile is the most expensive of places in all of South America.
Check out San Pedro de Atacama on Google.com and see if you can get pics of this place. Not sure if I get the right cell service to upload pics from my blackberry, afterall we are in a desert.
Later.
Sent by Jeffrey via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Woke up on another bus...thinking about work...

The nightmares have started;-))... hahaha... Well that's not too far from the truth...work and getting a killer job has been on my mind quite often now... Thinking of pursuing a job in one of my favorite companies: GOOGLE.
Need to reach out to my contacts there and let them know how Sergei and Larry would have highly approved of this sabbatical and likely supported it...as we spread the word of Google. com throughout South America!!
So back to the trip, we left Mendoza Argentina last night at about 8 pm and have been making our way north towards the Chile - Bolivia border. We should be at the next destination at about 2pm today.
A friend that we met on the trip, Alvaro, lives in San Pedro de Atacama which is the Chilean side of the great Bolivian deserts (the driest in the world) and we plan to be there later this week.
To recap Mendoza:
We spent a great time with Ori and Tete who took us to the base of the highest mountain in South America, Aconcagua (about 7000 Meters) and to the border with Chile to eat at the "last" restaurant before making our way back to the city through wine country. If you take a look at your next bottle of red wine (particularly Malbec) there is a great chance that it is from Mendoza, Argentina!! Interestingly enough this part of the country is extremely dry but due to an ingenious canal and irrigation system (thanks in part to the indigenous people that inhabited the land centuries prior) generously supplied from the huge mountain range nearby this city and its surroundings has the most unique vegetation. Over the past 100 years the city has planted trees in every square cm which has resulted in a spectacularly landscaped city. ALL of the trees, plants, flowers, have been introduced to the region and only survive due to the very hard work and dedication of the almost daily watering process. In some cases, there are trees that have underground "drip" watering systems that keep some of these massive, foreign species alive in this arid climate. We have seen pictures of the city decades ago and there was nothing taller than a desert shrub...it really is incredible.
Tete and Ori also took us to the cabin retreat which was very cool because for one of the few times on this trip we stepped away from the typical "tourist" activity and enjoyed a past time with local flavor. The dammed up lake in which their cabin is located was perfect for all motorized water sports and at sunset for a spectacular wine accompanied end to the day. At night we were able to get the fire started right on the lake and continue the experience, really cool, gracias Ori y Tete!!
Yesterday, I went paragliding over the city of Mendoza with German (one of Tete's contacts in this sport) and for the price of 1 jump we lasted easily three times as long. We pretty much flew for over 1 hour circling the low mountain side next to Mendoza and occasionally intercepting other gliders that were trying to catch some warm currents to gain altitude. At a certain point you start feeling like a bird, so much so because the very air currents we followed were being retraced by eagles going out for a spin. German has a website, which is www.adventurepark.com.ar and www.flymendoza.com (if I spelled it wrong, sorry, will correct it later).
I've some great vids from up there but once again it's my fault for not having more time to edit and get on the site...soon...for sure!!
Later.
Sent by Jeffrey via BlackBerry from T-Mobile