That one time when we went to the Atacama desert and I got the flu and fainted in a restaurant and the waiter thought I was drunk.

Last Thursday we flew to the beautiful San Pedro de Atacama. It is unlike anything I've ever seen. It is other wordly. It is breath taking. Granted I didnt see that much of it because Thursday night after checking into our gorgeous hotel we strolled into town where I fainted in a restaurant and was accused of being intoxicated. I hadnt had a drop. I was feeling a little weird from the plane ride. It was bumpy. I thought maybe I was air sick and maybe the altitude was getting to me. Well when Curly girl woke up the next morning with the same symptoms we were fairly sure it wasnt the altitude. It was in fact, the flu. Text book flu, naturally.
Well I figured we flew all the way here, lets just load up on Motrin and head out to the tour. (I was so optimistic at this point in the trip). First up, Cejar Lagoon. It is a dead sea. I just took their word for it because it was freezing but some other people there stripped down and floated around the lake. But there are a type of shrimp that live in the lake and in the winter flamingoes come and eat the shrimp. Pretty cool. All around the lakes are salt flats. The salt builds up from volcanic eruptions and water washing down from the Andes. It looks like snow but it is all salt. Its crazy beautiful.

So we survived that. Then we went back to hotel for lunch. Like I said I was optimistic up until this point. Right after lunch my fever spiked, I was wracked with body aches and chills. Amelia starts vomiting. Everywhere. Dan goes to town for medication. I was cleaning up Curly girl's vomit while vomiting and running a fever. That friends, is love. It all pretty much went down hill from this point. I will spare you the gory details. But my husband has earned his saint status. Also, silver lining, the hotel staff did all the vomit laundry. They changed the sheets and washed the towels, God love them. They probably put our pictures up somewhere under the heading "NOT WELCOME BACK" but still I am grateful. Also, by our flight Sat night we were all somewhat better. I could get up without falling over/having to crawl on hands and knees and Curly girl was no longer vomiting. The flight home was uneventful. I have never been so happy to be home. I was still not feeling great all day Sunday and Monday. It was a nasty bug, y'all.
There are Alpaca everywhere in the desert. We saw some just hanging out by the side of the road. I bought some Alpaca scarves as gifts. They are really lovely. There was an Alpaca statue at the hotel that Curly girl liked. She also really enjoyed taking some pictures on the trip. Maybe I have a budding photog on my hands. We stayed at the Los Cumbres and it was perfection. The views, the rooms, everything was just awesome. Cannot recommend enough.

There are tons of Volcanoes in Chile. The ones in the south are fairly active right now. There is one near San Pedro (the name escapes me) but it erupted 8 years ago and every morning there is smoke coming from the top of it. Kind of cool in a scary way. Its the flat looking peak all the way to the right. It is almost as tall as Mt. Kilimanjaro. 

All in all it was an ok trip. Thats a lie, it was terrible. But it is a beautiful place and I really want to go back when we are all healthy and get a do over. I would like to do the things we had to cancel like the hot springs and the geysers. One last picture of Curly girl looking all sad a pitiful.