ALL DRIED UP IN THE DESERT

Having been told by several people that Patagonia was bloody freezing and all closed up, we decided to cancel our flights there and re-direct ourselves to the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile - somewhere we had wanted to go originally but had been unable to squeeze it into our schedule.

It took us a day to get to the oasis village of San Pedro De Atacama, close to the Bolivian border, from BA (2 planes and a bus via Santiago & Antofagasta) and when we arrived it was pitch black and 'bloody freezing'! However, we'll never forget stepping off the bus into what seemed like the middle of nowhere and then wandering through the tiny streets, peering in through the windows of the adobe buildings and catching glimpses of roaring open fires and people eating, drinking and listening to live music. This was exactly what we needed after weeks of city life.

After checking into the very cold Hostel La Ruca (we loved those fleecy sheets though!), we dumped our backpacks, headed straight to the Adobe resto-bar (the place with the biggest fire) and treated ourselves to a bottle of local red and a slap-up dinner. Before long we got chatting to a couple of Chileans from Santiago who were there for work in the nearby observatory - Juan Pablo was an astronomer and Juan Rodrigo was a telescope engineer! When all the bars closed at 1am, the two Juans took us to a fiesta clandestina (secret party) where we drank cheap rum, warmed ourselves around another open fire and chatted into the wee hours.

The next 'morning' we hired some mountain bikes and rode to the Valley Of The Moon (as you do) and discovered why the Atacama desert is known as the driest place on earth. Neither words nor pictures can really do the stunning scenery any justice, we were blown away by it. Later we booked our 4 day trip to Salar De Uyuni in Bolivia (coming soon) for the next morning and spent the evening preparing for it in Adobe...

... when we got back from our second Bolivian adventure we spent a further 2 days in San Pedro, which was just enough time for us to thaw out in a warmer hostel, catch up on some sleep and do some star-gazing with a resident French astronomer in the middle of the desert.

It's no exaggeration to say that San Pedro De Atacama has been one of our favourite places we've been to on this trip.