Sooo, with only a week left to go we are now in the Atacama desert! We spent the weekend in La Serena, with Alexis´s aunts family... for people who we have such a tenuous link to, they were so kind, they treated us as part of the family and let us stay for free. It was really nice staying with a family instead of just being tourists for a while... we had a barbequeue at 2 in the morning (as we´ve been told often happens) with really good steak and super cheap red wine, and went out for a bug family outing (11 of us in all) to a seaside town for the day. We also went to an observatory in the desert, an ideal location because of the lack of light pollution and rain. It was amazing to see all the stars and nebulars and galaxies, little as I know about it all (and laugh at the very unscientific names for telescopes around the world- VLT (the Very Large Telescope) the OWL OverWhelmingly Large, etc.) Me and Tim then headed up to San Pedro, a horrible 17 hour bus journey where you cant really sleep, the bus doesnt stop and all they feed you is biscuits and pineaple juice. But the desert has been amazing, not like anything ive ever seen. One of the valleys is called the vally of the moon, and that really is the best way to describe it... mountains and volanoes and no life for as far as you can see. We got up at 4am one morning, in temperatures of -15 degrees to see some geysers at dawn, which was very impressive, despite being the coldest ive ever been. We´ve seen some amazing salt lakes, full of flamingoes, been in hot thermal springs, and tried some sandboarding (I was too lazy really, far too much hiking up and down sand dunes, but tim enjyed it.) And now we´re got a 24 hour bus jounrey back to Santiago... yuk! xx
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