It was 12:30 in the afternoon when we rolled into the dusty town of San Pedro de Atacama. The temperature had increased by at least 20 degrees during the trip from the mountains of Southern Bolivia to the Valley of Northern Chile.

After a bit of waiting around, we were dropped off at Hostel Candelaria. It was a bit early for check-in so we pulled up a few chairs in the garden of the hostel and enjoyed the warm sun as we caught up on the emails that have been piling up in our inboxes over the last few days.

After check in, we changed into more temperature appropriate clothing and decided it was best to take care of business, first thing's first, as we didn't have too much time to get to Santiago to catch our flight early the next week.

We walked the hot 20 minutes into town and found the two bus companies that operate the San Pedro de Atacama to Santiago route. Our options between the two were equally painful. Of course there was no First Class available, however, after speaking to both companies it also appeared that the Cama (big seats) option wasn't available either, and we would be staring down the barrel of a 24+ hour bus ride, in an uncomfortable, non-reclining seat, in the hot, non-air conditioned upper section of the bus. This was nearly more than I could handle at this late-stage of our trip. However, as luck would have it, after leaving and coming back, the first lady that helped us misread the computer screen, and there was two seats available for the bus leaving two days later. DONE, we'll take 'em.

With the logistics taken care of it was time to check out the town. We strolled through the dirt lanes of the very charming and very touristy town. We browsed through the markets and boutiques, noticing the startling differences in prices from our stint in Bolivia. It wasn't long before we found a charming plaza, pulled up a couple of chairs in the sun and order a few afternoon drinks.

After a couple rounds, the sun was getting low in the sky and we were ready to get some early dinner as we hadn't had much to eat all day. We found a good looking spot on the main pedestrian thorough-fare and parked it for our 'splash out' dinner. We ordered a vegetable soup each with bread and dips to start, and a spinach cannelloni for Adrian and a salmon avocado green salad for me, all this washed down with a cold bottle of Chilean Chardonnay.

The dinner, though thoroughly enjoyable, was probably the most expensive meal on our trip, at least since Europe. But hell, it's been a year and 6 months on the road, I think we've earned it.

After an evening stroll through town and back to our hostel, we were ready to call it a night. It had been at least 5 nights since we've had a decent sleep, and we were good and ready to get a solid 8.

Waking up refreshed, we decided it was time to get our bodies moving. The 3 previous days in a car, and the massive overnight bus trip before that left us ready to run it out. Unfortunately, I underestimated the altitude (I had been so used to 10,000ft+ that I thought 8,000ft-ish would be no sweat. The altitude coupled with the extremely dry conditions of the desert of San Pedro de Atacama left my mouth and throat dry and painful and panting after barely 2 miles. We took a quick break in town and with as much motivation as I could muster, finished the run back to the hostel.

After showering off, we turned on the TV in our hostel and clicked through each and every channel to see what we had on offer in terms of election coverage. The day was Tuesday, November 6th and we had planned on watching the results come in with a quiet night in, however, as it turned out of the many channels that were at our disposal none were in English. As a matter of fact, we had two different CNN channels - CNN Español and CNN Chile. I guess our night would be a bit different than we had planned.

Being that we were hours ahead of NY we had some time to kill before any poll results were available. We headed back into town to grab some coffee and lunch and see if there were any tours that we could get involved in.

San Pedro de Atacama offers quite a lot in the way of activities. Tours to the Geysers, Tours to local lakes, Salt Flat Tours, Bike rides, etc. However, in the last week we had done just about every option they had available. (We're just that Awesome! :) There was one option left that we had intentions of doing back in Cusco with the crew, but never got to do, and as it turns out San Pedro de Atacama is one of the best places in the world to do it. And so, we signed up for a Night Astronomy Tour. It would interfere with our election night, but as it was all in Spanish, and if history tells us anything, we wouldn't know who would be President for at least a couple of weeks... we thought we should really give it a go.

After we signed up, we stopped into the market and grabbed some supplies for our casual, inexpensive, dinner in. We headed back to our hostel, pulled up a couple of free hammocks and did some severly intense CHILLING OUT. The sun was strong and there were books to be read, and blogs to be written, and there was no better way to spend a couple of afternoon hours.

By 7:00pm that evening, we had results back on all the expected outcomes. The eastern seaboard was painted a solid blue and a massive chunk of the southern states were a bold shade of red as it continued to creep westward. We put together our travel dinner of tomato soup and veggie sandwiches, this time washing it down with wine out of a cardboard box, and enjoyed it just the same.

After we had cleaned up and changed into several layers of clothes preparing for the night's cold temperatures, we were out the door and heading into town to meet our bus to take us to the Astronomy Tour.

15 minutes out of town and we were dropped off at an extremely dark house in the middle of a field. We were greeted by Mike our resident Canadian astronomy-geek/guide. He gathered us in a circle in a dark field and took us through a brief history of astronomy, particularly in relation to what people of ancient South America used to believe about the galaxies around them and how it impacted just about every aspect of their lives. Slowly we approached more modern history, Galileo, Hans Lippershey, and such notable individuals.

After covering all the historical information, Mike pointed out dozens of constellations (including all the signs of the zodiac), planets (including Mars, Venus, and Jupiter just as it rose over the horizon). Soon we jumped into the feature presentation of the tour, getting our hands on the 10 souped-up telescopes stationed in the dark field. Each telescope was pointed directly at a few of the more impressive stars and constellations Mike had pointed out earlier. Without geeking out too much, I will say that both Adrian and I had our minds blown by the end of the night. It was incredible to see these stars millions of lightyears from where we were standing, and yet so bright and vibrant. It really was an impressive presentation.

The night ended with warm hot chocolate enjoyed over a Q&A with Mike inside the pleasantly warm house. We wrapped up the evening after midnight, and got back in the bus for the short drive back to town. With a last walk back from town, we were tucked into our warm beds at the Hostel Candelaria watching the evolving presidential results en Espanol. A few key victories for Obama had come through in our absence, but we were still awaiting a few Great Lakes states, namely Wisconsin for me, and of course the dreaded results from Virginia, Florida, and .... Ohio. We were in for a long night.

We drifted in and out of consciousness and the Hispanic versions of Candy Crowley, Jon King, and Anderson Cooper were rapping about projected results. As if a head domino was tipped, state-by-state, projected winners began rolling in. Minnesota - Obama, Wisconsin - Obama, Nevada-Obama, and just as my eyes were getting unbearably heavy... BOOMTOWN - Ohio projected winner for Obama!!!

I awoke a sleeping Adrian to tell him the good news. 4 more years of Obama, and hopefully this time with gloves off! What a result! It was then that I was finally able to drift off into a satisfied sleep, keeping the TV on for any unexpected hiccups and to hear the acceptance speech in one of my fading levels of consciousness.

In the morning, after a good and necessary sleep-in, we tried to attempt another run. Thankfully the temperature was at a much more moderate level and I made sure to drink water and pop in a piece of gum to help alleviate the dry mouth and throat. It seemed to have worked a treat, because the run was longer and much easier the second go-round.

After our run, we stopped through town to grab a coffee each and healthy snacks for our brutal 24 hour busride that we would be embarking on that afternoon. Back at the hostel, we showered up again, packed it up, and checked out of our room. We spent under an hour doing final internet activity, before packing it all in and hoofing our heavy backpack into town under the intense Chilean sun.

We were at the bus station with plenty of time. We claimed our seats that would be our home for the next 24 hours and sat back for the last bus trip of our 1.5 years on the road. Though I was looking forward to seeing the backside of this bender of a bus trip, there was something a bit bittersweet about it all. One last weekend in Santiago, then off to Australia and New Zealand to cap off one sweet run.