We set off early on our tour of the desert. On our way to breakfast, our guide told us a bit about the landscape, which has lots of volcanoes that take in water from underground streams, making some of them swell into cones, and make the altiplanic lagoons we were touring later. Chile is in the so-called Ring of fire, a ring of volcanoes with the most activity in the world, over 150 active (meaning 10% of those on the planet). Lascar is the biggest of them around, and used to be as big as Everest until it blew up to make long surrounding mountains. The last big eruption was 1993.

San Pedro is the bottom of a large hydrological basin, so a lot of the rain from the Andes eventually flows here (and some to rivers). This means that the lagoons are formed, and as they are landlocked the water can only escape through evaporation, forming the salt flats.

He also told us a bit about the big NASA base nearby, with a total of 66 telescopes. Because of the clear skies and thin air atacama is considered the best place for them to stargaze in the world. More on that tomorrow!

We first went to an altiplanic lake, Laguna miscanti. It was surrounded by volcanoes and the lake was so clear it looked like a mirror. It was incredibly beautiful. We then walked over the plain to a neighbouring lake, Laguna miniques, which was also gorgeous. They were really fantastic.

On our way over to the next stop our fab guide told us more about the formation of the landscape, the incas and the camelids, wild animals related to the llama.

We then went to the famous red rocks, another incredibly clear salty lake surrounded by red rocks, all around. It was amazing.

After we went to have a late lunch in the local town, a lot of quinoa, before heading out to the famous flamingo reserve. The flamingoes eat shrimp that live in the brine water of a salt lake, much of which has dried to reveal incredible salt clumps as far as you can see. They were a little far away but very pretty. They almost constantly had their heads in the water to eat (the shrimp are tiny and they need to eat for most the hours in the day) and did a strange dance with their back legs to stir up the salt and get more shrimp. It was amazing.

After we'd walked around for a while to take it all in the bus took us back to San Pedro, where we had a nice vegetarian chorillana (the chips with onions etc on top), which was lovely!

It was Good Friday, and one our way back, we ran into the stations of the cross, which was a big procession of people slowly marching through the Main Street of the town. The chanting was blaring out and they had a glass coffin with Christ in carried by people shrouded in white (and very surreally, little girls dressed like angels). It was a bit disturbing to be honest, even more so when we realised that behind four people shrouded in black (even over their faces) were following with a cross. Very strange!