Here we are now, out of the city and back into sleepy villages. This place is called Vicuña. A tiny place tucked into a beautiful valley region in the central mainland of Chile.

A short 1 hour bus ride (1 hour you ask! surely not?) from La Serena brought us here and we checked into our lovely Bed and Breakfast for the next 4 days. This place took our fancy when we came across it on the internet and we worried that it would be sold out a such a short notice, however we got lucky and it is a delightful little place.

Run by two elderly German ladies and their dog called ´Blanquita´ The house has only 4 rooms, a great kitchen and outdoor terrace as well a much needed swimming pool (it is very hot here, in the 30´s)

It feels like we are staying in our grandparents house as the German ladies potter around looking after us, making us amazing breakfast and most of all making us feel very welcome indeed.

So a pleasent place to relax and enjoy the village. However rather than relax we decided (against the locals advice) to trek up the step hillsides to the look out point, in the midday scorching heat.

It was indeed very hot and dusty (as the locals warned us) but we made it only to discover than telecom companies got there first and stuck countless large ugly antennes all over the look out (they didnt tell us this bit) at least we got a decent view on the way back down as shown in the photo.

As you will notice from the photo, this place is surrounded by a very barren and dry landscape but is very very green and leafy in the centre. The village itself is very quiet and everyone seems to hang out in the main plaza, its the sort of place were everyone seems to know everyone. We also discovered a great supermarket full of great local and international food where we can buy and cook our own meal by the swimming pool.

Our days of eating out in restaurants are almost at an end, this is for 2 reasons 1) Chile is very expensive for eating out, and 2) You can have too much of going out for meals, 5 months of it and you really want the opportunity to buy and cook you own meal, which we are enjoying now (well to be more accurate, Emily cooks, Dave enjoys!)

This area is famous for its clear skies (300 days a year) and as a result it is a favorite location for the worlds astrological observatories.

In fact that was the original motivation for coming here. As you can probably guess from reading previous blogs that when we arrived it was all overcast, not a single bit of clear blue sky to be seen, very very rare we were told by the locals, but we cannot help but think we are somekind of evil English curse to the Chilean people.

However today, the day of our stargazing session is super clear. So tonight we head up into the mountain to enjoy stargazing in a proper astronomical observatory......Emily is excited, Dave cannot contain himself.