Tuesday 15 October - Friday 18 October

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

San Pedro is a charming little town in the middle of the driest desert in the world - we were here to go stargazing, as with so little moisture in the air, it makes this THE best place in the world to view the stars. Our first day was spent having a good wash after the Salt Flats, as we hadn't had an opportunity to shower for three days and then meeting up with our mates from the jeep for pizza, drinks and a rematch of the card game we'd been playing on the Salt Flats - Level 10 (similar to Uno). After getting stuck on Level 7 for an eon the last time, I was determined not to let zee german win again - and yes this time I trounced him! This led to many heated rematches over the next few nights in San Pedro.

We did a sunset tour in the Valle de la Luna the next day, which is aptly named - Valley of the Moon - as it closely resembles the vast open expanses, craters and canyons of the surface of the moon or even Mars. Our first stop was a walk through an immense dry salt canyon only to return to our bus that now would not start...uh-oh - not fun to be stuck in the hot desert with only one bottle of water between the two of us. Luckily another tour bus offered to give us a lift to the next attraction whilst our company sent out a replacement bus. Next we climbed a massive dune to view the 'amphitheatre' rock formation and brought half the dune down with us in our shoes. The climax was the spectacular sunset at the end of the tour looking over 'Death Valley' as the sun at one particular point turns the volcanoes of the Andes bright red before it descends into the desert.

That night the full moon was shining particularly brightly which we thought was setting us up for some incredible stargazing the next evening. So after moving to a new hostel closer to town, we went to book our observatory tour, but to no avail, as they had cancelled all the stargazing that week as the moon was shining TOO brightly - Fail - no observatory tours during the week of the full moon! Who wudda thunk? So alas, we had to just sit out under the stars and enjoy them from afar without the use of their giant telescopes. San Pedro de Atacama has many other beautiful sights including geysers, hot springs, lagoons and flamingoes, but considering we'd already experienced that all on our Salt Flats tour, we decided to head down south the next day to Chile's capital, Santiago