Day one of our plans started to come together after our very civilised breakfast at 0800. We met Santiago at 0930,were kitted out with mountain bikes and, half gloves and helmets. I decided to experiment with my new Go Pro camera so fitted that to my helmet and we headed off on the 11.2 mile cycle to the turquoise salt lakes of Cejar. The first third was on a quite bumpy dirt road followed by a much better tarmac section. It was relatively flat with good views o...

We arrived in Santiago at 0950 hours having left, a cool wet Cambridge on the 1115 train yesterday. Our journey had taken us via London and Madrid where we boarded the 0020 flight to Santiago. Immigration and customs were thankfully a breeze and we checked in quickly for our flight north to Calama and our first experience - the Atacama desert - the driest desert in the world and situated plum on the Tropic of Capricorn. Enroute I had been thinking about famous C...