Today was our first full day trip by car to the Tara salt flats. We left Awasi at 0900 and headed towards the Bolivian/ Argentinian and Chilean border - as we passed the ever present Licancabur volcano we could see the landscape in Bolivia. We climbed quite quickly to over 4000m and at times I could feel the effects of altitude on my chest. As we continued we passed the worlds highest telescope - on the edge of a volcano and run in conjunction with a Japanese uni...

We were awoken by a man talking loudly on a microphone - it was either a Sunday religious sermon or briefing the runners before the start of a desert marathon - I went for the latter as it was followed by the sound of helicopters. The event was put on by Brazilians who made up most of the runners. As we got back from our morning walk at 1230 we saw some hardy souls finishing......by that time it was really hot. We had to drink a lot to stay hydrated as the Atacam...

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...

John's birthday started with his much needed cup of tea as always! We then had our last early morning walk - it was unusually very misty and damp with spots of rain. When we returned to Sultans house I had my swim before breakfast which was outside. Luckily it brightened and stayed fine and warm but for the whole day it looked like much needed rain was coming. As our flight was not until 4pm we were able to have a last massage and John 'unpressured' was able to ...