CHILE PHOTOS!!

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Day 5 - San Pedro De Atacama

We finally arrived at San Pedro de Atacama around 9am.The views coming into the desert village were amazing and like nothing we'd ever seen before.We were greeted by someone from the hostel and she showed us the way and our room.

We walked into town to find out about some tours and have a general look around.This was definitely more what we expected as a town in South America to look like, albeit full of tourists.We booked up a couple of tours with a company that we had been recommended (lots of stories about cheap, cheating, packed in like sardines tours) but unfortunately they couldn't take us for a couple of days.Another disappointment was that this star gazing company were closed due to the full moon but there is hope we still may be able to do it.

In the evening we decided to have a meal out and went to this lovely place, with an open lit fire and had some really nice food.As this village is in the desert, the days are blue sky and around 25C now but in the evenings, it drops to about 5C.

Day 6 - San Pedro de Atacama

Today was a free day as our tours start tomorrow, so very little was done.We bought a hat for Marie and some sun tan lotion and chilled out. In the evening we sat outside and chatted to a couple from Oz.

Day 7 - San Pedro de Atacama Valle de la Luna

We set the alarm for nine as we wanted to get up and go to the museum before it closed at twelve. We had breakfast in the sunny courtyard at our hostel before we walked up to the museum. The museum told us about the first settlers in the area (11000 BC) and how they lived. It then continued up to when the Spanish colonial settlers arrived. It was pretty amazing to see how evolved they were in 11 000 BC and how they used tweezers and pottery similar to present day.

After the museum we stayed in town for a bit before we went back to the hostel to have lunch. We were booked on a tour at 3PM so we didn't have long before we have to go back in again.

The tour started at three and we drove up to a lookout, overlooking the landscape and San Pedro. It is hard to describe it but if you imagine what it would look like on the moon, this would be it. We moved on from there to the Death Valley where we started our walk over the desert and down the sand dunes. Running/jumping down the dunes were awesome fun and the sand felt so nice on the feet.

The bus met us after 45 minutes and we headed to the Valle de La Luna national park. We walked through the valley that is made up of minerals and again it looked like out of this world. No wonder NASA test their vehicles in the Atacama Desert.

We talked to the guide during our walk as we had to ask him where he got his perfect London accent from. He told us he grew up in England and moved to Chile in his twenties. He also told us how expensive it was to live in San Pedro because of tourism and that he could rent a beach front house for the same amount of money he paid in San Pedro.He had a great plan to set up his own company in northern Chile and offer homestays etc.

Our last stop on the tour was at the top of the sand dunes watching the sunset over the Andeans. The colours and shadows created by the mountains were wonderful. After the sun had set we headed back to our hostel and had some dinner.

Day 8 - San Pedro de Atacama Laguna

The tour company came and picked us up from the hostel just after seven. It was pretty cold so we were glad we had lots of layers on. The first stop on the tour was the large salt flat 10km outside of San Pedro where we had breakfast and watched the Flamencos in the Laguna. It was surprising that anything could live or feed from the salt Laguna but the brown shrimp likes it there and the Flamencos eat them. The salt flat was not smooth like the one in Bolivia, instead it looked like coral.

After breakfast we drove up to a village called Socaire which is located 3200 meters above sea level.The guide explained that most of the villagers work in the Lithium mines or with growing Quiona and corn. The villagers had recently started making more money so they were demolishing their old houses and rebuilding new ones.

So after a brief stop we drove for another 50 minutes to Laguna Miscanti and Laguna Miniques. The Lagoons are rich in minerals and the sun light reflected the different colours making it look very pretty. We were also told that there used to be trout living in the Lagoons but after Pinochet decided to drop loads of used weapons in there the fish died.The Lagoons were located 4200m above sea level but both of us felt absolutely fine with the altitude. There were a couple of women that started feeling a bit funny so we offered them some of our coca leaves we had picked up the night before. I definitely thought it was going to be harder to breath up there but we were fine.

We continued for another 50 minutes before we arrived at another salt flat which was a lot smoother than the first one we had seen. It was a very pretty setting with the mountains in the background. After a 40 minute walk we had lunch whilst watching the scenery.

Our last stop for the day was in the village of Toconao, which is the only village in the Atacama Desert with clean water free from minerals. As a result they have been able to grow fruit trees like Pomegranate and figs. We also had a look at the church which was built in 1600.On our way to San Pedro we saw that they had prepared for the Easter celebrations by raising three crosses on a hill and they were obviously going to imitate a crucifixion.

We arrived back in San Pedro and went on the internet to find an email from the Star gazing company. They had booked us a spot on the tour the following day which was great news. We had been waiting for them to come back to us to decide when we were going to leave San Pedro.We could now go and book the bus to Salta on Thursday. Another 10h bus journey!!

In the evening we eat some leftovers but we decided to go and watch a film in our room because the hostel was dead. We actually started thinking that we were missing something in town. Anyway, by nine o'clock people started coming back from their tours and there were quite a few people sitting out.

Day 9 - San Pedro de Atacama Star tour

We got up and sorted out some washing and then we went and sorted out some food for the evening and next day when we were going on the bus to Salta. In the afternoon we watched Spurs draw with Arsenal and then watched Barcelona v Real Madrid. After dinner we got ready and then walked into town to join our star tour. We were taken by bus about ten minutes out of town and it was pitch black when we arrived. The only light we could see was the red light above the door to the house. We were star gazing so it obviously had to be dark. Our guide, and astronomer, Les started by telling us about the stars we could see in the sky and he had a laser pen he pointed out different stars with. He had moved out to San Pedro after falling in love with the clear skies over the desert. After some interesting facts he introduced us to the telescopes and explained what we could see in each one. After this he gave us free reins to look through the telescopes. It was pretty weird at first because you didn't know if you were looking at the right thing and if you were picking up what you were supposed to. But after a couple of gazes in each telescoped it was more obvious and fascinating what we were seeing. The best of all was seeing Saturn as you could clearly see it was a planet. Les helped us take a picture of it which was pretty good.When we were going around, a film crew asked Marie to participate in a program about the tour and asked her some questions, so she will get to star on Chilean tv….

After we had finished looking through the telescopes we walked inside and were given some hot chocolate. Les answered questions about the stars and then we were taken back into town.

It was a really interesting tour and very different. When we got back to the hostel we could not stop talking about how creepy it is to think that we are seeing planets and stars how they appeared thousands of years ago. So even if there was life out there we wouldn't know and nor would they.

PHOTOS!!!!!

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