We awoke to a drizzly grey day, not quite the ideal star grazing conditions. A search of weather websites showed the forecast for Vicuña, our stargazing base, to vary from clear blue skies to cloud laden and rainy. A sense of dread was forming.

Curious quirk of the hostel, individual breakfasts were left in Tupperware boxes outside your room in the morning. Basic but cute!

We boarded a bus for the 90 minute journey inland to Vicuña and promptly fell asleep. We woke an hour later to glorious clear blue skies - result!

Vicuña is a desert town whose main activities are pisco production (a grape based spirit) and astronomy tourism. Less developed than San Pedro, it is similar in that it is generally a town of whitewashed single story buildings and dusty streets. Very pretty and welcoming.

The hostel was a bit strange, more of a mini holiday village where most of the chalet-like rooms seemed to be 'permanently' inhabited by locals. Stickers with their names on the doors. However nice enough with friendly owners.

We checked in with the astronomy place - run by a French guy. We went for a late lunch - and were served by a French guy. Gah!

After lunch we went to a nearby pisco producer for a tour and tasting session. Despite assurances to the contrary from the tourist information office, the tour was in Spanish only and so I learned very little about the production methods. Initially similar to wine production, no idea where the methods spilt. However the tasting session was very welcome!

After a 4 course, £5 dinner we met our group and headed in the minibus up into the mountains. A lovely, very chatty Californian girl kept us from drifting off. An hour or so's drive later we reached the observatory, atop a mountain surrounded by several other mountains topped by observatories. The sky was unbelievable, we'd never seen so many stars and so clearly, not even in the Australian outback. The next couple of hours were spending peering through the powerful telescope at planets (Jupiter & Uranus), other galaxies, dying stars, birthing stars and everything else the heavens have to offer. Three distant galaxies at once, looking just like the archetypical swirls. It was absolutely enthralling. If anyone knows anything about astronomy we could even see andromeda with the naked eye - apparently according to the Guinness Book of Records this is not possible!

An amazing experience, well worth the detour. We couldn't have been luckier with the weather as the night before had been cloudy and we woke to grey skies again the following morning.