Ola Amigos,

So, those of you who have been fanatically reading our every blog so far (go on admit it, it's all of you) may have picked up, from the tone of the last one, that we were suitability indifferent to Chile. I mean maybe it's because we've been spoiling ourselves, but Chile just wasn´t ticking our boxes, until that is...

...San Pedro De Atacama. Not only does this place have a pretty cool name (me llamo es Pedro). But it felt more like the Chile we were looking for. San Pedro (as we locals call it) is situated high in the Andes, on the edge of the world's driest desert (tick). It's a small village with cobbled streets, colourful houses with open courtyards, and for the tourist an array of tours and activities to float your boat.

So we travelled into the desert, climbed sand dunes, walked through twisted rock formations and saw the world's third biggest salt lake (whoooo third biggest - don´t worry ´salt lake fans´ more of this to come in the next blog). Plus we learnt how all this was formed so when we get back in June we can conduct a fantastic lecture involving words like ´plate tectonics´ ´sedimentary´ ´geothermal activity´ altiplateau´ and of course ´hydrolactivecombustability´ (oh ok I admit we made that last one up).

As well as brushing up our geology we also hired bikes for a day and cycled off round the desert into ´Devils canyon´ (ooooohhhhhh scary). This was ace, a narrow winding canyon stretching for miles: fantastic mountain biking, a bit of carrying the bikes, and numerous twists and turns. Then Polly got scared that we were going to get lost in the desert and end up the subject of a newspaper article ´Stupid Gringos get lost in desert´ so we turned back - safety first our parents will be glad to know.

So we are having a great time. How are things at home? Sorry to hear about Jade Goody - would you believe it made the front page of a newspaper here in Chile - hope you´re all planning a Dianaesque funeral and maybe a national holiday?

Apologies for the typos in this blog my Bolivian computer isn´t playing the game and we can´t decide if we should be talking about the ´Desert´ or the ´Dessert´ - not working for 6 months it does funny things to your brain