Day 35 - Monday 5th April

Met Phil again on the bus to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. It wouldn't be the last time that his little head would pop up. The bus ride itself was absolutely stunning, climbing up through the Andes, cactai EVERYWHERE, high altitude plains, the Argentinian border control at 4800m and the Chilean border control 3 hours later at San Pedro. With only one road and nowhere else to go I guess there's no point to have them close...

Met Ross (Scottish - obviously knew Doug, the inbreeding barbarians) and Luke (aussie) heading to the same hostel, which turned out to be a mud shack with tiny rooms set around an awesome square with hammocks and an open fire. The town itself was the same, single story mud constructed buildings and dusty like a western. We rushed around town booking everything, bought some incredible chicken fajita-style empanadas and headed off with Ross to the astronomy tour!! They drive you out into the desert and there was at least 10 times as many stars as I've ever seen before. The sky was perfectly clear and what looked like clouds turned out to be other galaxies so clearly visible. They talked for an hour or two about constellations and how everything rotated around, different seasons, latitudes etc before taking us to about 8 telescopes set to Mars, Saturn (complete with perfect ringset!!) and various clusters and nebulae with their gas clouds and newly formed stars. An absolute highlight of the trip, a bit geeky but I loved it.

Once we got back I just chilled out in the hostel by the fire with some older English guys (Ciara, Caro, Jon, Nick and Katie) who I'd end up spending quite a bit of my trip with...

Day 36 - Tuesday 6th April

Had a slow morning chilling in the hostel with a Thai woman who looked like pocohontas and her kid. More empanadas for lunch in the main plaza, attracting the vast hordes of stray dogs...

Mid afternoon, Ciara, Guido and Renee headed out to the sand dunes for sandboarding!! Absolutely awesome, amazing setting, a bit slower than on snow and a bit harder (apparently it's like powder so you have to lean back) and thankfully my week in Tignes meant I could actually get down without bailing (with the odd large exception), another tip of the hat to the plumers...also a French guy called Jeremie spoke spanish and having sandboarded that morning was asked to come back and be a guide for us. A sports cameraman he was a great laugh too.

The tour took us out to 'The Luna Valley' as the day wore on and we watched the sunset atop a cliff with vino tinto, local beer and some awesome photos.

We finished the day with a big group of us in an understated restaurant (from the outside) that served mindblowing food. Best. Enchiladas. Ever