Hi everyone! Sorry it´s been so long since our last blog. I was hoping Dan might write one at some point, but he´s too lazy so thought I better just get on with it!

We spent our first 2 weeks in South America in Chile and had a great time! After our long flight we spent a few days recovering in Santiago and becoming accustomed to the South American nightlife (not going out before midnight!). From Santiago we headed north to the Atacama Desert, stopping along the way at Valparaiso, a lovely coastal town about an hour from Santiago and La Serena, again on the coast. From there we visited the Elqui Valley, where they make pisco, a Chilean/Peruvian spirit. They make a drink called a pisco sour, which has pisco, egg whites, lemon and sugar in it - sounds a little strange but it´s actually really nice!

We also visited an observatory. Chile has some of the best conditions for star gazing and is home to some of the most sophisticated observatories in the world! The one we went to was quite small and built for tourists, but the telescope was still strong enought for us to see Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, star clusters and the moon!

After a very long time on a bus, we arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, a lovely, very small town in the middle of the Atacama Desert. From here we visited different areas of the desert, including the moon valley (you will see why it´s called that from the photos!), the tatio geysers, hot springs, high altitude lagoons and the salt flats. The scenery was like nothing we´ve ever seen before, some of it very weird, at the moon valley you really felt like you were on another planet!

We also spent an afternoon sandboarding which was great fun, although we have been finding sand in our clothes for weeks!

It was then time to head back down to Santiago to catch our flight to Lima, to begin our Peruvian adventure.