We had a 7 hour stop in Santiago between buses, we found a food hall near the bus station and settled in. We were pestered by a never-ending procession of people trying to flog us all sorts of rubbish. They patrol the food hall putting items on every occupied table and return 5 minutes later in hope that you will buy them - plasters, candles, metal sculptures, plasters, chewing gum, headache tablets, plasters again. When will the plaster lady get the message we aren't interested! The food hall closed at 10pm, that gave us just under an hour to wait in the bus station which was home to some shady characters, saying that we were using our laptop in the food hall and were warned by the security guards to be very, very careful with our possessions. We arrived in Vicuna in the Elqui valley at 7.00am, fortunately the hostel knew we would be arriving early and we were booked in for breakfast. There were no taxis, and Donna was a little nervous walking the streets in the dark to find our hostel. The place was eerily quiet until the wandering dogs started barking and chasing each other back and forth. There seemed to be no one about and nothing open, it was a comforting sight to see our hostel entrance open and illuminated. Our bookings are always in Donna's name and the first word we heard out of the hostel owner was 'Donna' and then she got a welcoming kiss on the cheek. They showed us straight to our room on the second floor and invited us to breakfast once we were ready. We closed the door and almost immediately after taking off our rucsacks the whole room started to shake. We both looked at each other in disbelief - is this an earthquake? It seemed to go on and on. We went to breakfast and to enquire about the rumbling - it was already on national TV. An Earthquake about 100 miles away 6.4 on the Richter scale. This is not unusual but mostly they last just a few seconds, this one lasted a full minute. The good news is no structural damage reported in Chile and no Tsunami. We moved north to escape volcanoes that might blow now we have earthquakes instead. The Elqui valley is not on the main backpackers route, only a trickle of visitors come here, from what we had read we decided it was worth a visit. The 1st impressions of our hostel were good but on closer inspection it was not all it was made out to be. It had a hot tub - slimy and not working, it had a sauna - not working, it had a swimming pool but you wouldn't want to get in it, it had a garden, bits were lovely, other bits needed a lot of TLC, it had a shared kitchen that we could cook in, hygiene was not on the top of their list and the oven was shocking (I had to wash my hands just after opening it). The room was good and the breakfast was very good. The tourist office here is useless but 'Elki Magic' that hire bikes and run tours were really helpful even with info on walks that we could do independently. Security in the last few towns we have stayed in seems to be a concern for locals. Anyone that has a garden has it surrounded with a 6 foot fence and padlocked gates, windows have bars on them, private parking areas are fenced and locked! For a sleepy outpost like Vicuna we were surprised that in the town plaza music played over the P.A. system changed from traditional Chilean to 'paint it black' by the Rolling Stones. We have a couple of old problems returned - smelly footwear and underwear falling apart, this time it's my briefs that have holes where they shouldn't. Something else for the shopping list. We went for a walk above the town for the day. We are surrounded by almost barren but beautiful mountains which are in stark contrast to lush green valleys. Back on our first bus journey from Santiago to Mendoza we struggled to photograph cactus whilst the bus was moving, now we were walking through hills littered with thousands of them. I kept imagining I was Humphrey Bogart in 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre' looking for gold. The temperature went up to close on 30 Deg C, we were glad to cool down with ice cream and beer once our 8 mile walk and target summit was done. In the evening we visited Mammalluca observatory. The Elqui Valley and the Atacama desert (both in Chile) are home to 60% of the worlds scientific observatories and that percentage is increasing. One of the worlds largest telescopes is in Chile and it is originally named 'Very Large Telescope'. There are plans to build a bigger one which will be called 'Overwhelmingly Large Telescope' OWL for short - not making this up, honest. Elqui valley boasts on average 300 clear night skies a year, and the sky is very clear due to how dry it is here. The observatory visit was a great finish to our first day, our guide was passionate and so enthusiastic about astrology. We saw the moons of Jupiter, star clusters, distant galaxies, the milky way and more. Even without the telescope we could see so many stars, incredible. This area is also known as UFO central due to the amount of supposed sightings. Donna saw one with her one eyes - UFO Uniformed Flirting Object! The Maid was the flirter and the hostel owner was all over her (when his wife was out the way). Donna witnessed him in the kitchen squeezing the UFO's bum then with his hands up her top having a good grope. Even though we can officially use the kitchen here the UFO (maid) is not very welcoming to us, we guess that's because it affects her flirting and his firking. Another day, another activity - we caught a collectivo to the lake at Neuvo Gualliguaica. Collectivos are taxis going back and forth on a fixed route with a set price per passenger. The drivers decide if they will wait until they are full or if they go with just 1 or 2 passengers. We waited 30 minutes for one to arrive but then then he departed with just the 2 of us which was good. We picked up 2 more (locals) en-route. At the lake I managed to book a windsurfer for an hour. It is out of season so I was fortunate that the guy opened up especially for me. I was hoping for a refresher lesson as I haven't windsurfed for 16 years, the problem was he spoke no English. I was soon on the board then in the water, this seemed to repeat itself until eventually I did stand and sailed across the lake. I had forgotten too much technique though and just kept ending up further away from where I started and struggling to sail back. There was a lot of falling off and swimming with the board, after an hour I was glad it was over. Yes, I enjoyed it but I have forgotten more than I remember. Together we went for another cactus stroll, I didn't lead the way, we were led by a stray dog 'Goldie', he was soon joined by another 'Blackie'. On the edge of the town Donna claimed she could hear parrots. On closer inspection we found about 40 of them in the rafters of the local sports 'stadium'. We returned to the tiny town after our stroll and more dogs appeared. We just missed a collectivo, surrounded by dogs and nowhere to sit we started to walk 2kms to the main road to get a bus back. Three of the dogs decided they were not going to leave us Gringos alone and followed. Before reaching the bus stop a collectivo driver stopped for us, he had room for two - great. We were about to climb in when the driver hopped out to put our daysacs in the boot, I stupidly left the front car door open. When the driver and I went to get in Goldie was sitting in the drivers seat, We managed to get him out only to be replaced with Blackie. Before we could get Blackie out Goldie was back in. We got down to just one dog in the car and the driver claimed his seat. Now I just had to get in. Goldie was on my seat, then we got him out only for him to jump into the seat well. We seemed to go round and around getting Goldie out only for him to climb back in before I got anywhere near my seat, in the meantime I was still trying to keep Blackie out as well. The driver and I successfully pulled and shoved Goldie out who used all his weight to fight against us. I managed to hold both dogs from climbing back in, but couldn't seem to get myself in without loosing one or both of them. I did somehow struggle past them to claim my seat. Now both were trying to climb on my lap. The two passengers in the back were in fits of laughter all the time this was going on. I couldn't loose the dogs to close the door without them climbing inside, in desperation I said 'drive, drive, go, go'. We pulled away with Goldie and Blackie determined to keep up and get back in but we did lose them without running over them with the back wheels and I was able to shut the door. The driver and locals howled all the way back to Vicuna, we are sure the story of the Gringos, dogs and Collectivo did the rounds around the town that evening.