I arrived early in the morning, bleary eyed and wondering how I'd woken up in such a weird and wonderful place. I stepped off the coach and ignoring the advice of altitudesickness.org (I was at 2500m - I was convinced I was hemorrhaging) I did what I seem to be doing constantly at the moment, had a slap up lunch. The local pataska was amazing, seriously if I can't manage to cook more than pasta surprise when I get home there's going to be trouble.
San Pedro is small, and is pretty much made up of travel agencies and restaurants, so I ate a lot and booked a lot of tours. We went stargazing - the views of the night sky in the Atacama desert are some of the clearest in the world, and visited the ranch of a crazy French astronomer in the middle of nowhere. We were talked through the constellations, and it was a total spin out that I realised we wouldn't be able to see the North Star. It's the Southern Hemisphere, duh! I later realised my glasses were really scratched and dirty so I didn't see any shooting stars but looking at Saturn through a telescope was like someone had painted a cartoon of it over the lens to fool us stoopid gringos. We huddled together for a hot chocolate and Q&A in their adobe hut afterwards - not sure my brain could quite handle talking about quantum physics at 1am but it was all pretty awesome.
The next day we hired bikes and rode through the aptly named Death Valley. It was really hot. And really dry. And I felt like dying - pretty apt. Peddling on to Valle de la Luna - Moon Valley - through long open roads, we made it in time for sunset, which was spectacular. The cycle home was only slightly terrifying, guided only by the light of the moon (rental bikes don't come with high-vis), but I loved it. Couldn't feel my butt for days.
It was time to leave Chile, a totally unexpected highlight, and head into Bolivia to see some real saltiness..
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