Riding through the worlds driest desert

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So we entered Chile directly into San Pedro de Atacama, a town on the outskirts of what is the worlds driest desert (we didnt see a cloud in 5 days, and were told that some weather stations in the desert had never recorded rain). The desert may also be recognisable to people as the desert recently used in the recent James Bond film.

San Pedro was much smaller than we expected (and also much more expensive!) so we planned to spend a couple of days here, until we realised the bus over the Argentinian border only left three times a week and was booked out for the next 4 days, so we settled in for a few extra days. The town itself is focussed around excursions to see the desert, geysers and salt flats, but after our past week we decided to save the money and try other things!

After relaxing in the sun for a day we hired some bikes and rode a trail our towards the desert, to an area known as the Devils Corner that is a natural gorge with a range of incredible sand and rock formations. We intended to cycle to another Valley of the Moon, but after attempting to ride past of the 15km hill (in the blistering heat) we decided we would save it until another day....only that never happened!

After another day of relaxing in the sun we decided we should make the most of being in the desert, and were recomended something a little different by some people in the hostel - a "tour" of the sky. We were picked up at 10.30pm and headed out into the desert where the sky was so clear and bright it was fantastic for star gazing. We were given a tour of the stars where our guide pointed out constallations and important stars, galaxies and even planets. From here we moved to look through a range of telescopes where we could clearly see Jupiter, Venus and Uranus.

The night was fantastic and well worth the visit, and it certainly proved to be something different and highly recommended.

After al the waiting we were ready to head back to Argentina, a place we had been looking forward to explore first since we left over two months before. The bus took us from San Pedro to Salta, a modern and pretty city in the north west of Argentina, where we spent a few days enjoying the fine steaks and good weather.

From Salta we planned to head south to Mendoza, our last stop before Santiago and our flight to New Zealand.

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Photos

San Pedro de Atacama
Volcanoes in distance