Having arrived at our gate at Santiago airport with plenty of time before our flight to Calama, we had to check that we weren’t in a sequel for ‘Airplane. Over the next hour, we were moved to 3 different gates- thankfully Moira had already done her numbers on Duolingo. At least we got our steps up for the day.

We flew to Calama and then had 1.5 hour transfer by road to San Pedro de Atacama, which is a tourist town in the middle of the desert- think of a small Chilean Queenstown but without the bungee jumping and more empanadas. The town is 2000 metres above sea level, surrounded by the Andes and is close to the Bolivian border. It used to be on the Inca trade route. Everywhere you look, you see the Andes in the distance and in particular the Volcano- Lascar. Our hotel was lovely, the welcome gift of rose champagne was great (I feel a theme coming here) and we spent our first evening star gazing whilst sipping bubbles.

Our first trip out of town into the desert had to be replanned after the guide died (seriously), so we went to nearby Pakara de Quito an archaeological site and fort dating back to C12, which was destroyed when it was invaded. The local atacameno people only armed with slings and bow and arrow, were no match to the horses and muskets of the Spaniards. We had a great guide (she had a heartbeat) who then took us round the museum to look at the artefacts recovered from the site, including the accoutrements used to gain a high orally, ocularly and anally.

The salt flats in Atacama are anything but flat- definitely no land speed records to be had here, but both the salt and the marshland attract a massive amount of wildlife. Apart from being fascinating geologically, they are also the home to flamingos. We were really lucky to see 2 different species of Flamingo (Chilean have pink bums and the Andean have black ones) feeding on the flats. We were also saw Vizcacha (rabbit with a long tail), Llama, Vicuna, Guanaco, Culpeo fox and loads of birds!!

Some 4250k metres above the sea level is a large geothermic field full of geysers and this sounded like something we needed to see. I wasn’t feeling quite so enthused about this idea when I had to get up at 3.45am for a 2 hour van ride and was freezing my nips off in -6c temperature. Apparently the geysers are more dramatic when it’s cold…it obviously wasn’t cold enough, as I thought they were a bit ‘meh’. However the late breakfast we had on the mountain plain amongst the Andes as the sun rose will be a memory I will hold forever.

After warming up (which took some time) we went to Valle de Luna, which was a-maz-ing. The valley was formed 22 million years ago, when folds of clay and salt sediment converged horizontally. As the earth is clay based, the salt has nowhere to go, other than to the surface, making the whole place look as if it had a large dusting of snow. Leaving M behind (looking after the pisco sours) I climbed a mahoosive dune and was lucky enough to see some really stunning scenery. It could so easily have been a film set.

We’re sad to be leaving San Pedro, just as carnival has started, we’ve met some fun people and could easily have spent more time here… but more adventures await!