Canyoning and Cliff Top Swings

Bus journeys in Ecuador are generally nice and short; we only had a 2 hour ride from Riobamba to our next destination - Baños. This is a small town at 1800m, not far from the beginning of the jungle in the east, and a favourite with backpackers. It's known for two things in particular - the thermal baths that are its namesake, and adventure activities.

The river in Baños, with waterfalls coming down into it 

We had three days here and managed to fill them with lots of fun stuff. On day one, we hiked for 3 hours or so up to the top of one of the nearby hills to visit the Casa del Arbol (tree house) at the top. En route we saw a sign for the 'Vuelo del Condor' (Flight of the Condor) with pictures of a huge swing. It was only a short detour so we decided to give it a go. Good choice - it was awesome! It is a basically a gigantic swing off the edge of a cliff, run by a couple of locals out of their back garden. One at a time, we were harnessed in and tied to the swing seat then pushed off the cliff! The free fall down to the bottom of the swing to start with was very scary (I may have screamed a LOT) but an incredible adrenaline rush. And then you were swinging high in the air, with eagles soaring nearby and amazing views down. Worth the $5 I think.

Kev on the Vuelo del Condor swing

Our eventual destination, the Casa del Arbol, turned out to be a bit lame. It's not just a treehouse but a little park with a cafe, a very tiny zipline and the famous End of the World swings. Unlike the Condor swing, where we were the only people there, this place was full of backpackers, and we had to queue for 10 minutes to have a quick go on the (crap) swings, which were much like ordinary playground ones! The best thing about here was the view, which was pretty spectacular. But the Condor swing was the highlight of the day - very glad we went there.

The Casa del Arbol, and me on the End of the World swing

On our second day, we signed up for a canyoning trip at the nearby Rio Blanco. Neither of us had tried this activity before, but it looked really fun and Baños was a good place to give it a go. For those of you who don't know, canyoning is essentially rappelling down waterfalls. Though, as we learnt, it is not just that but includes all sorts of other methods of getting down waterfalls - jumping, sliding on your bum, ziplining... We were both pretty nervous at the start, as we stood at the top of a huge waterfall and were encouraged by our guides to lean backwards and begin abseiling down it! We soon got the hang of it though, and particularly enjoyed the final waterfall where we sat at the top and basically slid down, while roped in. We felt very safe the whole time and had so much fun. I'd like to do it again!

Canyoning at the Rio Blanco

Our hostel here didn't include breakfast, and one morning we came across a nice looking cafe and decided to try it. The Danish lady owner seemed a bit odd. As we went in, she said 'Oh, you want breakfast too do you? That's the last breakfast I'm doing today!'. We were slightly taken aback but smiled politely and sat down. When we saw the menu we did a double take though - erm, $8 each for a breakfast?! Too late to back out now though, we thought. The lady actually turned out to be quite insane. She took an hour to bring us our breakfasts, while she lectured us continually about how good her bread is, her fruit salad is, etc, and how she makes 50% profit on everything, unlike all the other cafes in town which only make 30% apparently (why do we need to know this?!).  She also had an obsession with the nearby Pailón del Diablo waterfall, pontificating at great length on how we HAD to go there. We were in the cafe for 2 hours in the end and thought we'd never escape!

With one of our canyoning guides at the bottom of a waterfall

However, the Danish lady did actually get something right. On day 3 we took a local bus out to the Pailón del Diablo (Devil's Cauldron) waterfall, about half an hour away from Baños. After a short hike through cloud forest, we arrived at the first viewpoint of the waterfall. I cannot even begin to describe how awesome (this word is used in the correct sense for once here, I think!) it was. One of those examples of raw nature so spectacularly beautiful it makes you quite emotional. We stood there for some minutes just gaping at it, speechless. The waterfall is huge - about 70m high, but what makes it so breathtaking is the sheer volume of water that is coming thundering down, literally right in front of you. Water reaching the bottom crashes and comes spewing back into the air, creating an amazing effect. You can see where its name comes from - the bottom is just a foaming cauldron of white water and water vapour, with jets spewing in all directions and spray everywhere. We got very wet! One of my favourite waterfalls ever.

The Pailon del Diablo waterfall

From Baños we headed up to the city of Latacunga at 2800m and had a night there before taking a bus the next day to Quilotoa. This is a small village right up in the sierra at 3800m, in beautiful scenery. Most people come to this area to hike round the scenic Quilotoa Loop -  3 or 4 days, hiking a circuit from village to village. We had not planned our time here too well though and only had 2 days before we had to head to Quito, where we have booked for Christmas. So we decided to confine our exploring to Quilotoa itself.

Laguna Quilotoa

The main attraction here is the huge volcanic crater lake, Laguna Quilotoa. We were blown away by this - it's stunning. On our first day in Quilotoa, we walked the 5 mins from our hostel to see the lake from a viewpoint above. After admiring it for a while, we spent the rest of the day resting as we needed a little time to readjust to the altitude here - it's been a while since we've been this high. The next day we hiked the trail around the top of the lake. We had imagined this would be a fairly easy stroll. Erm, no. It was 3.5 hours of constantly going up and down steep peaks, along paths that were often deep sand. And no switchbacks, just straight up, as seems to be the theme with most trails in Ecuador. The views were magnificent though, not only down into the emerald blue lake, but also the surrounding countryside with its patchwork of steep fields and terraces.

Beautiful scenery surrounding Quilotoa

We are now back in Latacunga and tomorrow will head to Quito, where we'll be for a few days over Christmas. MERRY CHRISTMAS one and all!

Trekking Again: Peru's Stunning Cordillera Blanca (And Falling Into a Cactus)

We've spent the past few days in and around Huaraz, a pleasant city in the northern highlands. Huaraz is surrounded by some spectacular scenery in the Cordillera Blanca and Cordillera Huayhuash mountain ranges, and is fast becoming known as the trekking and adventure capital of Peru. You can see several beautiful snowcapped mountains just from the city centre, with the skyline dominated by the majestic Huascarán, the highest in Peru at 6768m. Ready for some more hiking after a break since our long Machu Picchu trek, we were excited to explore the region.

Trekking in the Cordillera Blanca - Santa Cruz Trek, Day 4

The city of Huaraz is up at 3100m, and having had a while down at sea level we needed a couple of days to re-acclimatise to the altitude. Our main objective here was to undertake the famous 4 day Santa Cruz hike in the Cordillera Blanca, voted as one of the world's best treks by National Geographic, and we spent our first day in Huaraz looking round all the local trekking agencies. In fact this hike can be done independently, but we didn't fancy carrying all our own gear (including tents and cooking equipment) around, especially at altitudes of well above 4000m. We decided to sign up for an organised trek with a small company called Eco Ice, departing in two days' time.

Following the river at the start of our Laguna 69 trek

Having got that sorted, we needed to do a day hike to acclimatise further prior to the longer trek. We chose the trek to Laguna 69 (inventive name!), which came highly recommended by several other travellers. The hike started at around 3800m and proceeded across mostly flat terrain, following the river and passing numerous gorgeous waterfalls. After some fairly easy switchbacks, we reached not Laguna 69 but its sister lake, Laguna 68, and from there it was a lot tougher going. Kev was okay with the altitude but I was gasping for breath and had to slow to a snail's pace for the last section! However as we crested the summit and got our first view of Laguna 69, it was all worth it. The most dazzlingly turquoise lake you can imagine, ringed by snowy mountains and glaciers (that from time to time would creak loudly!). The weather had been very changeable on the way up but as we arrived it cleared nicely and we had a wonderful view of the tops of the mountains emerging from the clouds.

Laguna 69

Laguna 69 is hard to do without taking organised transport, and while this was fine on the way it was a little frustrating on the way back. We were some of the fastest people in our busload of people; in fact having got to the top and spent an hour there eating lunch, on our way down we passed the majority of the group still going up! So it was quite a long wait for everyone to finish before our bus could depart for the long 3 hour trip back to Huaraz.

View down the valley at the end of our Laguna 69 trek

On our return from this hike, we found an email from Eco Ice advising us that our Santa Cruz trek had been postponed for two days due to the illness of someone else who'd signed up for it. We were actually not too sad about the delay - it was pretty good not have to get up before dawn again for the second day in a row, and I was grateful for some more acclimatisation time. Rather than hanging about any further in Huaraz, we decided to switch our plans around and visit the nearby historical site of Chavín de Huantar before the trek.

The main plaza at Chavín, with temple behind, surrounded by mountains

We took a very rural local bus out to Chavín, opting to stay a night in the town itself rather than do a day tour from Huaraz (which would have been another 6 hours round trip!). The road wound up into the mountains and then through a tunnel into the neighbouring district of Chavín, where the road surface changed dramatically for the worse: an hour of bumping along, often next to a sickening drop, with feathers blowing in the windows from the dozens of crates of chickens on the roof. Arriving in Chavín town itself in the late afternoon, we checked out what Lonely Planet describes as 'thermal baths'. Expecting some nice hot springs, we were a little disappointed to find they really were 'baths' - several private cubicles with bath size holes in the floor, which we had to fill with a hot tap to a maximum depth of about 8 inches. Not quite what we'd hoped for.

Snake carvings on the steps at Chavín

But our main reason for coming to Chavín was to see the ruins near the town, which make up yet another UNESCO World Heritage Site. This site was built by the Chavín culture between 1200 and 500 BC, and used as a ceremonial centre where local people would come together to worship. The main temple was a huge pyramid, with a sunken plaza in front and stone columns still with original carvings. The whole complex had a ventilation system, earthquake proofing and even a system of channels that would have acted as a sound system, amplifying sounds during ceremonies. Perhaps the most impressive feature was the elaborate series of underground passages, or galleries - some have unbelievably high ceilings and you can still walk though them today. One passage has at its centre a huge carved stone monolith of the Chavin supreme deity, the Lanzón: most of the gallery was dark but the lighting was cleverly designed by the temple's builders so that light from outside beams directly on the sculpture. It was pretty incredible.

Underground gallery at Chavín

The monolith representing the Lanzón deity

We returned that afternoon to Huaraz and the next day were up at 5am to start our Santa Cruz trek. Like Laguna 69, this trek goes through the Huascarán National Park in the Cordillera Blanca. The trek was amazing, with scenery reminiscent of Patagonia. The Cordillera Blanca has 33 peaks over 5500m and over 700 glaciers - there were magnificent snowy panoramas everywhere we looked.  We even saw Paramount Mountain; yes, the one in the Paramount Pictures logo! While easier than our ridiculous Machu Picchu trek, it was still challenging at times, particularly with the altitude. Day 2 took us up to a 4750m pass, the highest I have ever hiked to, and that day we camped at 4250m. Two sleeping bags still weren't enough to quite keep out the bitter cold; it's the highest we've slept at on the whole trip and the first time we've had ice inside the tent! We were lucky with the weather though, with clear skies most of the time allowing us stupendous views at both of the highest points.

Looking out on the Paramount Mountain

We were in a group of eight, all lovely people - an Aussie couple, two Israeli brothers, and an Aussie girl and Canadian girl travelling together - plus two guides, a donkey driver and several donkeys. And a dog, which ostensibly belonged to the donkey driver but was nameless and spent most of his time trekking with us. In fact he became rather overprotective, one night waking everyone up barking wildly and attempting to chase away nearby cows.

Kev with 'El Perro' ('The Dog') - we gave him a name!

On the last day of the trek we had a fairly easy walk downhill, next to a lovely river with so many waterfalls that we beat our record number in a day. Kev managed to fall over spectacularly on top of a cactus - the guide got to practise his first aid skills bandaging his hand and later extracting a cactus spine at least an inch long! We celebrated the end of the trek with beers at a shop in the tiny village at the end that was actually run by our guide's aunt and uncle.

One of numerous waterfalls along the river on day 4

That evening we were all also invited to the house of Orlando, the owner of the company, for delicious homecooked dinner and pisco sours, with a demonstration of the making of the latter. Orlando invited us on to the birthday party of one of his colleagues and we had a great evening drinking, chatting and watching the (somewhat odd) Peruvian style of dancing. We'd definitely recommend the Eco Ice company to anybody!

Our final campsite at Llamacorral 

There's plenty more to do here, and in fact we'd like to come back here on holiday in the future to do the challenging and perhaps even more impressive 10 - 12 day Huayhuash circuit in the other cordillera. But for now we're pushing on up north before we fly back down to Patagonia in 2 weeks' time to meet family and do yet more hiking!

Our trekking group at Punta Unión, the high pass on day 2 - new height record!

Silver Mines, Sucre, Dinosaur Footprints (And Don't Go To The Top Restaurant On Tripadvisor!)

Having spent one night in the very mediocre town of Uyuni following our salt flats tour, we proceeded north the next day to Potosí. This is a mining town that at 4070m is the second highest city in the world (the highest, El Alto, is also in Bolivia).

Iglesia de San Lorenzo de Carangas - one of the many churches in Potosí

We had heard a lot about Bolivian buses and boarded with some trepidation, but this bus ride at least wasn't too bad at all - we certainly had a lot worse in Asia. All the locals get on buses laden with blankets, clearly in the know about how cold it's going to be, we thought. I duly wore thermals and several jumpers, but actually, the bus got really hot and we sweltered in t-shirts for the whole journey. The scenery was incredible and we tried to enjoy this rather than thinking too hard about the huge drop down a cliff on one side!

View of Cerro Oro, the mine in Potosí

Bolivia is a refreshing change from Chile and Argentina in that it is far less westernised. Coming into Potosí, we passed busy outdoor markets, open trucks full of oranges, street stalls selling dubious looking snacks, etc. Everything is far less ordered than Chile and Argentina, with interesting, slightly puzzling things going on everywhere you look. The country also has a high proportion of indigenous people and the ladies of the altiplano region have a very characteristic style of dress: long skirts, usually with tights or legwarmers and sandals; apron; a boater style of hat, with two long black plaits of hair; numerous shawls; and a colourful sling across their back, often carrying a baby but apparently used for anything and everything. You really see a whole different culture here: it feels like travelling properly again, rather than being on an extended holiday.

The square and cathedral in Potosí

We spent three days in Potosí, which is a pleasant place to stroll around, with a plethora of colonial architecture and churches with intricate carvings. It is a world heritage site and an important town historically due to its silver mining heritage. During colonial times, the hill behind the town (Cerro Rico, or 'rich hill') was Spain's main source of silver and in Spanish there is still a saying 'vale un potosí' (to be worth a potosí, i.e. a lot!). We visited the Casa de la Moneda, Potosí's first mint, where silver coins were minted first for the Spanish crown and then for independent Bolivia until the 1950s. Native people and African slaves worked in the mines and in the mint, in atrocious conditions. We were told that the amount of silver extracted in Potosí in colonial times would have been enough to build a bridge of pure silver between there and Spain - but that you could also have built the same bridge with the bones of the people who died.

In the Casa de la Moneda, Potosí

In Potosí we visited a French restaurant that was highly recommended on Tripadvisor - an error, it turned out, as both of us and our Swiss friends came down with food poisoning. This necessitated an extension of our stay in Potosí,  but we are gradually getting better and have now moved on to Sucre, Bolivia's consitutional capital and another world heritage site.

Eiffel tower lookalike, in Parque Simón Bolívar, Sucre

Sucre is a beautiful city, with characteristic white buildings from the colonial era and numerous churches and museums. We've visited the Casa de la Libertad, where Bolivia's declaration of independence was signed in 1825, and walked around the pleasant park (with odd Eiffel tower replica). We've also been to see some 68 million year old dinosaur footprints, and the associated theme park with life size dinosaur models. Pretty cool - there's a steep limestone wall with the tracks of three types of dinosaur clearly visible. They'd originally have been flat but due to plate movements now look like they are walking vertically up the wall.

Dinosaur footprints

Sucre is proving  a great place to chill out and continue recovering from illness.There's a lot of expats living here so we've found several excellent cafés and even an English pub, where we watched Chile win the final of the Copa America last night. We have now signed up for a week's Spanish classes and then a 4 day trek, so will be here and around for a while longer. Our Swiss friends are pressing on to La Paz this evening though, so we're on our own again...

Leaving Chile for the Salt Flats of Bolivia

After re-arriving in San Pedro de Atacama, we booked a tour to take us into Bolivia, taking in scenery from deserts and lakes to the famous salt flats. We'd spent almost 3 months in Chile, so it was exciting to be moving on to a new, and very different country.

You can just see Jo in the background exploring the Quebrada del Diablo by bike

We had a day to fill in San Pedro, a place that we hadn't particularly enjoyed before. This time, instead of going on any crowded and hectic tours, we hired bikes for a day to explore a bit more independently and visit the nearby Quebrada del Diablo (Devil's Canyon). In appearance, it is very similar to the Valle de la Muerte, with red, Mars-like rocks. The huge draw was that we were almost the only people there to admire the otherworldly landscape.

The border crossing into Bolivia

The first thing we noticed on crossing into Bolivia is the difference in language. Chilenos speak Spanish very quickly with their own unique dialect and it can be very difficult to understand at times. Bolivians, however, speak a lot more slowly and we already feel more confident about our language skills.

The fantastic group for the salt flat tour

Our three day tour of the southern altiplano was fantastic. We had a great group of people in our jeep, with the two of us, our Swiss friends and another English couple. Plus our Bolivian driver, Pedro, who was good fun as well as knowledgeable about everywhere we went. Each day brought new, spectacular scenery and Pedro did a good job of avoiding the other tour groups. We were lucky that we'd spent the last couple of weeks at altitude, as the whole tour took place at over 3000m. Some others weren't so lucky and definitely didn't have a good time.

Us in front of the Laguna Colorada

The first day took in a number of coloured lakes, geysers and mud pools and windswept rock formations, all set in barren but colourful desert. We stayed that night in a hostel next to Laguna Colorada - coloured red from the brine shrimp in it that give flamingoes their distinctive colour. There was no heating in the hostel and the temperature dropped below -10°C, which made for a chilly night.

Strange rock formations in the Valle de las Rocas

On the next day we visited more lakes surrounded by snow-capped mountains, with their shores grazed by vicuñas. There were more impressive rock formations, created by volcanic lava that had been eroded into strange shapes by the wind over the millennia. We finished the day by crossing a small salt flat, then stayed in a hotel constructed from salt on the edge of the Uyuni salt flat - the largest in the world.

Sunrise over the salt flat from Isla Incahuasi

The final day of the tour was spent crossing the Uyuni salt flat. First stop was sunrise at the 'island' Isla Incahuasi, a salt island rising out of the flat. The drive was a strange experience, moving along in the dark with no landmarks - it felt like being in an aeroplane when the headlights were turned off. The lack of any landmarks allowed us to have fun later in the morning taking the classic perspective-altering photos. We finished the day, and the tour, in Uyuni at the train cemetery. I felt this was similar to Humberstone and Santa Laura, with trains that used to carry the mined salt around left to rust in the desert.

Blown away by the salt flats

Now we are in Bolivia, it is time to explore a new country. We're heading off tomorrow north from here towards Potosí, the highest city in the world.

Ghost Mining Towns, Mummies and Llamas at 4500m

When Kev last posted we were still in touristy San Pedro de Atacama, trying to deal with extremes of altitude, temperature and aridity. It was thus a relief to arrive in Iquique on the west coast, which was at sea level and relatively warm. There's not much that can be said for the city - it's quite a gritty place, rough around the edges and swathed in mist for 90% of the time. Strangely enough however, it did boast some excellent sushi restaurants and, best of all, it lacked tourists other than than ourselves and Cindy and Julien, the Swiss couple with whom we're travelling at the moment.

Old mining machinery in Santa Laura

The four of us hired a car for the day to visit the nearby mining ghost towns of Humberstone and Santa Laura. The two towns and their surrounding area were one of the world's most important producers of nitrate from the 1880s until 1960 and were declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2005. We enjoyed wandering around the abandoned buildings, both residential and industrial, and imagining the lives of the miners living there. The conditions must have been pretty tough - the towns are in the middle of the desert, in unpleasantly dry and hot conditions. We read that the temperature in the mines could get up to 50ºC. At least Humberstone had a swimming pool they could cool off in!

Walking up towards the Atacama Giant 

We also took the opportunity of having our own transport to go to see El Gigante de Atacama, a huge geoglyph on the side of a  hill in the desert. It is the largest anthropomorphic  geoglyph in the world, at 86m tall, and estimated to date to around AD 900.  It was believed to have magical powers, seen as a shaman or a deity by local people of the time.

Chinchorro mummy, in Museo de Sitio Colón 10, Arica

We moved on from Iquique to Arica, another coastal city that was a lot more pleasant than Iquique. A number of mummies have been found in this area from the South American Chinchorro culture and are on display in local museums. They are the oldest examples of mummification in the world, dating back to as far as 5000 - 7000 BC (2000 years before Egyptian mummies). The main museum in the town showcased some remains as they were found - we walked across a glass floor and could look down at the mummies beneath. Some had red or black clay masks, some had wigs and others were decorated with feathers. Quite a weird experience!

We took a bus from Arica up to Putre, a slightly giddying journey up a winding road to an altitude of 3500m. Our main aim of coming here was to visit Parque Nacional Lauca, which is even higher at an average of 4500m. Quite few tourists come to Lauca on a day trip from Arica  - a little stupid, we thought, as an increase of altitude of 4500m in a few hours is a recipe for disaster. We arrived in Putre in the morning and spent a day acclimatising and admiring the incredible scenery. It's a little like San Pedro, but better, with mountains all around.

The town square and church in Putre

The second day in Putre we organised a tour to Lauca. Our driver was a friendly Venezuelan guy, so as well as enjoying the incredible scenery and wildlife of the park, we gained an interesting insight into life and politics in Venezuela at the moment. Lauca national park was one of the most stunning places we have visited so far, with picture perfect volcanoes and lakes. There were lots of animals - we saw endless llamas and alpacas (I still can't tell the difference!) and also herds of their shy wild relative, the vicuña. Plus, among others, the cute rabbit-like viscacha, giant tagua (giant coots) and flamingoes.

In front of Volcán Parinacota

At Lake Chungara (4500m, new height record!)

Feeding a llama

You could really feel the altitude up here and we were glad we had had a night in Putre to adjust a little. At one point we had to walk up a hill, not a particularly steep one, and within seconds I was gasping for breath. My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest and I had to stop and then walk at a really slow pace in order not to feel like I was dying! For once we were glad that we were driven around for most of the day and only minimal walking was involved.

Vicuñas in Parque Nacional Lauca

We travelled back down to Arica the next day and this evening will be taking a nightbus back to San Pedro, from where we'll head into Bolivia via the famous salt flats.

Touring the Atacama Desert

We were in for a shock arriving in San Pedro de Atacama after our 16 hour night bus. For the majority of our time in Chile, we've been in low season. That was still the case in San Pedro, but the only people in the town are tourists and people selling things to tourists. It's in the middle of the Atacama Desert - the highest (San Pedro is 2,400m above sea level) and driest (some weather stations have never received rain) desert in the world. This makes it an uncomfortable place to be. The temperature fluctuates between scorching hot in the sun, to chilly in the shade, to below 0°C at night. Not great when none of the hostels have heating in the rooms. The extreme aridity painfully dries out your nose, throat and skin.

The tourist-heavy main drag in San Pedro

The main attraction is the surrounding scenery - volcanoes, salt flats, lakes, valleys and the night sky. Despite having learnt the lesson that tours are bad many times before, we decided to go with a tour company in order to see as much as possible. Although the tours were good, we're left feeling a bit flat - there's no effort, and therefore less reward, in being taken to see spectacular scenery in a convoy of minibuses with 10-100 other people. That said, the scenery is spectacular.

The valleys of Valle de la Muerte and Valle de la Luna, both near to the town, have completely different characters. Valle de la Muerte consists of red rocks and dusts in strange formations. Because of the colour, it was originally called the Valley of Mars, Valle del Marte in Spanish. This was mistranslated to Valle de la Muerte, or Valley of Death, and the name stuck. Valle de la Luna, Valley of the Moon, similarly appears like the moon. Much of the rock is formed from salt crystals and gives the valley an otherworldly moon-like appearance.

The Valle de la Muerte

The 3 Marias rock formation in the Valle de la Luna

The Tatio geyser field

Another of the big draws around here is the Tatio Geysers, the highest geyser field in the world at 4,320m. This is now Jo's new highest place record. We set off before dawn to be there for sunrise, and to 'enjoy' breakfast at -10°C. The geysers were stunning against a backdrop of even higher mountains in the early morning light. We also visited some nearby hot springs to relax later that afternoon, although stepping out of the warm water into the frigid shade was painful.





Our final tour was to see the Miscanti and Miñiques altiplano lakes at 4,220m above sea level. These were again beautiful set against the 6,000m volcanoes behind them. We continued on to the Atacama salt flat, surrounded by mountains reflected in the shallow pools of water. This made for perfect photographs of flamingoes ignoring the flocks of tourists.

Flamingoes in the Atacama salt plain

Us, the Milky Way, and the Southern Cross

The highlight of our stay was a stargazing trip. The Atacama desert has perfect conditions to view the stars - it is so high and dry that there is little atmospheric interference. As well as being able to see the Milky Way and other galaxies (the Magellanic clouds) with the naked eye, there were several telescopes set up for us. We were taken around various amazing views - Saturn, star forming nebula, binary stars and other galaxies amongst them.






We've met up with a Swiss couple that we'd met in Pucón, and we're now hoping to travel with them for a bit around the remaining parts of northern Chile, starting in Iquique.