Hostel Katarpe San Pedro de Atacama

... 1497; מז"א אז הצטרפ 04;ו לסיור אסטרו 04;ומי שמעבי 12; אסטרו 04;ום צרפתי שסיור 97;ו ידועי 01; כמופע 97; סט ...

... at least one person has 'better things to do' but not on this occasion. At the outdoor restaurant thing we chose to eat in we met an American chap who told us he works exclusively with billionaires, has the email addresses of any top stars you can think of and dated a girl from Beauty and The Geek. Hmmmm. He was actually a really nice guy. And had a picture (a publicity picture admittedly) on his phone of said girl. That's probably a bit creepy isn't it? He also showed me Kim Kardashian ...

... was formed 23 million years ago... itīs possible.

San Pedro is almost equally crazy. After hours driving through desert with no sign of life anywhere, you pass over what looks like just another hill and there below you is a large patch of trees and greenery. The streets are lined with old Adobe buildings and now mostly house tour agencies, hostels or eateries. The oasis is surprisingly large but at the boundary it ends very abruptly. Suddenly the trees, and bugs ...

... pics.. We ended up in what they call a hostel !!!! in the desert at 4600 meters - 15,000 feet above sea level. Well it had no hot showers and the electricity got turned off at 9pm.
Our driver Alberto cooked us a really nice dinner of soup and then spaghetti. With coca tea to ease the altitude headache!!!
That night the temperature dropped to around 0 degrees C. I slept in my clothes in a sleeping bag with ...

... opt to cross into Chile instead of the round trip back to Uyuni.

Law breaker that I am - I snuck into Chile and have the pics to prove it! And Juan encouraged this unlawful behavior! What a cool guy!!!

Back past the other side of Laguna Colorada and into Villa Mar for lunch (rice, 2 kinds of canned tuna, sliced cucumbers & tomatoes, fresh mandarin oranges). Stopped at Valle de Rocas for more unusual rock formations.

Arrived back ...

... was ik weer thuis. We werden ontvangen in een soort ruimte waar we allemaal in een met kaarslicht verlichte kring om Alain, de grappige Fransman zaten. Het was echt zoīn soort van Astronomie voor Dummies ding, maar heel leerzaam. Pi, ik moest aan je boom chicago ervaring denken, want natuurlijk werd ik uit de groep gepikt om te demonstreren hoe maak je astronomie romantisch etc. gelukkig was het donker ;-) We mochten allemaal door de telescopen loeren en toen we allemaal zowat ...

... wh**e they simply cannot do enough for us.

The humidity in the area is just 4% which contributes to a clear atmosph**e with wond**ful light and clear night skies. I had imagined that one des**t would be much like any oth** but this place proves me wrong all ends up. It is a centre for activities that we have not yet encount**ed and is growing in popularity ev**y year. The population h**e is a massive 2,000 but the locals are probably matched by the touristas. As ...

... tps a decoller, puis a5H , on se bouge et on loureun velo pour se balader ds la vallee de la mort et admirer le coucher du soleil!!! on pedale , pedale, cest un vrai labyrinthe, et on se trouve plus ds la valle quau dessus pour admirer le coucher de soleil. Marion persevere et enfin on arrive au bout du tunnel, on laisse nos velos, et on grimpe a travers la dune pour prdre de la hauteur, c magnifiaue, indescriptible, et en plus, je nai pas de photos car enorme ...

... geysers. Tour bus picked us up at 4am (ow!) and we got to walk among the geysers for sunrise. They were fantastic - water bubbling up out of cracks in the ground forming huge plumes of steam. It was a strange feeling to be standing in -13 degrees just a few steps away from a hole in the ground with boiling water splashing out of it.

The rest of the tour was pretty much a drive through the mountains of the Atacama desert (the driest ...

... after having spoken to some people on the tours with other companies who had stayed in salt hostels, we were glad that we hadn't as it was meant to be very very cold. From there we drove across the salt flats to a village, stopping on the way to see where the salt mining takes place and there were two workers shoveling the salt on to their truck. We then stopped in a village where a local football game was taking place and we wandered through ...