The bed was really comfy at Maria's Casa and we slept longer than expected. We were in no rush though and had a leisurely breakfast. It was nice being able to sit round a big table in the warm morning air.

After breakfast we took a walk down to the bus station to get tickets for the bus to Santiago on Thursday morning. We then continued walking towards the coast and El Faro. The lighthouse wasn't as big as expected but the coast didn't look particularly rocky or dangerous either so maybe it was just for show.

We walked along the beach front and despite the clouds, it was nice to breath some sea air after spending so much time in the altitude with its thin air and lack of oxygen. Most of the eateries along the front were closed, perhaps because it was midweek and off season. We grabbed a little snack from a mini market and caught a bus back into the centre for lunch.

Jackfish was highly recommended for lunch, it specialises in ceviche and sushi. We'd had sushi for dinner last night but it was really the ceviche we wanted to try. We took a lunch special, 2 bowls of of the most delicious, spicy Japanese ceviche that were full of salmon, octubus and calamari. It also came with 25 pieces of sushi. The sushi rolls were equally delicious and bigger than we anticipated. We had to ask for 8 pieces to be put in a box for later.

Feeling full, we needed a walk to help digest the food so we headed for the Japanese Garden. It cost 1,000 pesos each to get in but it was worth the money. The garden had been designed and built by Japanese people from Tokyo so it was very authentic and well maintained.

Across the road from the Japanese Garden was Parque Pedro de Valdivia with a small 'zoo'. There were cages with a desert fox, guanacos, sheep, giant tortoise, emu, ostrich and sadly condors too. The cages were way too small for the animals to the point that it looked cruel.

As we headed back to the hostel we noticed the Lighthouse Cafe which served espresso coffee, a bit of a rarity in a country that is obsessed with weak, overly sweetened, Nescafe.

We had booked ourselves on a star gazing tour. Our pickup arrived on time at 7pm and drove us for an hour up into the Andes to the Mamalluca observatory near Vicuña.

Once we arrived at the observatory, we were given a little snack of juice and alfajores (like a soft biscuit with chocolate and caramel). Along with the rest of our sushi from earlier, it was a great snack.

All the bus groups were put together and split into English & Spanish guided, fortunately the English speaking group was much smaller. The actual stargazing tour started promptly at 9pm with a warning. It was, for intents and purposes, a full moon and a very bright full moon at that. Whilst that looked great from where we were, it was the worst possible thing for star gazing because it made the stars harder to see.

We headed straight up to the telescope in the dome and were a bit surprised to find out that all the 'stars' (which include planets and moons) were recorded with GPS coordinates. By punching a code into a keypad, the telescope would automatically rotate and adjust it's viewing angle to be perfectly aligned with the star.

The telescope turned first towards Saturn and we had a perfect view of it with its rings although the ring was nearly vertical as opposed to the pictures with horizontal rings. With another push of the buttons, the telescope whirred round to Mars. Then star clusters, galaxies, the Milky Way and double stars.

We then went outside to see Sagritarius, the North Star (Polaris), the Southern Cross and the full moon.

We went back inside to learn about the new telescopes being built by Europe and USA. Current telescope mirrors are 12 metres or so and the new ones being built will be 40m and 80m. We were also shown a really cool computer program to observe stars and planets (http://www.stellarium.org) from a perspective from anywhere on earth, at any point in time. We were finally taught how to use the Southern Cross to find south. The distance from the bottom to the top of cross extended a further 4.5 times will be directly above due south.