After actually leaving Buenos Aires for the last time we arrived at the Santiago airport and luckily found plane tickets for a two hour ride to the Atacama Desert, a hauntingly magical place of vast, open space and scorching sun by day with bone chilling cold at night. We stepped off the plane on what appeared to be Mars, and arrived after a shaky bus ride through the desert to the old town of San Pedro de Atacama. We walked in the dark to our hostel/house on the outskirts of town and promptly passed out. We awoke by the light of the sun now surrounded by an endless circle of volcanoes reaching up to 20,000 feet that we had no idea were there the night before. All the streets are narrow, dirt-paved and lined by old adobe buildings now filled with restaurants and tour companies.

We first went out into the desert to a white salt flat and lagoon where we could float and spin on top of the water with no effort, which was an experience that you just can't help but smile while doing. We had fun with our tour guide who reminded us of and old, spry billy goat. The next day we packed it in. Woke up for a 4 am tour of geysers in a volcanic crater at over 13,000 feet and freezing; went hiked the moon valley filled with craters and rock formations giving you the impression you are actually on the thing (including the stop for beer at the mini market promptly encouraged by our guide as we piled in the little van. Only in South America.); got back at 10 pm and had dinner, and then went to an observatory until 2:30 am seeing the rings of Saturn with our own eyes and getting some of the best views of the stars in the entire world being in one of the highest and driest places on Earth. Oh, and we ate some llama.

We spent the next day swimming in an oasis of natural pools in a desert canyon hoping our elderly taxi driver did not keel over in the car while waiting for us in the heat. We had a very late flight back to Santiago and spent half the following day in the city mainly enjoying some ice cream with Santiago not offering too much as a city except the launching point for New Zealand!