I see the moon and the moon sees me...

This area of Chile (north of Valparaiso) is one of the best places for star gazing. It has 300 clear night skies a year. Our first night in La Serena, we joined a tour for a visit to one of the observatories nearby. I have honestly never been on such an impressive, mind-blowing tour ever. It was amazing! I guess it has a head start in being about the galaxy and the universe and things more than my head can contain, but it was excellent. Apart from all the usual information you get, we could see Saturn, with its ring (it looks just like I would draw it), Jupiter with its moons and the Moon itself, with all its craters. I found it really interesting to hear about the constellations from a Chilean perspective too. What we see as Scorpio is the same as the monkey one can see in the Nazca lines, hanging from the Milky Way with his tail. There’s also a big llama and a bay llama up there. I left feeling very small on my little planet earth.

From inspecting the moon in detail, we inspected it from the Luna valley – back to San Pedro de Atacama. All logic seemed to leave me in this tiny pueblo and I found myself back at the hostel I promised I’d never return to. Granted, it is the cheapest option in town but it didn’t have hot water, the bathroom was flooded, my sheets were dirty and the people were super unfriendly. That’s hostel Florida. Don’t go there. We changed after two nights, needless to say. Sarah and I also found ourselves, once again against all logic, on an 8 hour horse ride. 8 hours! Across the desert. Poor horses and poor us. In fact, it was so painful that after 4 hours we bailed and caught a lift back into town with a tour bus from the Luna valley. Gees, what were we thinking?? We did go back to the Luna valley though at a later stage in a much more sensible car and once again it was a sight to behold and this time I was there in time for the sunset. Wow.

After being in San Pedro rather longer than we expected (there are only 3 buses a week to Argentina), Sarah joined a tour to the salt pans in Bolivia and I hopped on a bus back to Salta, Argentina, one of the first places I visited when I arrived on this continent. I already miss travelling with Sarah; she’s a brilliant travel partner. But I am also quite enjoying travelling on my own for a little bit. I love Salta, it’s such a tranquilo town and warm and sunny and I`ve found a great hostel, which is always a bonus. I am leaving tomorrow though and heading for Paraguay in search of squeezing in just a few more adventures before returning home. Watch this space.