San Pedro de Atacama and beyond

Here's an update of whats been going on over the last few days and what's coming up (no email for a few days).

Left Santiago on sunday morning and arrived in Mendoza (Argentina) on Sunday afternoon, had a two hour stopover and a quick meal (Lomo - am now a religious lamb sandwich eater) with the British couple we travelled to Pucon with. Then back on the bus for another 18 hours north to Salta, an excellent gym session with Lucas on arrival followed by a meal, movie and straight to bed. Woke up this morning for our 6:30am date with another 11 hour bus ride to our current location - San Pedro de Atacama - the driest place on earth.

As you'd expect from the driest place on earth it is also the dustiest place on earth, but the sunset this afternoon was awe inspiring seeing the last rays of sun catch the distant snow capped peaks above the vast expanse of nothing. The stars tonight are also something else - aside from the dim street lamps there is no light within 100km of this town, so the skies are glittering tonight.

The other thing you'd expect from the driest place on earth is that no-one would want to live here, as a result, the town exists solely as a portal for tourists heading to/from the Salar de Uyuni salt flats (and associated natural wonders) in the south of Bolivia. Which is where we are headed first thing tomorrow for an infamous 3 day tour of the area finishing in Uyuni, Bolivia. If the stories are true you'll hear all about why they are infamous when/if we get to Uyuni.

We've also just realised that if we want to meet our mid-June deadline for the UK we are already half way through our journey. Which makes me want to defer going to the UK for another month, but at the same time has made us more mindful of spending too many 'relaxation' days in cheap towns.

Hope everyone is going well and thing aren't starting to cool off too much just yet!