Into Chile

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

We spent quite a long time waiting in our bus at immigration, but then went through smoothly and drove to San Pedro de Atacama, a village on the edge of the Atacma desert - the driest place in the world! We had some lunch with Stu and Mark and then found ourselves a hotel. The prices were a bit high after Bolivia, but we were expecting it.

Yesterday we had a look around some nice artisan shops, and I got a cool copper necklace. We also went to the museum. Because the desert is so dry, it preserves everything really well, so there were some gross skeletons to look at, with bits of skin and hair still attached. It was really disgusting.

Last night we had a very exciting time looking through a Frenchman's large telescopes. The Atacama is one of the best places in the world for looking at the night sky, so this Frenchman has set up a good business letting tourists use his telescopes. We looked at the moon, and were able to take a photo through the telescope. He explained lots of things to us and we looked at some other stars and nebulae. The coolest thing was looking at Saturn. It was as though someone had stuck one of those glow-in-the-dark stickers onto the end of the telescope. It was unbelievable.

We caught a bus today to Antofagasta, which is a bit of a dump, but has a decent internet connection. We've got a 12 hour bus journey tomorrow to La Serena, where we'll be on the coast again.