Northern Chile - San Pedro de Atacama

After a few weeks in the southern part of Chile, we travelled up the country (with a detour over to Mendoza for the wine, of course), passing Mario Irarrazabal’s Mano del Desierto, a giant hand in the middle of nowhere. We were heading for San Pedro de Atacama, situated within the Atacama Desert, the driest place on earth.

San Pedro is a very chilled out, quite hippy-ish sort of place. We stayed in one of the typical single storey adobe buildings, converted to a hostel with rooms around a central courtyard, featuring a hammock so you could take in the night skies. If you get a clear night I would recommend one of the stargazing tours or even visit the observatory.

For such a small place there’s a lot to do! We saw the salt 'flats', most of which weren't that flat, we went to see volcanoes and lagoons at an altitude of over 4,000 metres, plus a visit to a local village for a meal involving purple potatoes. The Valley of the Moon and the Valley of Death showcase some spectacular lunar-like landscapes and, when we visited, the ground looked like it was covered in snow but it's a mixture of salt and other minerals. If you're quiet in certain places you can actually HEAR it, as the salt dries out.