San Pedro de Atacama the gateway to the driest desert in the world and at 2440 metres above sea level, pretty high as well. There really isn´t that much to do in San Pedro and there really is a limited amount of exploring of the desert that we really wanted to do, so we approached the numerous tour operators and settled on two tours. Day one we headed off at the reasonable hour of 7:00am to visit Él Sector Soncor´in the eastern section of the Salar de Atacama (Atacama salt lake) and were able to see the three different species of flamingoes - Chilean, Andean and James. We then went on the visit the town of Socaire and it´s church before heading out to Lagunas Miñiques and Miscanti (and some more flamingoes). I think that the draw card of these lagunes is that they are at 4100ms and there is very little else around except some mountains, quite a bit of snow and a few volcanoes. On the way back to San Pedro we visited the ´Hidden Oasis´, which is a naturally growing orchard of plums, pears, quinces and variety of other fruit, farmed by the local indigenous community (about 6 families) but not for sale to the general public. It was kind of impressive because it is so unexpected out in the middle of the desert, in such a high and dry area, to stumble across such a fertile valley. Our final stop was a tourist town, called Tocanoa where we had an ice cream and patted a Llama. Day two (and tour two) started at the incredibly unreasonable hour of 4:00am for the long drive to the El Tatio geysers. The first thing that hits you as you get our of the car is the incredible cold. I had on pretty much all of my clothing and still my hands were frozen and I lost the feeling in my legs. The second thing that hits you is the steam jets that are all around you and as you walk through the geysers you do start to feel warm for some time. From what I could understand the geysers are produced when the cold water hits the warmth of the rock and the jets of water and steam (or vapor) explode through the earth probably in the weaker surfaces. (I have no doubt that someone out there has more knowledge of this than me and could offer a much more scientific explanation but that will have to do for now ...). There is also a thermal bath there which we chose not the take advantage of at this time, mostly because it was early, it was way to cold to get changed in the open air and there were lots of people in a very small area of water and not very many toilets around! Instead we walked around and checked out some of the other geysers and pools where apparently people have died because they got to close and fell in or got disoriented in the steam and fell in (now there are rangers and stone fences to stop such things happening to poor unsuspecting tourists). On our way back from the geysers we stopped at a small village who farmed Llama´s and saw some incredibly cute llama´s and lots of baby llama´s, all with very cute and colourful ribbons in their hair which apparently denote ownership. There was one little boy here, with his baby llama who clearly did not like the tourists and kind of hissed (the boy not the llama) at people who came by and tried to pat the llama. The sad thing about this was the tourists who ignored the child´s discomfort and clear message and just kept talking very loudly to him in English; thankfully one of the guides intervened and he was left alone. I know it shouldn´t but it does constantly surprise me the amount of people who really need to learn some travel manners. So, having had two luxurious nights in a bed, it was time to get back on a bus and this time head to a beach town called Iquique. Time is moving so quickly for us now, it seems like the year is flying by. I hope all is going well for everyone at home (England and Australia) and work and weather aren´t treating you to harshly. Take care Tim and Tracey