This slideshow contains highlights from San Pedro de Atacama, a village on the rather fictitious and distant shores of the salt lake in the Atacama desert. Founded on an oasis, the village offers a little bit of humidity and some great restaurants in an otherwise empty and extremely dry desert.
It serves as a base for tourists venturing to nearby desert “sights”, salt lakes and the Andes.
Oh its hard to say “Hoolima Kittiluca Cheecheechee”,
but in Tonga that means “no”.
If i ever have the money
‘Tis to Tonga i shall go.
For each lovely Tongan mainden there,
will gladly make a date,
And by the time she’s said “Hoolima Kittiluca Cheecheechee”,
It is usually too late!
(by Michael Flanders and Donald Swann)
This slideshow contains highlights of our trip to the north of Chile between the 14th and 17th August. Starting in Santiago, we travelled via La Serena to Parque Nacional Pan de Azucar and then on to Paranal, where we enjoyed a night at the telescopes where Rachel works.
We continued north and east, taking the Road to Escondida (of Eric Clapton fame) through the Atacama desert, past deserted (sorry) “ghost” nitrate towns and the largest open cast coppermine of the same name, to San Pedro de Atacama, at the edge of the largest salt lake in Chile (the Salar de Atacama).
