Since leaving Bolivia 2 & 1/2 weeks ago we have been in northern Chile , in the Atacama desert. Many places in this desert including the town of Arica , where we are at present ,never see rain.

Our first stop after Bolivia was in San Pedro de Atacama , a small laid-back town with small adobe houses , population less than 5000 & almost as many gringos as locals. There were more English people here than anywhere else we have been so far in South America. We needed somewhere to relax after our cold sleepness nights on our Bolivian tour & this was just the place !

It is a real tourist mecca with excursions available to all the attractions in the area. However we felt we had experienced sufficient geysers , thermal baths , salt-lakes , flamingoes ,etc , that we only opted to go on 1 tour. That was to the Valley of the Moon , where the elements have shaped the desert into a lunar landscape. It was beautiful , with multi-coloured sand-shapes , very different to anything we had seen before. The tour left at 3pm & culminated in a long walk up a huge sand-dune. The reward was wn amazing sunset which turned the whole area red. A worthwhile trip. San Pedro also had some excellent restaurants so we ate & drank well & got sufficiently "piscoed" ! Pisco is a potent grape brandy - the national drink of Chile , which is generally drunk as a pisco sour , a mixture of pisco , lemon or lime juice , sugar & egg white. Really good ! Please tell me it is available in Tescos !

We then travelled to Calama. What a dump ! Our reason for stopping there was to visit Chuquicamata , the site of the world's largest open-pit copper mine & the largest single supplier of copper in the world. It produces over 40% of Chile's total copper , nearly 1 million tons of it are extracted annually , & copper accounts for 40% of Chile's exports.

Our guide-book said that we needed to be at the mine for 9am to do the bus-tour of the area. So skipping breakfast , we took a taxi there for 8.30am only to find that tours now begin at 2pm! Chuquicamata is now a ghost-town , mostof its inhabitants having been relocated to Calama due to environmental concerns. So there was little for us to do for 5 hours. However it was worth the wait. The pit is massive! 4.3km long, 3km wide & 850m deep. They plan to excavate toa total depth of 1100m which will take another 8 years. Then only Ben Nevis in the UK won't fit into it ! There are over 150 massive diesel dumper trucks that carry the ore around the complex on tyres over 3m high which cost 7000 pounds each.

Next stop Iquique , a fishing port on the Pacific coast. Not very special. We were there for my birthday & on that day we went to visit another eerie ghost-town , Humberstone. This was a nitrate-mining town. Once wealthy & flourishing , it employed 4000 workers inthe 1940's but was forced toclose in 1960 after the collapse of the the nitrate industry due to the introduction of synthetic nitrates. Almost all the buildings are still standing , including the theatre , church , swimming-pool , shops ,etc , as well as the steam-driven cast-iron machinery , much of which has "made in Halifax , England " stamped on it !

We stopped at an archaeological site where there are over 300 geoglyphs on the hillside. We have seen geoglyphs all over this area. They are made by placing dark stones over light-coloured soil to make pictures of llamas , human figures , condors , geometric shapes. They are thought to date from as far back as 500AD & remain intact because of the lack of rain & erosion.

We also visited a religious place of pilgrimage called Golgotha Rediscovered. It is a strange place , given it's location in the middle of nowhere. It would seem that a lot of money has been put into setting it up , yet it is free to enter. There are 7 or 8 different shrines around the complex, each of which has a lady who holds open a curtain to allow you to enter. You wonder what you are entering. Inside each grotto there is a very profound religious scene of the Crucifixion , Christ's body in the tomb etc. Soft music is being played. We found it a little odd.

We are now in Arica , Chile's most northernly town . Very pleasant. We spent yesterday on the beach. The cathedral here was built by Eiffel , he of the tower fame. It is made of cast iron & was manufactured in Paris then shipped out in sections & assembled here in 1875. Eiffel also built the old custom-house here as well as several other buildings in South America. These buildings in Arica were ordered by the Peruvian government at the time as Arica was part of Peru until the War of the Pacific in the late 19th century. We climbed to the top of El Morro , the hill which dominates the town here. It serves as a monument to that same war & there is a museum opened by Pinochet in 1980 to commemorate the Chilean victories over both Peru & Bolivia.

On Friday/ Saturday we did a 2-day tour from here which took us into Lauca National Park on the border of Chile & Bolivia. It was a lovely trip. Most of the park is at an altitude of over 4000m . We visited small Aymaran farming villages. The Aymara are the indigenous of this area who speak their own language & still farm their llamas & alpacas in the highlands & cultivate terraces on the hills for growing potatoes & quinoa (Andean grain ).

We visited an interesting Hare-Krishna commune in the middle of nowhere where we had a wonderful meal & a tour of their adobe buildings , including their temple. The only time we have come across Hare-Krishna outside of London !

We visited an interesting museum which had several mummies in it. We had also seen similar in museums in San Pedro & Iquique. These mummies are older than the Egyptian mummies & are so well preserved because of the lack of moisture.

We spent the night in Putre , another Aymaran village & the next day travelled to Lake Chungara (over 4500m ) with spectacular views of Volcano Parinacota & Volcano Pomerape behind. We walked for several hours spotting much wild-life , such as guanacos , vicuñas , llamas , alpacas , condors , rheas , flamingoes , vizcachas , etc . Unfortunately the altitude had taken its toll on Ady & he stayed with the driver . It was an excellent trip. Just a shame that Ady was unable to fully appreciate the second day. On the way back we stopped & bathed in thermal mudbaths. Meant to make us look 20 years younger ! See what you think !

Tomorrow we leave for La Paz ..... maybe. We have bought our bus tickets but there are road-blocks due to Bolivian unrest so we will have to see what happens !