Update from the Atacama Desert

By popular demand... we are finally writing an update! Sorry for the delay. We have been travelling in the north of Chile and have been out of internet and phone access for a good part of the trip.

We have amazing photos that are trapped in our camera with a camera cord in Rancagua, so there will be MUCH more to come when we get back in about a week.

The short version...

We started our journey from Rancagua, driving north with one of our cousins and her boyfriend. Our first stop was at the Valle del Encanto. Google this place! It is a beautiful park in the semi-desert with geoglyphs and pictographs from 2000 years ago of ALIENS and UFOs. Not even kidding. Picture exploring something the size of Point Pleasant (Nova Scotians) or Princess Island (Albertans) and encountering what seems like hundreds of little aliens and ufos carved into the rocks. Some from before Jesus´ time. We are officially convinced. WE ARE NOT ALONE!

Our next big stop was especially for Greg who badly wants to see a UFO. (If this ever actually happens, he will happily wave goodbye to his dear wife as she runs for her life and he waits to be beamed up.) We camped in the middle of nowhere in the semi-desert under some of the most beautiful stars I have ever seen, looking up the whole time because this particular spot has the most UFO sitings Chile. Did we see anything? We´d like to answer, but it is top secret.

Next, we stayed close to La Sarena and went to a tourist star observatory. The real observatories are booked at least a month in advance, so we opted for the less organized, less expensive version. Spectacular.

We continued North and stopped in Copiapo for a night to visit another cousin and then continued on to Pan de Azucar, a national park in the Atacama desert. Picture red, red mountains (what the Chileans consider hills) mostly rocks, with a few cactai, meeting a wild, wild ocean. Wilder than at Peggy´s Cove. We stood in the shore maybe ten meters from where the water was before a wave and then had to brace ourselves (I used a tae kwon doe stance) so that we would not get swept away as the waves crashed another four meters passed us. We camped there for four nights, exploring the park a little bit and relaxing by the water.

We are now on our way back and have parted ways with our travel companions. We are taking our time, coming back slowly, enjoying the sites we missed on the way up. Right now we are in Bahia Inglesa. It´s the closest thing to the Caribbean in Chile, avioding the freezing Humboldt current that keeps the rest of the beaches feeling like Queensland, no matter how hot the air is. We´re planning to stay here for a couple of more nights, hopefully going on a snorkelling adventure if my new cold gives me a break, before going back to La Sarena, where there is lots to explore.

We´ll try to keep in touch before we arrive in Rancagua, but if not, check back in about a week for some beautiful photos of our trip.

Thinking of you often and with lots of love,
Eli and Greg