this is a random start but i keept forgetting to write about it but i am actually going to get lung cancer here everyone smokes everywhere yuuuuck!

the observatory was amazing! i have never seen so many stars so clearly (or in such a cold place!!). looking through the telescopes we could see saturn, a bunch of stars and some nebulas it really was just  so beautiful!

Our last day in la serena i got up and went for a big run (i miss the gym!) and then we just had a bit aof a stroll around did some sshoppng and checked out the pretty buildings before we got on the bus around 4pm (for the next 17 hours). appartently this bus was way worse than the ones they had had in argentina but i act thought it was sweet, they fed us and played movies (in spanish....with spanish subtitles lo!) and i slept ok.

that bus took us right up north in shile into the atacama desert which is the driest place in the world. i have never been anywhere like this before there are barely any plants and just rock and sand everywhere! we are staying in a sleepy little oasis town which is about an hour from the bolivian border. its all made of dirt streets and sand brick buildings but its really cute and little i like it! its also really hot during the day which is a great change!

yesterday (after a nice wee lie in the sun) we went sandboarding up a ginormous dune (kinda like snowboarding...but you have to walk up the dune afterwards) and then to this place they called the valley of the moon to watch the sunset. its gorgeous there volacanoes in the background, crazy rock formations everywhere. i havent made this day sound half as cool as it was but im getting tired of typing about it sorry!

today i have been horse riding for four hours (my legs hurt!). I can act counf the number of times i have been on a horse on my hand and was told that would be ok but when they came to pick the group of us that were going up the guy just rode up with a bunch of horses and away we went! haha crickey everytime my horse got it into her head that we should go faster than a trot i had to hold on for dear life lol! but i really enjoyed it- and we went to visit the site of a ruin over 3000 years old it was very interesting! they were doing a bunch of excavation work on the ruin when we where there because it keeps getting covered in sand with the wind so unfortunately for them the excavation is one big long process!

ok i have had enough writing for right now - heading into bolivia and our 3 day 4x4 crossing to the salt flats!