reason that flamingos are pink!! We also learned that the high salt levels in the water make them quite caustic, and this is the reason that flamingos stand on one leg. We stayed to watch the sunset - which was absolutely spectacular!!

A final hour’s drive in our longest day of the tour brought us to San Pedro de Atacama, a very touristy town on the edge of the Salt Flats, flanked by a massive perfect cone volcano, and only around fifty kilometers from the Bolivian border. We settled ourselves into a small hostel on the edge of town run by some local people and then went out for a sumptuous meal before retiring back to the camp fire for a night of merriment until the wee hours!! It was very cold at night here, a real contrast to the searing heat of the day - these huge variations in temperature are pretty typical of the high altitude climate in these parts - something we were to discover more and

more in the coming weeks!!

Thankfully after our late night the next day’s activities didn’t start until 4pm. The day kind of started at lunchtime and moved at a very chilled pace for the next four hours, and then we were off in the Pachamama bus for one last outing!! First stop was the salt mountains, literally a range of mountains made entirely from salt. We climbed up through a salt cave, with a couple of slightly hairy sections, up to the top of a ridge. Here we learned from Jorge that the ancient people here thought that the Earth-Mother was talking to them, and we went to visit the reason why, The hot desert sun beats down on these mountains all day long, and they literally creak, crack and groan as the salt expands and contracts. Given that the ancient people in these parts were very fond of hallucinogenic plants, it was easy to see how they thought that