Hong Kong magic man

 Every day in San Pedro de Atacama is warm and sunny.  Every night is just bloody freezing.  But the place is great, a quaint little tourist town with a real laid back atmosphere.  So I´ll be hanging out here for the week until I catch a bus (for 24hrs) down to Santiago to meet Michael.

As well as soaking up the sunshine there is a lot to do here, I went out to the observatory to freeze my arse off for an hour so I could look at Saturn in through a telescope 7 feet long.  I hired a bike and rode through 4 creeks to visit some ruins.  By ride through 4 creeks I mean, tried riding, got stuck halfway through the first one and had soaking socks and shoes for the rest of the day.


Yesterday was the best though.  I did a sandboarding tour in Death Valley.  The sand dunes weren´t as big as the ones in Huacachina, but thank god for that because we actually had to walk up this one!  It was also real sandboarding - standing on the board, not going down on my belly.  I did ok for someone so naturally uncoordinated.  The first time down I pretty much went about 2 metres and rolled the rest of the way.  But I got better.  I did.

After the sandboarding we went out to the Valley of the Moon where we climbed a big hill to have a sneaky Pisco Sour and watch the sunset which was pretty cool.  Then in the dark we climbed back down and the guides took us through this really cool cave and then we sat and watched the stars for a bit.  The night sky in this part of the world is quite sensational.

There have also been some other random entertainments here as well.  Last night wandering through the streets we spotted two people dressed in yellow jackets racing up and down the street.  I was like, WTF, then realised they had cameras following them and they had The Amazing Race envelopes.  So they ran up and down the street a few times, then came to a door that had a sign saying that the place was closed til 10 the next morning.  They pulled the appropriate downcast faces and we laughed because it was the only place in the whole town that was closed.

The coolest thing was the other night though.  The Hong Kong magic man in the hostel.  This random guy from Hong Kong did an impromptu magic show that he´s been doing everywhere he goes.  He was pulling scarves out of empty bags, lots of cup and ball tricks and cracking jokes in English, Spanish and Cantonese.  And I was all like, this is cool, but I see you slipping those balls under the cups, I´ve got your number.  That was until he started dropping avocados out of the cups and I was like how the hell did he do that.  Kick arse Hong Kong magic man.