Atacama Desert, Chile

Thirsty much? Welcome to the driest non-polar region on Earth, the Atacama Desert! This arid hotbox definitely lived up to its name.

We stayed in the small dusty desert town of San Pedro in a Burning Man-esk hostel straight out of Mad Max. Despite it being a desert, for some reason we decided to hire bikes and pedal our way to Valley de la Luna (valley of the moon) in the mid-afternoon heat. During this 35km/six hour suicide mission, we ran out of water and didn't get back into town until nightfall. Nevertheless, the desertscape was surreal and it actually looked like we were on Mars. We also spent an evening stargazing, learning about the constellations and viewing various nebula through high powered telescopes. Last but not least, we met a 19 year old English chap named Guthrie Ruby who casually implied that his guacamole is unrivalled. Naturally Whitney took this as a challenge and a heated guac-off ensued with me being the judge... poor me. Astoundingly, Whitney was convincingly trounced (she concurred with the judge's careful deliberation) and we learned Guthrie's tricks of the trade. Look out San Diego, delicious guac is coming for you!Read more