Salt flats, Atacama, flamingos, September 2018, canon, ©Sylvie Gé 

It all started with a false start, a cancelled flight, and an added  night spent in Auckland. This is the first time I go somewhere and I arrive before I leave. We actually left in the morning at ten thirty to reach Santiago de Chile around 8:30 am, then to Calama, our final destination around ten forty, ten minutes after leaving New Zealand (my body had no all the same impression as the clock)! Arriving in the morning rather than in the evening, as it was initially planned, before the pilot of our flight declared himself ill, we unfortunately lost a day and the mixture of jet lag and altitude had a strange  effect on me for twenty-four hours, but it was all worth it. San Pedro de Atacama is a very nice village. I immediately connected  with the Atacama desert, its unforgettable and unique landscape, the quality of its silence, its beautiful skies. The most magical moment occurred when we reached the top of a mountain to watch the sunset (which I thought was good, but not unforgettable), about to return home,  when the (full) moon rose on the other side, immense, full, in a sky of magical sweetness. I  would have stayed longer. Next stop is Santiago, Valparaiso and Vina del Mar. I particularly look forward to visiting Valparaiso, of which Pablo Neruda said : 

Vina del Mar.   J’ai particulièrement hâte de voir la ville dont  Pablo Neruda disait : 

Valparaiso,

What nonsense

You are

What a crazy

insane Port

Your mounded head

dishevelled

You never finish combing your hair….

My crazy hair will have company

Poetically yours