Further evidence that we can always get bad weather when it matters.

The Lonely Planet describes the Atacama desert as the driest in the world.  Days were reaching well into the 30s so we booked what sounded like a nice relaxing tour.  A trip into the desert and to a couple of desert lakes.  The first is a salt lake in which you can float in much the same way as at the Dead Sea, the second was a fresh water lake to help you wash off all that salt.  Finally the tour ended at the Salar de Atacama (salt plain) where sipping on a pisco sour you would watch the sun set behind the mountains.  Sounds like bliss.  Around 1pm that afternoon we started to notice some clouds.  That’s strange we thought, having not seen any clouds previously here.  We were however unperturbed as it’s a very dry desert and it never rains here. By 2:30pm (with the tour leaving at 3) we felt the first drops of rain.  We headed to the tour office where the travel agent denied that it could be raining here, as it just doesn’t.  Then she came outside… but she assured us we were going out into the middle of the desert so it should be fine.  The storm clouds continued to build however and the temperature drop and the rain followed us to the first lake.  We debated getting in anyway but the water was cold and we were already feeling chilled despite wearing jumpers!!  We watched those crazy enough to risk pneumonia float sitting up and watched the storm get closer.  We ended the tour at the salt plains (basically a huge area with 15cm deep of salt) and took a few photos before the rain caught up.  We then huddled beside the van drinking our pisco sours and mango sours pretending we could see the sun setting behind the clouds.  Although we had a few drops of rain the heavens didn’t actually open until they hit the mountains where the lightening lit up the sky far and wide.  But we still feel that our reputation for being able to bring the rain when you want it least is safe for now.