For one of our last trips if our study abroad program, we decided to go to San Pedro de Atacama which is the town right next to the desert. We stayed in some cabins in the center of town right in the middle of all the restaurants. We had a pool in our cabin area, so we spent the first day hanging out by the pool, relaxing, and enjoying being away from all the craziness in Santiago. This desert is the driest place on Earth and is incredible for stargazing because there is absolutely no humidity which means no clouds or anything to block the stars. We walked about 15 minutes away from our Airbnb into the desert and found a great place to look at the stars. I took an astronomy class in high school and remembered some of the constellations we learned and saw them in the sky which was incredible. A couple of us even saw some shooting stars. The next day we ate breakfast at a really nice cafe and had a tour planned that afternoon to go to the Valley of the Moon. Online it said to bring some comfortable walking shoes, so we did but we ended up having to hike up a mountain for an hour and a half. It was a very advanced hike with a lot of areas that didn’t have defined paths and it was an extremely windy day. A couple people ended up slipping on the rocks and one man actually fell and broke his ankle and had to take an ambulance to the hospital. After our hike, we went to another place to watch the sunset which was beautiful but freezing cold. In the desert, once the sun goes down it gets as cold as normal winter temperatures in Charleston. On our ride back to the airport, we actually met a guy our age studying in Chile from North Carolina. He was the first person we had met from the U.S. and we met him on vacation. Our last vacation was incredible and a great way to all get together before we have exams and then go back to the United States.