Our plan was now to make our way to Laguna Verde going past a national park and some salt flats. I was having some good dreams that I didn't really want to leave so I stayed asleep and Dries went off to the Conaf offices, something to do with all the national parks in Chile, to find out about the conditions we might encounter and if we would have any problems with drinking water. When he returned a little while later the news wasn't good, our plans had been shot to pieced by a few small numbers, we were not in anyway prepared for it. For a start we would be hitch hiking there and the only traffic going to and from there are tourists and the holiday season is pretty much over now. Another reason is that it is the middle of the Atacama desert, during the day the sun is very hot, the temperature is far too hot to handle without any shade, and at night it gets below freezing to around -5/10ºC, far too cold for either of us, our sleeping bags can handle just below freezing but that's with suitable clothing, which we didn't have. The main reason for not being able to go is probably the fact that nowhere from the next town on all the way to Argentina has drinking water, we had about eight litres between us which could last about two days if used sparingly but we had no guarantee how long we would actually be out there for. We both reluctantly agreed that the only answer to this was no, we couldn't go no matter how much we both wanted to there was no way, it wasn't worth risking our lives for just the tranquillity and the view.