Diaries from the Desert
Monday -
Rain fell upon my shiny bald head.
I was used to it.
My bald head that is.
The rain was unusual.
I had been living in the Atacama Desert for almost thirty nine months.
It doesn’t rain much in the Atacama desert. It rained not once between 1570 and 1971 and it has not rained since I have been here.
It is not a lively place. In fact there isn’t a great deal of life in general.
In 2003, a team of researchers published a report in Science magazine entitled “Mars-like Soils in the Atacama Desert, Chile, and the Dry Limit of Microbial Life” (a truly riveting read) in which they duplicated the tests used by the Viking 1 and Viking 2 Mars Landers to detect life, and were unable to detect any signs in Atacama Desert soil.
So either (1) their instruments were rubbish or (2) there really wasn’t a great deal going on.
Wed – sorry I forgot to write anything yesterday. I woke up. I ate toast with cornflakes on it just to try to liven things up a bit. I made footsteps outside my camp that looked like those old ‘how to dance the foxtrot help cards my parents had’. I ate more rice than I should have and drank almost all my whisky ration for the week. Tomorrow I’m going to do something more exciting. I’ll let you know when I think of it. Maybe I should try to get the old radio working and try some random CB radio talk.
Jake – Diaries from the Desert
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