The independent notebook

Some travel to discover, some to escape. To lose yourself and that insatiable need to check tweets and Facebook status updates, you really have to come to a place like this. Here none of those things matter. They simply drift off into the blue of the sky, and what a hypnotising blue it is. As the Hand of the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile reached to the heavens I caught a glimpse of what awaited me on this journey.

Isolation. Inspiration. An otherworldly experience where I could gain perspective and direction. Like a much loved American road movie, all I needed was this old Subaru that had seen better days, my camera, a notebook and an endless stretch of road, accompanied by an indelible soundtrack. I spent the coldest nights I've ever experienced sleeping in that old Subaru, but with a sea of stars above me followed by warming, golden sunrises I soon forgot about the encroaching cold.

Driving north on the Pan American Highway with memory imprinting songs playing through a crackling dashboard speaker, the relentless miles of dessert roads transition into a severe and unforgiving landscape. In spite of their harsh severity, these vast desert landscapes give up their secrets easily. I'm rewarded with staggering views where all sense of scale is abandoned to wonder. Mundane and insignificance thoughts dwindle away with every passing mile through the rear view mirror.

This place snapped me back from my worries, like creation itself had hit me with a Rocky Balboa-esque one-two punch of sunlit, abstract beauty followed by mountainous silhouettes defined by moonlit night skies.

Miles of black tarmac ribbon guided me through this razor sharp landscape until I finally arrived in the breathtaking 'Valle De Luna'. Travelling independently enables you to experience these wild and inspiring places just as you imagined you would; alone with your thoughts, watching the shadows and light dance over the valley surface.

Once in a while you have to succumb to the fact that, like you, tour buses come to these places. Sharing these views can diminish the experience from being otherworldly to grounded and full of chatter. However, unlike my adventures theirs were defined by schedule, so as I sat back and watched their tail lights fade into the distance I was once again treated to my very own spectacular view of this aptly named Lunar landscape. The cold, dark night sky encompassed the daylight and once again the Valle De Luna was softly illuminated by it's own namesake.