After our week in Southern Patagonia, we flew almost all the way to the TOP of Chile to spend some time in the Atacama Desert. Atacama is the dryest desert in the world. NASA used to do experiments there to simulate a Mars-like environment. Some children grow up in parts of the region without ever seeing rain. Atacama is on a plateau and is thus at a high elevation, and it's vast. It spans approximately the northernmost 600 miles of Chile.
San Pedro de Atacama was our first destination. We spent four full days there. Getting there from Punta Arenas (way down at the southern tip of Chile) was a long process and involved three different modes of transportation and multiple stops along the way. We have been using Sky Airlines throughout the duration of our travel in Chile and continued that trend here. However, that meant we had to take three different flights on two separate days. On the first day we took one flight to get back to Puerto Montt. We had to make one stop along the way (but didn't have to change plans). The next day we had to take another flight to get to Santiago (with TWO stops along the way), and a third flight to get to the Calama airport, which is near San Pedro (that flight had one stop along the way). As you can see, the in-flight portion of the trip was kind of a "milk run," as our travel guide says! Once we reached the Calama airport, we still had to travel by taxi over an hour to get to San Pedro.
The effort was definitely worth it. San Pedro was the most charming place we've visited! San Pedro is a town (rather than a city), composed almost solely of adobe-style buildings with thatched roofs and a mixture of brick and dirt roads (see photos below). It is incredibly touristy (there are literally dozens of tour companies, handicrafts stores, and restaurants in this small geographical area), but still manages to feel mostly authentic. It is surrounded by breathtaking scenery that affords a wealth of possibilities for activities. The Andes Mountains and a number of active, snow-capped volcanoes form a semi-circle around the town. Looking at the nearby surroundings, in general we could see brilliant blue skies and rich red hues.
San Pedro is at 8,000 feet, an altitude which Nikki thought might be a problem there. However, we both had no problem with the altitude. Nikki had a headache our first evening but didn't feel any effects the next day or for the rest of our stay. (Of course Greg wasn't affected by the altitude, as he is a superior human being :P) [Even when we visited the Tatio Geysers at about 14,000 feet (see below), we had no issues. Go figure! However, see our next entry on Putre to find out how we did spending multiple days between 11,500 and about 15,000 feet - not well!]
On our first full day in San Pedro, we got up early to rent bikes and ride to Tulor, a town from 800 B.C. that was recently excavated. We took a moderate bike ride to get there and back, cycling through a nearby oasis village. On the first day we also did some shopping for artesanias (handicrafts) in the many shops and art galleries San Pedro has to offer.
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| Tulor |
The following day, we rented bikes again and headed to Pukara de Quitor, a fort built by the Atacamans around 900 A.D. for protection against invaders. It was impossible to show the total size of the massive fort with our camera, but we included some photos below. It's built on a hillside, and we were allowed to walk through it to the top and explore! We don't think this would ever be allowed in the U.S.
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Pukara de Quitor: view from the top
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| Pukara de Quitor: Greg holding down the fort! |
On this second day we also took a guided tour of the Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) and surrounding areas and Death Valley. The Valley of the Moon has an other-world landscape. Nikki pretended she was actually on the moon! Death Valley is the driest place in Atacama, the driest desert in the world. We think that makes it the driest place in the world! It also appeared to be the windiest. We couldn't get a good photo there because of the lighting, but the place itself is not as interesting as the Valley of the Moon, mostly one can note the complete absence of any plants or life other than tourists.
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| Valle de la Luna |
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| Valle de la Luna |
On our third full day in San Pedro, we took another guided tour. This time we went to Laguna Cejar and Tebenquinche, two salt "lakes" about 30-60 minutes outside of town. Getting there was rough because we were driven over some pretty bumpy roads! However, it was worth it for the experience of floating in Laguna Cejar. We were told that these lakes have a higher concentration of salt than the Dead Sea. If you walk into Laguna Cejar, once you get neck-deep your legs and body immediately rise to the surface! It is impossible to sink because the large amount of salt greatly increases the density of the water. We had to wash with fresh water afterwards because we had dry salt all over our bodies. The lakes are on a large expanse of land sitting on top of a water table. The soil in the area, like the water, has a very high concentration of salt. Salt water lakes are formed when water flows into a lake, but not out. Instead, the water leaves through evaporation, leaving behind its minerals. We did see a few flamingos on this outing, we could not get very close because they are easily spooked.
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| floating effortlessly |
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| salt lake |
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| salt lake with tourists |
On our last full day, we took yet another tour to see El Tatio, a field of geysers in the Andes Mountains. It's one of the highest geyser fields in the world. We had to leave at 4:30am because the geysers are most active in the early morning, and it takes a long time to reach them because they're at about 14,000 feet. Our experience at the geysers demonstrates the lack of safety standards (or personal injury law?) in Chile. We were allowed to walk all over the grounds that contained multiple geysers, and some of the paths went directly over very small geysers. Most of the geysers had some rocks around them marking a zone that you should stay out of. The geysers were somewhat unpredictable and could start bubbling with scalding water or shooting steam unexpectedly. We had to be careful!
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| flamingo near the geysers |
On the last day Greg did sandboarding, which was a lot of fun! Sandboarding is relatively unpopular because there aren't chair lifts! You spend 10 minutes arduously hiking up a dune and catching your breath and then go down the dune in about 10 minutes. This is exactly the kind of thing Greg likes though, and there are few places more beautiful to catch your breath than Valle de la Luna.
That night we were scheduled to go star-gazing with a guided tour of large telescopes. San Pedro is perhaps the best place in the world for star-gazing because there is little humidity, clouds, and air to obscure your view. Unfortunately the star gazing was cancelled due to the growing clouds. It rained that night. San Pedro rains a little in the summer (and sometimes even snows!). Nikki didn't hear the rain that night while she was sleeping, and the next day didn't know it had rained. The landscape is so dry that there were few signs by morning except for a few puddles. On our second night in San Pedro we did get a chance to see the stars. On our walk back to our hostal, we saw a power line had fell down and was leaning on a truck! This knocked the power out for the section of town we were in. We inferred that power outages for one reason or another were not an entirely uncommon occurrence when our hostal keeper gave us one of many flashlights on hand. The rest of the walk and until we went to bed we enjoyed the beautiful, bright, clear night sky, undisturbed by any city light.
