San Pedro de Atacama - Chile

Sorry It's been a while, I'm having too much fun!!!

We arrived in this wonderful place on Monday. We travelled from Tilcara, Argentina, through the Andes mountain ranges, close to Bolivia, to arrive in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. On the way we could see massive mountains and volcanos, most of them snow-capped. It was breath taking. At the ‘frontera’, or in English, border, of Argentina we had to get out of the bus. The temperature was around 8 degrees outside with a wind of about 50kmh. Very very cold!

We arrived in San Pedro de Atacama two hours later, and have been here since, but we will be leaving here tomorrow. We hired a car with some fellow backpackers and went to many different places in the desert, which I am told is the highest and driest in the world. It is surrounded by the Andes, volcanos and salt flats. Truly beautiful! 

We went to the National Reservation of the Flamingos first and saw a dozen flamingos wading in the ultra-saline water eating brine shrimp, which live in the water. How anything can live in the water amazes me. We then went to the salt lagoons, half way back to town. As I was driving, the road disappeared from in front of me. We were in the middle of a sand storm, something I have never experienced in my life. We stopped for a quick lunch at the lagoons and then went for a swim. Because the water is super salty it has the same effect on your body as swimming in the Dead Sea. You completely float. The temperature inside the lagoons was very cold, but it was worse getting out as the sand picked up from the storm whipped our exposed bodies. It felt like being sand blasted.

 We then travelled to Valle de los Muertos (the valley of the dead) on the other side of town, there we saw the true ferocity of the sandstorm. Sand was getting picked up and being blown kilometres away. We got out and walked around for about half an hour, taking some amazing photographs there were large crystals of salt everywhere, there is a massive sand dune where tour groups go to sand board down, it’s at least 10 meters high. We left there to go to La Valle de la Luna (the valley of the moon). It really does look like the moon. Wind, over millions of years has whipped away at the mountains, exposing them until some are only one or two meters tall. Sand surrounds them. We also went through salt caves, eroded by the same wind and water from glaciers in ice ages long ago. We tried to hurry to make it to see the sunset but unfortunately didn’t make it in time. The scenery and the view were still amazing.

The next day we were up at 4am to go to the El Taito Geyser fields, at the top of one of the Andean valleys. Here, early in the morning, the geysers are activated by the change of temperature and the sun. It was surreal to see steam and water coming out of the ground at huge volumes. Very eerie! We had a breakfast of eggs cooked in the hot water of the geysers, but it didn’t quite warm us up as it was minus 4 degrees below zero. However we were given the opportunity to go and swim in a natural hot spring. We took up the challenge and stripped off in the middle of the Andes, surrounded by snow-capped mountains, and hopped into the luke warm water. It was freezing! We had to move into a position where there was hot water as there are patches coming out of the volcanic sands. It was a strange experience. When done we had to dash out and get dressed, still half wet, into our thermals, and back to the bus. It was fun, exhilarating, but absolutely freezing! We then drove along the roads over ancient lake beds and glacier fields and saw the Bolivian side of the Andes from our bus. We could also see Vicunas, a wild cousin of the llama, and Andean geese. We also saw Eurasian Coots, twice the size of the ones back home in Australia. The river they were on was frozen over, something which I have never seen in my life, it was cool. Like a little boy I couldn’t help myself and threw a rock towards the water, only to watch it skid across the river without falling in.

We then went into a very small village where the population at this time of year is 40. Later on when winter comes only 4 or 5 people stay in the village for about 4 months. It is very isolated and I don’t think it would exist without tourism. We ate Llama kebabs and Llama empanadas, and we also tried a Queso de Cabra empanada (goat’s cheese! Yum!)  We then headed down the valley further to San Pedro De Atacama and saw massive canyons formed by ancient rivers. In them we saw cactus at least 12 meters tall. Also growing was a native plant known as wild lavender. We got back to the hostel at about midday and had a nap!

Later that night, at 11pm, we went on an astronomical observation tour in the desert. It was run by a French man and his Chilean wife. They had twelve telescopes, and they had them all trained on different bodies in space. My favourite one of them was called The Jewel Box, made up of 3 stars in a straight line, one red, one blue, and one yellow. I had a huge smile. We saw Saturn and its rings and even a storm on it. We saw Mars glowing bright and red, we saw a cluster of stars called ‘the butterfly’, as it was shaped like a butterfly. We saw red giants and nebulas. It was out of this world. It was also freezing, and topped off by a hot chocolate to warm our bellies before the trip home.

I’m going to miss San Pedro de Atacama very much. It’s been a wonderful experience, one that I’ll never forget, as I never thought that I would ever be here, especially the Andes, something you only see on TV. Magic. 

James.

The Argentinian Frontera control, somewhere high up in the Andes between Argentina,
Bolivia and Chile.

One of many beautiful Flamingo's in the reserve.

Me driving! It may look easy but it is very hard to drive on the right hand side of the road.
Changing gear becomes a little easier. Still, I hit the gutter many times!

1 kg of Queso de Cabra, goat's cheese. The flavour is tangy and it's thickness is
between cheddar and feta. It also smells, funnily enough, of goats. No, I'm not making that up. It really does.

Brenna in front of one of the giant salt lagoons. The sky behind her has been obscured
by the sand storm.

 La Valle de la Muertos. If you got lost here you would  no doubt die,
and give real meaning to the name!

Dancing sand! This dune is 100 mts high. I tried to climb it but had
to turn back as I was getting pounded by the sand and wind.

Me and Lun, a fellow traveller who we hired the car with. Here
we are in the caves of salt in La Valle de la Luna. Some caves are 50 mts long and 20 mts
high.

The view of the Valle de la Luna after sun set. You can see the sand storm coming
to an end and falling back to the ground.

The geyser field in the Andes. The large amount of steam is from one of
the bigger geysers. 

Brenna in front of a small but cool geyser. It spurts 88 degree water- boiling point at these altitudes,
2 mts into the air. It spurts every two minutes. Very fascinating to be able to watch!

The same geyser two minutes later. The sun was just about to rise. What a view!

Brenna, me, and the Milky way. Notice the small galaxy in the top left of the photo.
Pretty cool.

A view of Licancabur volcano, complete with another sand storm. This was taken
100 mts from our hostel.