San Pedro de Atacama, Chile
/(April 30th - May 3rd, 2016)
The flight into San Pedro made it clear that the next three days would be full of more breathtaking landscapes. The views on the drive from the airport to our hotel consisted mainly of barren landscapes dotted with the occasional wind farm. We'd later find out that this desert had a lot more to offer. After grabbing a delightful lunch in the main town accompanied by some live music, we headed back to our hotel to get ready for our sunset tour. On our way to our room, we ran into one of the two resident peacocks that live on hotel grounds. We were completely surprised and proceeded to take some photos of the beautiful bird.
For our first evening in San Pedro, we took a tour of Valle de Marte (Mars Valley or better known as Death Valley) before taking in the sunset in Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley). We started off by visiting Death Valley where there was almost no life to be found. It felt like we were on the set of The Martian, but without Matt Damon. The landscapes were harsh and intimidating, but in a beautiful way. We could see the Cordilheira del Sal (Salt Mountain Range), Vulcan Lincancabur, and the absence of any plant or animal life. Coming from the PNW, it was crazy to look around and not see a single tree for miles and miles in any direction.
We then made our way to Cânion das Cuervas de Sal (or Salt Curves Canyon) where we climbed and crawled around to look at the different rock and salt formations. We had to crawl through some pretty tight areas, but got some great photos throughout the process. We then continued onto Moon Valley where the whole area looked like it had been covered in a fresh coat of snow, but it was actually gypsum formations.
The tour concluded with a climb up one of the large dunes to watch the sun set over the valley and the Salt Mountain Range. It was such a calming experience to watch the volcanos change colors as the sun went down. This will go down as one of our favorite sunsets from throughout our travels.
Our second day in San Pedro began with a trip to Salar de Atacama (the Atacama salt flats). Before arriving at the salt flats we stopped at the small village of Tocano and drove past the Jerez valley, which was a stunning, green contrast to the vast desert landscape we were used to by now. When we arrived, the salt flat was unlike anything I had ever seen before. For miles it just looked like white dusted barnacle rocks covering the ground. It’s crazy to think how something like that came into existence. Walking further into the salt flats, we started to see groups of flamingos gathered in the ponds. Contrary to what I had previously thought, not all flamingos are pink. Our tour guide told us that there were four species of flamingos that lived in the area and none of them were the bright pink flamingos I was expecting.
We then continued driving through the valley, where again the landscape began to change. We started to see more plant life as we climbed in elevation on our way to the Miñique and Miscanti Altiplanic Lagoons. When we finally got out of the car, we had driven to over 14,000 ft above sea level and I could definitely feel the difference in the air. We walked to the Miñique lagoon and I couldn’t believe the view. It was so vibrant and colorful compared to the orange desert we came from! Even though Chile looked nothing like New Zealand, the amazing, unique, and uninhibited landscape reminded us so much of our trip there a few years back. We walked along the trail to the Miscanti Lagoon and took some more photos before taking off.
Before heading back to our hotel we stopped in Socaire Village to admire a small church and have a delicious traditional Chilean lunch. When we got back to our hotel we relaxed for a bit before heading into town for some exploring and dinner. We found a gelato place called Babalu Heladeria (the number one rated restaurant in all of San Pedro on Trip Advisor) that had some interesting flavors like quinoa and rica-rica.
The next morning, dressed in every single layer possible, we headed out to the Tatio Geyser before sunrise. It was -6 degrees Celsius outside so we were happy to be inside a heated van and quickly fell back asleep during the drive to the geysers. The Tatio Geyser is also located 14,000+ ft above sea level in the Andes Mountains and is most active early in the morning. When we finally got up the courage to brave the cold, we walked around observing large steam clouds shooting up from the ground and heard water boiling beneath the surface. Even though we couldn’t feel our hands, feet, or faces, the views were stunning as the sun came up. The tour included breakfast outside with the geysers in the background, but Allen and I took the food and hid in the van to avoid the cold.
With how much our jaws were chattering and our hands were shaking, you would have never expected us to be in swimsuits 30 minutes later, but when challenged by our guide, we decided to live it up and take a morning swim in a thermal pool. We were told the pool was “hot”, but much to our disappointment it was lukewarm at best. Considering the temperature outside the pool was still around -6 degrees, we decided lukewarm was just fine :) After getting a couple photos to prove that we did it (and how crazy we are), we ran back into the changing area and redressed as quickly as possible. We snapped a few more photos and then began our trek back. We stopped at various points along the way to capture the views and photograph birds gathered around any body of water. We got some of our best photos of flamingos on one of these stops and Allen announced that bird watching/photography might become a new hobby for him in retirement. Our last stop on the tour was in a tiny town alongside the road where we tried llama kebabs and goat cheese empanadas. Both were fantastic!
After a long drive back to our hotel, we decided to take a much needed nap by the pool. We spent the rest of the evening preparing for our journey to Peru and going through the amazing photos we just took in the beautiful Chilean desert.
