The Atacama Desert
On Saturday we went straight from the port to Santiago airport where we spent a rather unexciting few hours before our flight up to Calama, where we hired a car. We had a night in a hotel there and then set off for San Pedro de Atacama, stopping to take in the landscape on the way.
We had a wander round San Pedro, a real tourist village full of travel agents offering excursions, gift shops, bars and restaurants as well as thousands of backpackers. It was pleasant enough and we found a lovely restaurant which we returned to the next day. Most of the restaurants looked a bit dodgy if one was concerned about after effects!
View from the roof of our hotel, a view towards Volcano Licancabur from the main square, the church outside and in, and the most decent looking restaurant we could find!
Unfortunately we were both coming down with a nasty fluey colds, so it rather slowed us down as we kept having to return to the hotel to rest and we had two very bad nights. We soldiered on however, and were up at 4.30 to get to the geysers at Taito 98 kilometres away on a dirt road in time for dawn. This had to be the highlight of the Atacama. You have to be there so early while everything is still covered in frost so you can see them to full effect. It was minus 3 and bitterly cold. Of course the world and his neighbour were also there, but even that didn’t spoil it. We have some amazing video clips of them, but here are some photos.
And by complete coincidence one which is very similar to a photo in The Times Weather Eye of the day after we were there, showing the shadow of the earth projected into the atmosphere at sunrise.
On the way back we were able to see the landscape we had driven through in the dark.
After a second breakfast and a rest we set off for Lake Chaxa in the Salar de Atacama. We saw lots of flamingos and had a walk through the salt flats. The light in the Atacama is perhaps it best feature. Everything is so clear and the air so pure. It is also very high (as in Peru we suffered from altitude sickness, which combined with the colds made us quite miserable and grumpy).
On the way back we stopped in Toconao, a village of indigenous people who continue with their ancient customs and are actively involved in conservation. Its eighteenth century bell tower.
That was all we were up for doing that day, but on our last day on the way back to Calama we stopped in the Valley de la Luna. We went into the Salt Cavern until it became a cave.
We drove on further up the valley, very lunar, as one might expect from its name!
After that we headed straight for our Calama hotel, were fortunate to get into our room ahead of check in time, and spent the rest of the day in bed feeling sorry for ourselves.
In spite of all we enjoyed the Atacama, though wouldn’t rate it as a ‘must see’ after other places we have seen on this trip. It is the world’s driest desert apparently (we had rain one afternoon). Matthew said his lasting memory of it will be the hundreds of wild dogs roaming the streets, but I expect that will fade. The sight of the geysers, which we haven’t seen anywhere else, was really spectacular, as was the backdrop of the Andes, which we had rather hoped for on our Argentinian road trip and didn’t get much of. It was unfortunate too that we had picked up this dreadful cold and were swallowing Panadol at every turn.
We are now back in Santiago, still suffering and taking to bed in between times. We keep thinking tomorrow will be better, but it hasn’t been yet, so fingers crossed for tomorrow!
