South America Part 10: Atacama Desert
8/1: Atacama Part 1
After yesterday’s late night, we took morning pretty relaxedly. After breakfast, I took clothes from all three of us to a laundromat while Abhijit filled gas. At around 11:30, we got on our way towards Rainbow Valley. Getting here involved somewhat of an adventure of a drive.
The first portion of this was a gorgeous, but smooth drive on the highway. After a while, we split off onto a smaller dirt road which was considerably bumpier. During this drive, we had to slow down as a guanaco (another relative of the llama, alpaca, and vicuña) crossed the road. Soon we reached our destination.
As we got out of the car, on one side, there were huge, tall, red rock formations. We spent some time climbing these and found some large, clear mica veins in the rock. Then, we went to check out the other direction, where Rainbow Valley was.
This was absolutely incredible. Green and red mountains were interspersed with black stone riverbeds and white crystal growth. The mountains were also often dotted with plants, but these almost seemed duller than the green rock itself. The red rock was filled with veins of mica, and we spent a while hunting out the clearest pieces we could find.
We explored the entire valley exploring whatever crevices we could find before coming back to the car. Our next stop was to a site called Yerbas Buenas which contains petroglyphs from thousands of years ago. We walked a premade path around stunning rock formations hunting for carved rock art as we went. We also spotted some tiny lizards hiding in the cacti along the way.
We headed back to our hostel for a brief breather, then headed out to watch the sunset from a viewpoint along the highway called Mirador Likan-Antay. After the sun finally set, we started driving back, but decided to make a quick detour down an interesting looking road. This ended up leading to a site called Pukara de Quitor, but we had come too late and it was closed.
After picking up laundry, we came back for one of our hostel’s social events: burgers! We sat around a firepit and met many of the other hostel guests while the chef prepared dinner. One of the hostel employees brought out a guitar, and this ended up turning into a 2 hour round of guitar karaoke filled with songs in a variety of languages (especially since we were the only ones from the US out of over 20 people).
8/2: Atacama Part 2
We started bright and early today and, after breakfast, headed straight out for the nearby Valle de la Luna, or Moon Valley. This site was named for the resemblance between its landscapes and those found on the moon. We stopped by the ticket office, and I went in to get tickets and a map. The person at the counter spoke to me in really fast Spanish, most of which I didn’t understand, and marked points of interest on the map. I returned to the car and we set off on the main road.
The first marked point was “Cari’s Broken”, something we assumed had been mistranslated, though we joked about its similarity to the phrase “Car is Broken”. We looked for the entrance to the road using a phone’s GPS and trying to match the shape of the road on the map to the shape on our phone. We found what seemed to be reasonably well traveled tire tracks and went on them.
These eventually lead to and a more official seeming road. We followed this for a while, but it seemed to stop before it was supposed to. We decided to follow what seemed to be tire tracks down some fairly sandy slopes. After some hairpin turns and dangerously large rocks, we found ourselves stuck in a patch of deep sand. Through manually clearing sand around the wheels and several pushes on the acceleration, we were able to get out, and we decided to the cursed “Car is Broken”. On our way out following the most official side road, we realized there was a pile of sand blocking the connection to the main road, which is why we hadn’t been able to get onto this initially. We went off-road for a bit and got back onto the main road.
As we continued forward, we ran into a tour driver and decided to ask him about which sites he’d recommend. Through this conversation, I realized there must have been a difference between the ‘X’s and ‘O’s marked on the map, with the ‘X’s corresponding to closed sites. Car is Broken was one of the ‘X’ sites. We decided to skip ahead to the next ‘O’ site, which was the Great Dune Path.
This path started by going along the side of a huge sand dune. As a result, walking through the deep sand of the path was difficult, and gusts of wind brought stinging sand whipping around my legs. After a bit, the path came up around the dune and continued along a rocky trail. Many of the rocks had similar veins of mica to what we had seen in Rainbow Valley. We followed this for around 20 minutes before reaching a beautiful viewpoint into the strange and arid landscapes of Moon Valley.
We turned back and followed an upwards branch of the path which ended at a point roughly where the path started but much higher up. This gave us the best view of the largest sand dune and of distant landmarks such as the natural rock Amphitheater. We eventually headed back to the fork point then down to the car.
We drove past the Amphitheater on our way to another well marked landscape, the Victoria Salt Mine. Here, we walked along a path through more strange and beautiful rocky landscapes. At many points, we came across large clear deposits in the rocks. We assumed these were mica, but they had a weird ridged shape and often were wider than the mica veins had been.
At the end of the trail, we came to what looked like a large circular clearing in the rock. We hadn’t yet found any salt or mining equipment, but we started to get suspicious of the large amount of the clear mineral present in this clearing. Abhijit and I decided to identify it using the most reliable sense: taste. It was salt! The ground in this whole area was filled with halite, or crystalized salt! While this was the third salt mine we had seen this trip (Maras in Cusco, Uyuni, this), it was geologically so different from the other two.
Next, we headed to a rock formation landmark called Tres Maries. This was somewhat cool looking, but it was less unique than the other two stops, so we left pretty soon. We headed out of moon valley and towards our next destination: Lagunas Escondidas de Baltinache.
Driving to these Lagunas involved spending around an hour on a rough dirt road which our hostel reception had warned us was extremely prone to puncturing tires. On the way, we passed a sign warning us that the area next to the road potentially still had active mines. We got through this stressful drive unharmed and arrived at the checkin for the Lagunas. This site is a collection of 7 small and salty lagoons present among a small salt flat, two of which you can actually swim in! We stopped by the changing rooms to get into our swim trunks, then started on the trail.
The lagoons you can swim in are the first and last of the 7. We had heard the further one was nicer, so we skipped the first lagoon and started off on the 20 minute walking trail. Along the way, we walked along a path of large salt crystals winding between many blue and green lagoons. These were extremely clear and were often just a few inches deep except for certain portions where the bottom would suddenly and narrowly drop off.
Finally we reached the last lagoon, and there were just a couple other people present. The water was extremely cold, so it took a few minutes for each of us to work our way in. Once I was completely in the water, I leaned back and just floated! Because of the water’s high salt concentration, we could easily float without effort. Even if I tried to just stand up straight in the deeper water, my shoulders and part of my chest would be comfortably above the surface.
We had arrived at a good time, as over the next hour, at least a dozen more people showed up and many more were walking down the trail towards this lagoon. We dried off and started to head back. As the remaining water evaporated off our skin, we became covered in a thin layer of salt. I tried to put on my shirt, but it started to painfully snag on the salt covered hairs on my arm and torso, so I gave up on this.
We walked back towards where we had parked and used the on-site showers to clear our bodies of salt. We then headed towards Mars Valley. Our original ETA was 5:02, which was concerning as the park closed by 5pm. However, Abhijit was an MVP driver and got through the horrible dirt road and to Mars valley by 4:55.
The valley had beautiful red rock formations which seemed to be from Mars (hence the name). We drove through narrow canyons and stopped at a point to climb the nearby sand dune and explore. After a bit, we came back to the car and continued driving. At some point, we passed several people sand boarding down a dune!
Eventually we reached the end of where cars were allowed, so we got out and continued walking. We passed through an incredibly narrow canyon to a point with a beautiful view of the impending sunset. We waited here for some time and played with some dogs which seemed to be collectively owned by the tourists of Mars Valley.
After heading back home, we stopped at Emporio Andino for some huge empanadas. These were amazing and a wonderful end to a long and tiring day. When we came back, we were also greeted by our new roommate; a solo male traveler had arrived to fill our 4th bed.
8/3: Atacama Part 3
We woke up and got out early again today on our way south. We tried to buy tomorrow’s bus tickets to Salta, but the offices didn’t open until 11am. Our plan was to visit the village of Socaire and Laguna Miscanti on our way to Piedras Rojas. The scenery during the drive was quite different than when we had gone west the last couple days, with snow-capped mountains and vast field of green tufted grass.
Along the road, we made a quick stop at a sign indicating that we had reached the latitude of the Tropic of Capricorn. This is the furthest south point at which the sun can ever be seen directly overhead! We pulled away as a few more cars stopped at the same point.
Our first real stop was to the village of Socaire. This was charming and generally quiet, though a church and some ancient agricultural terraces nicely ornamented the view of the nearby Salar de Atacama.
Next, we stopped at Lagunas Miscanti and Miñaques. These are two gorgeous, deep blue lagoons nestled among snow-capped mountains. We walked along some paths next to the lagoons before continuing on.
The drive to Piedras Rojas was supposed to take around 90 minutes according to Google Maps despite being only 25 miles, so we assumed we’d be going on some pretty horrible roads. They must have been paved recently, as the going was great and we got there in barely over 30 minutes. As we approached, we were treated to gorgeous views of Salar de Talar surrounded by red rocks and mountains.
Unfortunately, Piedras Rojas was closed for the season, so we were unable to explore the red rocks on foot, but we went to a nearby viewpoint to enjoy the landscape. This was probably the most beautiful and colorful landscape we had seen yet.
As we headed back, we stopped for the classic middle of road picture, but with a snowman that we had made from snow on the side of the road. After this, we drove quickly back to town and arrived by 3:30. Our first stop was to the bus station to buy our bus tickets, but unfortunately the bus was full, so we involuntarily ended up extending our stay in San Pedro by a day. As a result, two of us would have to move from our original room into a larger 6-bed room.
We stopped for food at one of the other highly rated empanada places, Cafe Katarpe. This was was really good, but not quite as good as Emporio Andino, so we went there next to get another empanada to split. We then spent much of the afternoon planning what we’d do in Salta once we finally found a way there.
At some point, we ventured out for ice cream, and I tried a surprisingly good Quinoa con Leche scoop, which was flavored based on a variant of the South American dessert Arroz con Leche (vaguely rice pudding). Later in the evening, we went up to the hostel’s social area to meet some of the other guests, but we were tired enough to leave fairly early.
8/4: Atacama Part 4
Rohan and I woke up very relaxedly as Abhijit went to return the car. After he returned, we got our things together, picked up more empanadas, and walked 2 miles over to Pukara de Quitor, the site we had missed last time. Here, we walked 45 minutes uphill on zigzagging paths next to an ancient fortress of the Atacaman people. At the end of the path, there was a memorial to the Atacaman people who had died here against Spanish Colonizers. This spot was also an amazing viewpoint of the mountains which made up Mars Valley.
After heading back down, we decided to explore another path which apparently lead toward mountain caves. The man in the ticket office said that the path may seem closed, but it’s open and we might need to get a key from someone. On our way, we passed through a door with a lock which had been opened. As we continued, we came to a second lockable door which was also unlocked, but stuck closed due to dried mud which had settled higher than it was supposed to.
Around this second door, we ran into a couple who had received similar instructions to us. They decided to turn back and handed us the keys they had borrowed from the original ticket office. We decided instead to climb the fence and explore the other side. We quickly reached a dead end and turned back to see if we had missed the actual path.
After going back towards the first door, we went towards a path we had originally thought was closed due to rope blocking it. Since we were told it was actually open, we hopped the rope. I eventually found the sign indicating we were correct, but it was upside down and buried in hardened mud.
With a fair amount of difficulty, we climbed up and down a rock and hardened mud wall and found what seemed to be the right cave. We had begun to realize that this was probably closed for a reason, that reason being there must have been a fairly recent landslide which had filled the path with hardened mud. This had also made climbing through the path difficult, as many of the hand and foot holds did not have much structural integrity. Abhijit took a quick look inside the cave, then the three of us left quickly.
When we returned the key, we mentioned the conditions on the path to the man at the ticket office, and he seemed unsurprised and surprisingly unconcerned. As we continued walking, we were fairly dehydrated and had long since finished our water, but we ran into a conveniently placed juice stand from which we got fresh passion fruit banana juice.
As we arrived back in town, we dropped by the Museo del Meteorito (Meteorite Museum) along our way. This was based on a collection of meteorites found in Chile and was housed in two geodesic domes. The exhibit itself was super well organized with an audio tour taking you through each glass case. The tour showed you the full process of how the planet formed, and the meteorites represented chunks torn from precursors of planets at the various stages of planet formation which were being discussed.
After this, we came back and Abhijit and I moved into our new room for the last night. This was a 6 person room, so it was a bit packed. After settling in, we all watched Netflix for a bit together before sleeping early for tomorrow’s bus.
