Chile Oct. 23-Nov. 2, 2011

After our farewells the Uyuni Salt Flats group split up with Sebastian, Shogo, and myself headed for San Pedro de Atacama in Chile and the rest returning to Uyuni. Descending into the Atacama was completely breathtaking with a camera simply unable to capture the majestic vastness of the desert plain stretched out below us. Once in the town we marched through Chilean customs and immigration... of all the South American countries I had entered thus far, Chile definitely had the most paperwork to fill out and they even searched our bags.

San Pedro de Atacama rests at about 2,407 metres above sea level and is situated slightly west of the Andes with a marvelous view of the Licancabur volcano, which I had driven around early that morning on the Bolivian side. Daytime temperatures are between 25-30 degrees Celsius with night time temperatures dropping to 0 degrees or lower. San Pedro, as its name suggests, is also on the edge of the Atacama desert (with an area of 105,000 square kms), which, according to NASA, National Geographic, and many other publications, is the driest desert in the world. On average it receives 1 mm of rainfall each year with some weather stations which have NEVER received any rain. Evidence suggests that the Atacama may not have had any significant rainfall from 1570 to 1971. The part of the desert south of Antofagasta has been compared to the climate on the planet Mars and has been used to test instruments to be used in Mars missions.

With that out of the way our high Andean clothing began to take its toll on us in the afternoon desert heat. We had planned to meet Diana and some of her Uyuni group in San Pedro, but we all seemed to miss one another, so the boys and I headed for the Plaza de Armas to wait a while longer and chill out with some drinks and food. We were all shocked with how much more expensive Chile was than Bolivia, but the streets were clean, the dogs wore collars, and street signs greeted us at every corner... delightful!

A quick stop at tourist info got us a town map and a list of all 96 hostels/hotels in the small town...we later learned that San Pedro is THE tourist spot in Chile. We trekked and sweated around t own in search of cheap accommodations till we found a price that couldn't be beat only to discover that part of the town's water supply was out of order... looks like we were going to "live dirty" in the desert for a day or two. This at least motivated us to get our plans together in a hurry. Shogo took off on an afternoon tour while Sebastian and I bided our time a bit to scout out some cheap deals.

A couple hours later and we had our next two days planned and paid for: an early morning trip up to the Tatio geysers, an afternoon adventure to the Valley of the Moon, and an early bus the following morning to Antofagasta. The rest of our day involved a lot of lounging around in the late day desert heat and meeting people at our hostel. One fun meeting occurred when I met a fellow Canadian... only one of us spoke mostly French and the other mostly English, so we had an interesting time communicating in our equally poor Spanish and filling in the gaps with smatterings of French and English, quite entertaining!!

We got about 3 hours sleep that night because we needed to be ready for our geyser tour pickup at 4 am... this proved more difficult than usual as we had woken up at 5 am the previous day to view the Bolivian geysers... but we did it! The drive up to 4,200 metres where the geysers of El Taito were located was a cold one punctuated with bumpy roads and brief snatches of sleep. El Tatio roughly translates to "the grandfather". With over 80 active geysers, El Tatio is the largest geyser field in the southern hemisphere and the third largest field in the world, after Yellowstone, USA, and Dolina Giezerov (partially destroyed in June 2007).

We arrived at the geyser site as morning twilight turned the cold black sky myriad shades of violet and purple, giving the steam filled crater the appearance of being a recently bombed out war front. As the sun crept over the horizon the scene gradually transformed, shifting through the rainbow colours of the spectrum until the sun's disc cleared the surrounding dark ridges. A couple of hours wandering amongst shafts of steam and we drove to the other end of the crater to partake in some thermal baths. By the time we got out of the water the sun was climbing high and the pillowy plumes of steam were reduced to nearly nothing... mere wisps in the now bright landscape.

With one of rear tires slowly going softer the minibus snaked its way into lower altitudes to make a snack stop at the Pueblo de Machuca, a village with less than 40 regular residents. We also got to check out several wandering herds of wild Vicunas. Once back in San Pedro, Sebastian and I had 2 or 3 hours to eat and prepare for our afternoon tour of the Vall de la Luna. The valley has various stone and sand formations which have been carved by wind and water. It has an impressive range of color and texture, looking somewhat similar to the surface of the moon. There are also dry lakes where the composition of salt makes a white covering layer of the area. It presents diverse saline outcrops which appear like man-made sculptures. There are also a great variety of caverns. Valle de la Luna is a part of the Reserva Nacional los Flamencos and was declared a Nature Sanctuary in 1982 for its great natural beauty and strange lunar landscape, from which its name is derived. The valley is also considered one of the driest places on earth, as some areas have not received a single drop of rain in hundreds of years. A prototype for a Mars rover was tested there by scientists because of the valley's dry and forbidding terrains.

The Valley of the Moon journey began with a stop at an amazing viewpoint of the Valle de la Muerte (Valley of Death) before checking out another lookout overlooking the Vall de la Luna. We next descended into the Valley of the Moon national park reserve where we were dropped off at the entrance to the valley's canyon. In the canyon we were able to observe some bizarre crystalline formations created by short, sudden, desert downpours which rapidly eroded the fragile rock walls of the ravine which are composed largely of various types of salts. After a hike through the canyon we got a ride to the rock formation of the "Three Sisters" before heading to our sunset location on the Great Dune with a view.

 

Back in San Pedro we were exhausted and in need of some serious sleep if we were to make our 7 am bus to Antofagasta. So we slept. In the morning we did the 5 hour bus ride to the capital of the region, Antofagasta. We had hoped to make an excursion to the Mano del Desierto south of the city, but cheap transport to the middle of the desert was near impossible to find at a reasonable price. That and Antofagasta really had nothing to offer us... it only had 2 hostels! So we hung out at the bus station and did some internet research to see where we should run out the rest of our stay in Chile before both of us got on planes for New Zealand. The beach town of La Serena seemed like a nice spot with many affordable hostels, so off we went on the 10 hour bus to La Serena.

Our time in La Serena was.... serene. We didn't do much but chill out at the German run hostel and chat with other travelers about their past and future adventures. Chile being as pricey as it is had us cooking our own meals and taking advantage of the free services offered at the hostel like HOT showers, laundry facilities, and free internet. A couple days later we hopped another night bus for Santiago. Sebastian had a plane to catch the day we arrived, while I had a couple days to burn... so I found a sweet, cheap hostel with a pool and a jacuzzi where I could hang out till my flight to New Zealand.

While in Santiago I barely left the hostel... the city is BIG, clean, but, yet ANOTHER South American city. That and on the first day I met a few Chilean locals who lived at the hostel 2 weeks out of each month. We exchanged stories, enjoyed the pool, played some cards, and had a great Halloween together. Once they left to go back to their jobs (in San Pedro) I could just hardly wait to get on a plane and begin my next set of adventures in New Zealand. I had burned through a good deal of money in the last couple of months and was ready to do some wwoofing in order to save a few dollars before heading into Southeast Asia. Off to the airport!