San Pedro de Atacama

Lying in the middle of the driest desert in the world is the little oasis tourist town of San Pedro de Atacama. This little spot served as our hub for the landscape around for a couple days!

The Atacama desert lies within northern Chile, tickling the borders of Bolivia, Peru and Argentina. the desert encompasses a valley between the Andes mountains and the Chilean coastal mountains. Both sets mountains shield the desert from rain clouds coming from the Atlantic ocean, or the Pacific ocean respectively. Due to this shielding, it is estimated that parts of the Atacama haven’t had any rain for the last 400 years. San Pedro gets 1-3 rainy days a year on average. The town is sustained by a nearby groundwater oasis.

The bus ride in was short but lovely. We descended from the Bolivian plateau’s down into a sea of orange sand. Little dots of grassy vegetation extended along the dunes. There were some trees in the distance. And as we neared the hill, we could see the town of San Pedro in the middle of seemingly nowhere.

It was hot. Over 30 degrees for sure, and the sun was really strong. We sun-shirted up to explore the town, getting lunch in a nice little vegan café. We checked out some of the areas tours before signing up for the ones at our hostel.

For dinner we had Pil-Pil. Which is all sorts of meats, mushrooms and seafood cooked in a garlic, aji and white wine sauce, served with cheesy fries. It was super flavorful, a welcome change to the day to day Bolivian food that we had been having. Strong spices and a nice shrimp made the meal delicious.

Our first tour the next day was that to Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley). This is a halite valley, that sparkles with white after it rains, and before the dust storms come in. We were not in Atacama for that magical day, so the valley instead was a burnt orange colour. Most tours take tourists to the main valley, with vast landscapes, an abandoned bus, and a mesmerizing sunset, but our guy took us on an alternate route. Cheaper I guess.

We powered through a sand dune to a small (for the area) canyon, and walked the bottom of it. We could see the massive salt chunks nestled in the walls of the canyon, and the dry streams where flash floods occur. The columns of dusty halite towered over the side of us. Eventually, we made it to a cave, and we participated in spelunking for the first time. The cave was big enough where we could stand up and we were comfortable. It was pretty cool when we turned off our lights. There was a little luminescence from a rock or something, but other that than totally pitch black. Apparently our guide is the only one who takes tourists here, so we felt a bit special for that. A little disappointed we didn’t go to the main valley area though.

We then went back out of town at night for an astronomy tour. Through a telescope we could see Jupiter with its bands. Across the sky was Saturn and its rings. Saturn was really cool. There was also some nebula, a disco ball star, and some faraway galaxies. Each of these features were all visible to the naked eye. The telescope allowed us to see them in more detail.

Atacama is a really important place for the world of astronomy, as it is a high altitude location with no atmospheric moisture or major population centers. As a result, the scientists can see very clearly into the sky from here.

Chile was good fun, but now were off again! a 12 hour bus to our 10th country of the trip! We will see you there!