Category Archives: Chile

15 hours

Getting on the bus in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

The plan was to cross from San Pedro into Bolivia and walk on the salt hexagons in Salar de Uyuni. The tour is advertised by many agencies in town but managed exclusively by the Bolivians. And it goes at pretty high altitude, around 5000 meters with overnight resting places around 4300 meters.

For a number of reasons, one being the expected rain in the “salar”, we changed plans and we were lucky to find seats for a Salta bus to Argentina that was supposed to leave at 7:30 AM the following day.

And it did with only 1.5 hour delay taking us to a phenomenal ride on the altiplano surrounded by snow capped volcanos and clear lagoons reflecting other surrounding peaks. The ride from San Pedro de Atacama to the border with Argentina is less than 3 hours.

However the border processing takes quite a while. especially There are always people whose papers are not in orders or they lost their Chilean entry ticket, so we ended up spending 3 hours for crossing the border. And when finally the bus decided to move it stopped with a screech in 100 meters at a gas station and everybody went out to buy snacks for another hour.

However in that small gas station snack shop we had the first encounter with the “blue dollar” when the small Andean woman selling espresso was exchanging new $100 bills for 30000 pesos while the official exchange rate was listed as 172 pesos/dollar. But more on this later.

Many years ago we took a train ride over the Peruvian altiplano from Cusco to Juliaca. It was the preferred way to descend from the heights of Cusco to the lower plains but also a spectacular journey surrounded by snow capped peaks and heard of lamas and vicunas. It was a long journey though, 9 hours in total and after about 4 hours of so much beauty we eagerly awaited to reach Juliaca that is far from a desired destination. We felt the same while on this amazing bus ride over the Chilean and Argentinian altiplano. The journey was spectacular but it was way too long and after about 12 hours we were feeling that we will never reach Salta. Are you wondering if there was a shorter alternative? The other option was driving 100 km from San Pedro to Calama, flying from there to Santiago, further to Buenos Aires and from there back to Salta. So the 15 hours bus ride was a real deal!

Closer to San Salvador de Jujuy, Argentina

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Eyes of the desert

The desert watches you through his eyes of salt, large circles of clear water in the middle of an unforgiving expanse of salt that spreads tens of kilometers till the faded row of volcanos. To get there you drive on rattling dirt roads where brave cyclists try to find a sliver of shade under forgotten trees. When you look through the “Ojos de Salar” you see a landscape that reminds you of the American southwest of large expanse with almost nobody around.

Laguna Tebenquiche, Salar de Atacama, Chile

The eyes of salt are near a large lagoon covered itself in salt during the summer months after the scorching sun evaporated the last film of water from its surface. It’s salt as far you can see with some splashes of water, and occasional white bumps looking like ice if it were not the scorching hot days of summer. Small salt piles.

It’s a long and peaceful walk on one side of the lagoon on a path that meanders through forever fields covered in balls of salt.

On the way to Calama a road skirting the peaks reaches inside Vale de Arcoiris, a canyon of red rock. The road is cut high in the mountain from where the valley and the villages look tiny near the river that lazily flows at the bottom.

At the end of the road the village of Rio Negro is built out of the red rock of the mountain. Houses align the two streets that go around the old adobe church. The houses have backyards with tall enclosures made out of the same red rock that have inside various crops, the enclosures preserving between their walls precious water.

Guanaco petroglyphs at Yerba Buena, Chile

Yerba Buena is a collection of rock piles where the ancient Andeans, the Atacameno people, carved petroglyphs of people and animals that date back approximately 10,000 years.

The representation of lamas, vicunias and guanacos are so alive seemingly jumping out of the rocks to the nearby plains where you encounter them when you drive back

And again, never miss a sunset in Atacama desert.

Sunset in Cordillera del Sal, Atacama Desert, Chile

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Geysers

To get to El Tatio geyser field you wake up at 4:30AM because the minivan that picks you up canvases the town’s streets around 5:00 AM. Even if you have a car, driving in the dark on a guessed dirt road all the way up to 4320 meters is a challenge. It is highly recommended a 4X4 vehicle no matter that we saw small cars parked at the geysers.

The geyser field, the third in the world after Yellowstone and the Kamchatka geysers, is also known as Copacoya Geysers after the name of the nearby mountain. Its name means in Kunza language “oven”. It’s a geothermal field with many hot springs and sinter deposits that flow down forming Rio Salado. Its geothermal power was considered for geothermal energy production for a project that was recently abandoned.

On good weather the place is magic inviting to roam freely among the steam columns, Many geysers are surrounded by high walls raised relatively recently trying to protect the daydreaming tourists enchanted by the spectacular force of nature spewing from the ground of walking straight into them. A number of them lost their lives in the past walking cluelessly or falling in the scalding waters bubbling in the ground while taking picture for Instagram.

Coming down from the geysers you pass Machuca Village, a traditional village that happened to have a religious ceremony at the church. Tired by tourists the villagers imposed a very high fee to visit the village that make the buses and vans avoid the place.

The church in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

Most of the tours and independent trips in San Pedro de Atacama are half-day affairs. So no matter what hour you start in the morning most probably you’d be back for lunch in San Pedro chewing one of the tasty empanadas sold on Caracoles. Or you can hang out in the main square of the town sweating in front of the Christmas Tree or admiring its white washed adobe church.

Shaped by wind and water, El Valle de la Luna is a deserted stretch of sand dunes hidden by a canyon that looks to be taken from a picture on Mars. The local lore says that NASA trained here for the Moon or Mars expeditions but I could not find yet an article to confirm this. But I would not be surprised because the valley looks so similar in several places with the images sent by the rover.

Near the main road winding through a low canyon there are several hikes that are snaking around large dunes, perfectly shaped by wind. The desolation you feel in the valley is enhanced by its vastness admired from the peaks where humans look like insignificant moving dark speckles in the magnificent landscape. Salt formation, abandoned salt mines and pits are fickle of memory of once the most important salt center of the country whose products reached through barter all the way to Santiago.

Tres Marias in Vale de la Luna, Atacama Desert, Chile

After a long days of hikes the best you can do is to admire the sunset at Piedra del Coyote or somewhere in Cordillera de Sal. And just chill before you go for that Malbec for dinner!

Sunset in Cordillera de Sal, Atacama Desert, Chile

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Salar

Calle Caracoles in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

After you fly over what seems to be a never-ending stretch of red earth the landing in Calama Airport does not change too much your expectations. From there you drive another 100 km – that you have to drive again back and forth if you decide to rent a car – to reach the first settlement, the village/town of San Pedro de Atacama. When you reach the place, the impeccable paved road abruptly ends making way to a dirt pedestrian street lined up with restaurants, travel agencies and filled by bunch of backpacking youth roaming for the next adventure.

But the adobe walls lining the San Pedro’s main drag hide behind them spectacular interiors, elegant spas and exquisite restaurants from where music of all sorts beam toward the street. San Pedro de Atacama is the typical travelers’ hangout place where yoga, didgeridoo music and hiking gear all mix together in the dust of the unpaved Calle Caracoles.

But is a lot to see around. San Pedro sits at 2400 meters but most of the places to be visited are at a way higher altitude. When you cross the Capricorn Tropic you beam toward Salar de Talar, a place known by the local Andeans as Aquas Calliente but also named Piedras Rojas because of the red stones that surround the lagoon. But to get access to the magical world of the Salar you need, like everywhere else in Chile, to book online and get a QR code that most travelers have no clue about. To make things more complicated you have to stop in the small village of Socaire, smack in the middle of the desert, show the QR code and get a blue paper without which the gates of the magical salty world are sealed. And if you don’t have reception in that desolate place, don’t worry about because the Andean woman tending the tiny metal shack will give access to the WiFi and, bang!, you are connected to the world.

At Salar de Talar, or however you want to call it, you are at 3900 meters surrounded by borax, salt and a blue lagoon contrasting with the red rocks. The peaks around the lagoon are volcanos, as long as anything sticking out in this Pacific Rim is spewing occasional some smoke or even ashes. When we arrived in San Pedro, the Lascar Volcano just 20 km from San Pedro decided to erupt a bit but nobody in town seemed to worry. Earthquakes and volcano eruptions are like gentle blows of wind for them.

Vicunas, one of the four camelids of South Americas, are protected in Chile anybody caught hunting them getting a 5 year jail sentence. With no predators they chill and roam everywhere unbothered by travelers or traffic. We found them everywhere near the roads like here, near the two Lagunas Altiplanicas. Miscanti and Miniques Lagoons are accessed with the same ticket as Salar de Talar on the way back to San Pedro. The tranquility we encountered at these lagoons was priceless. But this tranquility offered by a completely deserted parking lot near the laguna Miniques was caused, as in San Pedro, by the fact that the town just opened after the pandemic and there were very few tourists. Most of the hotels in town were empty and our great Hotel Tulor owned by the famous archeologist Ana Maria Baron who discovered the Andean artifacts around San Pedro opened only the weekend when we arrived.

On the way back to San Pedro there is Laguna Chaxa. The depth of the “salar” on which the lagoon sits is about 1.5km. From the lagoon you can watch Lascar Volcano’s fumaroles and the large flamingo colony nesting fin the distance. The flamingos stand almost all day with the beak in the water canvasing the bottom in search for tiny shrimps that give them the pink color.

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Roaming the world

FLYING MONK

Category Archives: Chile

15 hours

Eyes of the desert

Geysers

Salar