San Pedro de Atacama

Having left Santiago 25 and a half hours earlier, Paola and I finally arrived in San Pedro de Atacama (about 1600km north of Santiago high in the Andes at 2700m altitude). This is a very touristy spot, becuase of all the natural things one can see here. There are geysers, active volcanoes, dormant volcanoes, MOUTAINS galore (duh! The Andes!) as well as the great expanse of the driest desert in the world! It´s a very small town (compared to the 5 million people city of Santiago, San Pedro is like a blip!) and the air is very clean! Like Paola says, she´s here to clear her lungs from all the smog in Santiago... This little town is surrounded by desert for miles and miles....a bit of an oasis.

We survived the long bus trip becuase the seats were so comfortable. The bathroom smelled a bit every now and again, but otherwsie a good trip. To the relief of the the busdriver, I was there to help translate things for him for all the tourists in the bus that couldn´t speak spanish... We arrived in the late afternoon, just in time to see a bit of the festivities of San Pedro (Peter....the Jesus' apostle who founded the first church....). It was so full of energy, their music, and their costumes so bright! Beautiful....everyone seemed so content and happy....it´s a shame i didn´t get any pictures beucase my camera was tucked away....

We got a good deal with one of the hundreds of tour operators here...three tours.....

On Friday we had a relaxing morning and at 3pm, we headed towards the "Valle de La Luna", which is a valley that looks a lot like the lunar landscape one sees in the hundreds of pictures taken of the moon....Quite special really.... We passed through caves, which were basically just crystallised salt....during the heavy rain in Jan and Feb, you can´t even go to this area, becuase they have so much rain that it seems a lot like a monsoon! The rock is washed away but the salt stays behind after the sun comes out and dries the place to the bone....This lunar valley is surrounded by three sand dunes, of which one we climbed up and watched the sunset...imagine, sitting on a sand dune, looking apon a lunar valley, surrounded by the Andes mountain range and watching the sun go down... no words...just WOW!

Valle de la Luna with the sand dune being behind me...was hard work climbing up soft sand!

Me waiting for the sun to go down enjoying the view of the Moon Valley and the Andes in the background....

The following morning, Paola and I were up at 3:30am to go on our second tour: El Tatio ("The crying old man") Geysers. Basically, the trip took us 2 hrs (only about 90km's but the road was VERY bumpy!) and we had to arrive early because the geysers are more active in the morning becuase of the very cold temperatures (-10 degrees celcius). We arrived at around 6am, and basically froze! Boy was it cold! This plateau is at 4300m and is in the shadow of an active volcano...hense the numerous geysers...this is the third largest geyser landscape in the world BUT it is the highest geyser plateau in the world (I mean, they need their claim to fame!). I felt like a ball with legs, because I basically had ALL my tops, jerseys and jackets on (10 layers in total!) and I still managed to feel frozen...well, I can tell you it was amazing....so many active geysers, and you could just walk amoung them...some more active than others...There was even a pool, where hot water mixed with called water and where you could swim if you wanted too! The water was lovely and warm! But I didn´t wanted to think about stripping myself of even ONE of my layers! BRRRRRRRRRRR.......

Part of the geyser field...there were hundreds of them!

One of the more active geysers that day, with a fountain of water spewing out!

Some of the colours that were seen becuase of the mineral rich water from all the volcanic activity.

A bird´s got to eat...We had a biscuit left over and decided to feed a bird...looking very fat to protect itself from the cold (it may not look like it but it was like -5 degrees here!). Cool picture don´t you think?

We were offered coffee, which I greedily accepted....and by the time it was poured it was luke warm:-( But, one with so many geysers around, what better way then to warm up your cup of coffee by putting it into a geyser???? That´s how we warmed up a packet of milk too! Lol!

On the way back to San Pedro, we stopped a couple of times. Once in a tiny town which is litterally in the middle of no where, and even though it existed out of about 20 houses, 2 cats and one dog, they had a lovely old church there... they take their religion very seriously here....Though this church isn´t like most ones...this church had a tall tower, symbolising the male watching over the female which was symbolised as a shorter tower... From here we went back to the town, where we stopped once more to take a look at some cactii. Hasving the rest of the afternoon to just relax, i ended up spending a fortune on woollen products...uhmmmm.....

The last day (yesterday) we went to see the flamingos at "Salar de Atacama" - a huge salt deposit where several diffrent plankton species survive and are the food source for the flamingos. Salar de atacama is the largest salt pan in Chile. We saw several flamingos with several of them flying above us...but they we too fa away for my camera...From here we went to two lagoons which are at an altitude of 4300m...at the foot of several volcanoes, these two lakes were formed becuase of the trapped water from the snow...Again, cold but beautiful...you really feel like you´re the only one in the world! Views incredible!

Now I´m in La Serena (a 16hr bus ride from San Pedro), a coastal town, and just resting from the long bus ride....tried to upload more photos, but now blogger is acting up...so enjoy the ones I´ve already uploaded!