The flight to Calama was the first flight within Chile that we did not seat in the very last row of the plane! The extra bonus was having windows to look out of during the flight and they did not disappoint. The desert and mountain scenery was stunning from up high.
Driving through San Pedro, gave all of us flashback to Madagascar. But apart from the mud style houses, there was nothing in common with Madagascar, and for this we are very grateful. The town it self is very tourist driven and nearly every store is either a souvenir shop, a restaurant or a travel company. With the amount of both foreign and domestic tourists it is not surprising.
Whilst in San Pedro de Atacama we went on two fantastic excursions. The first was to the Moon/lunar Valley. It is a desert that is 80% clay, 10% gypsum and 10% salt. You can easily see the salt crystals on the ground as you walk. Mish even licked some to make sure it was actually salt. With the high altitude, and the salt in the ground there is hardly any life in the valley, hence making it very alien or moon like in appearance. It was also strange to see the landscape covered in white. At first glance it could be mistaken for snow, but it salt that has been leached out of the ground by rain and remained on the surface when the water evaporated.
Apart from the clay hills, there are also sand dunes. We stopped by one of the biggest ones, to climb it. The view from the top was very impressive. You could see for kilometers. We ended the excursion with some traditional Pisco Sour drinks and a beautiful sunset overlooking the Moon Valley.
The second excursion, had us getting up at 4:30 am to be able to get to the El Tatio geyser field just as the sun was raising above the mountains. This was our first high altitude excursion, at around 4500m. It was a bit a shock, with the girls hardly feeling it while the parents definitely felt a bit old and slow at this sudden altitude jump.
There are around 80 active geysers in the area, all bubbling away, with the biggest ones gushing up to around 2 meters in height. Some are old some just created, so it was fascinating to see them at different life stages. The water itself is “only” boiling at 85oC, due to the high altitude (and yes we covered a bit of science with the girls today). But hot enough that you have to be careful as a number of tourists in the past fell in and died.
What is amazing is that the magma is just underneath the surface in certain areas. So close (1m) that you can feel the heat when you touch the ground. It was pleasant to touch especially since the outside temperature was just above 1oC.
One the way back to the town, now that it was not pitch black, we got to see a completely different landscape. And we stopped at a few ponds to see some flamingos and at the Rio Putana wetlands. It was filled with ducks, geese and Vicuña (high altitude llamas). Such life even so high up.
We hope that this has prepared us a bit for next stage: Salt flats in Bolivia.
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