Finally, other tourists…

Whilst we have been to many tourist areas, and visited the usual sites, it has been fairly quiet. We have met lots of guides, and a few locals for beers etc., but not many tourists. This is principally because it is winter in Chile, and does not coincide with European or Asian holidays. This all changed in San Pedro de Atacama.

We arrived by overnight bus in San Pedro and walked from the bus station through town to our out-of-the-way hostel. The lovely hosts let us in, fed us breakfast, and let us shower before we ventured out into the bustling town.

It is only a small town, but like Queenstown in New Zealand, it is where all the tourists pass through. With a lovely town square and a main road of about five blocks, it must have about fifty tour agencies dotted around amongst the typical backpacker shops.

This place caters for everybody, from five star American groups to people like us staying in a room on the side of someone’s house. It was pretty busy when we were there, and frankly must be unbearable when at its peak in the summer.

Way up into the Atacama Desert, and surrounded by real desert, mountains and volcanoes, San Pedro is famous for a few things, of which we did the top three attractions. Firstly, on one evening we went the few miles out to Valle Luna, or “Valley of the Moon”

As the name suggests, it is like a lunar landscape. From the top of the cliffs we could see all sorts of rock formations below us, with jagged edged hills and oddly-shaped rocks, as well as sand dunes. We travelled down into this dusty and cold landscape to explore the strange land further, before finding a high spot to watch the sun set.

The second trip involved an early, and very cold, start at 4.30am, when we got picked up by minibus and headed out into the desert for a couple of hours. When we arrived at our destination, it was minus twelve degrees and the sun was starting to rise. We were grateful for our five layers of clothing, including thermals.

We were confronted with an extraordinary scene of jets of steam, boiling water and bubbling mud. Spread over the bottom of a dormant crater, we walked through all sorts of weird landscapes and smells, which were quite enchanting despite the cold.

We moved on to another smaller site, which was called the red geyser. This was a large geyser of bubbling sulphur set in a lovely valley. The smell was extraordinary, and the bubbling mud was like a large witches’ cauldron.

On the way back to San Pedro we passed frozen lakes with animals, wild birds, large gulleys with large cacti growing everywhere, and a small village which was famous for its beautiful, tiny church, and its equally beautiful llama kebabs cooked on an open fire.

With the great activities on offer, plus the fun atmosphere in town, San Pedro de Atacama is a great place to visit. It is quite odd to have five layers on in the morning and shorts in the afternoon, but that sums up the driest desert in the world.

Our final activity in San Pedro, involved us changing country to Bolivia. This meant leaving Chile, but we will be back in a few weeks to see more of this wonderful country.