San Pedro de Atacama Part 1 – Wandering Miner

A relatively short bus trip of 5 hours, gets you from Antofagasta to San Pedro de Atacama. This is a small desert town, out of which you can explore the Atacama Desert and volcanoes surrounding the area. I’m sure that the tourist to local ratio is at least 5:1 – it’s very popular!

I spent nearly a week here- not because I had such a packed schedule here but it tied in well with a very cheap flight I managed to get from Calama to Concepcion, in the south. Five days would be just perfect.

Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley) is a mixture of sand dunes and a large crater giving it a moon-like appearance. It also has salt caves to explore- mind you, you do need to contort a bit to get through them. The Valley is located in the Cordillera de la Sal. We went in the late afternoon and stayed for sunset too. The colours across the volcanoes and Andes is great- not sure that the photos capture it.

Licancabur is a 6,000m amsl volcano that overlooks San Pedro, and has a classic shape but cannot be climbed from Chile. It is too dangerous due to the landmines that Pinochet dropped on the Bolivia/Chile border during the 20^th Century War of the Pacific. The locations of the landmines are unknown- and every time there is a large downpour they move.

The Laguna Altiplanicas (highland lakes) are located at 4,200m amsl. They consist of Laguna Miscanti – 15km² surface area and Miniques-1,5km². “Miscanti” means “frogs” in the local language and the volcano by the lake is named after the lake. The smaller lake also has a volcano next two it. There is a theory that states that the lakes may have become two after a volcanic explosion. Flamingoes do live in these lakes- though there were only two when I was visiting 🙂 .

The lakes do freeze as sub-zero temperatures do occur regularly at this altitude.

The smaller volcanoes between the larger ones are known as Punta Negras (black points) and do have some thermal waters.

During this trip we were lucky to spot some local animals. The vicuna- highland relative of the llama- lives between 3,500 and 4,500m amsl. The suri is an Andean ostrich and the viscacha which is like a rabbit/chinchilla rodent. Vicuna wool is the most expensive in the world, however due to the protection of the animal hunting and wool gathering is not allowed.

A 04h00 rise and shine and a pick up between 04h30 and 05h00 means that a trip to El Tatio geysers was coming up. El Tatio is the third largest geyser field in the world, behind Yellowstone and a field in Siberia that you can only fly over. It is also the highest geyser field at 4,300m amsl. Amazingly you can walk through and around the geyser field. The feeling of walking on top of a very active volcano- with magma chambers ONLY 6-8m below your feet and water that squirts out of holes at 85°C is a bit unsettling. The temperatures ranges experienced during the day- San Pedro de Atacama was approximately 6°C, -5°C in El Tatio and then 28°C when we got back at midday. I later heard that two days after I did this trip it was -12°C in the morning!!! The reason for the trips being so early is for the greater variation in temperature between the steam and outside temperature. It gives a more dramatic and visible impact.

The road to and from the geysers is a dirt road –which is great as you can explore more outback areas. We stopped in a couple of places which included two wetlands in the desert!! Machuca is a tiny town of 10 families and is supported by tourism- the best things here are the church and the wetland of the same name.

Had a lovely time at Hierbas Buenas (Petroglyphs) and Valle del Arcoiris (Rainbow Valley). It was a great morning out –in the only area around San Pedro that must not have 23 tours happening at the same time! Had a peaceful walk around the petroglyphs –which were between 1,000 and 5,000 years old. Images include llamas, foxes, monkey and dog.

The rainbow colours in the valley are due to many different minerals.

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