The Atacama Desert

Last Friday we flew north to Calama and then rented a truck and drove to San Pedro in the Atacama Desert. We spent the first night at Hostal La Ruca and then camped the following three nights in Valle de la Muerta (Valley of the Dead!). Very cool camping - because there are no plants there are no animals to worry about (not even insects or scorpions) and so by the second night we were camping in our bags without a tent.


We spent our first afternoon exploring some of the hills around town, and that evening we hiked along the ridge of Valle de la Luna park to watch the sunset over the foothills.


We spent the following day hiking in the rest of Valle de la Luna - climbed a ridge called the ampitheatre, walked to an old salt mine, and spent time exploring some of the caves under the cordillera del sal (salt mountains).



Here I am trying to connect Chicago to San Pedro in what we thought looked a lot like an outline of North and South America in a cave entrance:


Most evenings we would head back to San Pedro to grab dinner before making our way back to Valle de la Muerta to camp. Here's the church in the town's plaza de armas and then the sunset from the street:



On Tuesday we woke up around 4:00am to drive about 90 km north through what's called the Altiplano (high plains) to the Tatio geysers. It took about 3 hours because of the dirt/rock roads, but we made it there just after sunrise (the geysers only go from around 6:30am - 8:30am every morning).



On the ride back we noticed that the Altiplano was full of wild llama herds (check out the video at the end for some up-close shots and also some hilariously high-pitched llama calls).


There are a number of salt flats just south of San Pedro that have small salt ponds with enough brine shrimp to sustain populations of chilean flamingos (pretty cool to see in the middle of the desert!). The chilean flamingos are distinct from most other species because of their dark and curved beaks.


The pond with the highest level of salinity - called Laguna Cejas - is open for swimming. After a couple hours of searching dirt roads (the tour companies are known for taking down road signs and other marks to keep tourists dependent on chartered excursions) we finally turned down the right one and took a swim in what was definitely the most buoyant water either of us had ever been in.



Here's a parting shot of us downing the last of our water before we headed to the airport on Wednesday morning. Plus we have a movie at the bottom where we put together some different clips from the trip...