San Pedro de Atacama

So I arrive in San Pedro de Atacama and it’s absolutely roasting, so the plan to hire a pushbike and ride through El Valle De La Luna got swiftly thrown aside in exchange for an air-conditioned van.

That’s probably the only smart thing I did that afternoon…. I packed no jacket (and it got cool fast at sundown), wore connies (which have no grip and just filled with sand, so walking up the sand dunes and hiking along the edge of a cliff was interesting), and ran out of water within about 20 minutes with not a tienda in sight. But where’s the fun in being organised? Will I ever learn?

The landscape at Valle de la Luna was deadly - the pics speak for themselves…….

A pretty epic sunset over el Valle de la Luna….. had to cruise right at this moment because the bus was waiting, but after this, the entire sky went a vivid pink colour!!!

I spent 4 days in the Atacama region in total; San Pedro de Atacama is super touristy… same sort of level as Cusco, so there wasn’t much in the town that felt very authentic. BUT the sights in the region are just stunning. The Atacama is dubbed “the driest place on earth”, not just because it never rains here (it rains in some places while others have never had rainfall recorded), but because it has the most rapid evaporation rate of anywhere in the world… I feel like the dude said it was 96 litres per second but that could totally be a false memory.

Because it’s so dry there’s not much in the way of flora and fauna (except Flamingos of course, and Vicuñas. The humidity is so low (0.8% during the day and up to 15% at night), and yet some trees survive off this moisture… others have roots that go something like 20m into the ground to access water sources. NUTS.

I did a day trip out to Piedras Rojas (red rocks). Along the way, just after sunrise we cruise into a lagoon full of flamingos where we stop off for some brekkie… this shit seriously never gets old…. by this stage my memory card is full to the brim of lagoons reflecting the sky dotted with tiny flamingos in the distance, and yet I take more. I love a wide angle lens… so much so, that I travel with two (a wide angle… and a super wide angle) and no others…. it’s times like these some versatility would come in handy, but the lack of options forces you to be more creative within your limitations. So there’s no super closeups of the flamingos, but the beauty of the wide angle is you can really get a feel for the space here, one tiny human… a small dot in this expansive landscape. MAD!

Piedras Rojas, named so after the huge round red rocks surrounding a salt lake that you see if you google images of this place. Unfortunately some dumb fuck tourists tagged some of the rocks, and another went wind surfing on the lake illegally and now it’s banned to go anywhere in the vicinity of them but the scene from the viewpoint is out of this world.

Piedras Rojas is located over 4000m altitude; everyone in the tour was responsibly dressed in jeans, jackets, beanies, scarves etc and I am in a flimsy silk dress LOL… Clearly I didn’t read the trip notes which suggested warm layers; seriously will I ever learn??? There is one major theme I am realising to all of my blogs and that is usually under-preparedness.

Thankfully the sun was out and it was warm, but windy AF, so apart from a few too many Marilyn moments I survived.

These aqua lakes are Lagunas Altiplanicas - and my highlight of the day <3

On the way back to San Pedro we stop off at yet another spectacular location, Lagunas Altiplánicas at over 4000m latitude. These lakes were rivers back in the day but the two volcanoes here now, burst up and erupted cutting off the river to form the lakes we now see today. The colours were just so beautiful with the green of the lake contrasting against the little tufts of yellow grass… not much grows at this altitude, but there were these little purple flowers and yellow flowers dotted throughout the grass….SPECTACULAR!

On the road in we saw a pack of Vicuñas where a new male was trying to take some of the females… Normally you have one male and a bunch of women… but this other male was trying to steal some of his harem. We stopped the car and watched it unfold until the pack had run away from this horny dude. Now you wouldn’t see that in a Zoo.

En route back to San Pedro we stop off at a huge sign marking the Tropic of Capricorn on a really straight road. I don’t know what the significance is except that it’s something to do with the sun and I remember visiting it in Australia as a kid in QLD. I could probably Google it but where’s the fun in that. Let’s say it has something to do with December since it’s Capricorn and I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it’s probably at the same latitude as where it also runs through Australia so maybe the sun runs directly over this latitude in December??? Don’t hold me to it LOL; could be way off base.

We’ve all heard of the dead sea….. but I certainly had never heard of Laguna Cejar. It is a little oasis hidden in the middle of the Atacama desert surrounded by salt plains and surreal landscapes; it’s aqua colour looks almost like a mirage as you wander up to the edge. It packs a higher salt concentration than the dead sea, so the weightless feeling is quite bizarre. It was a really strange feeling that moment my feet left the ground and I felt like I was flying through space. I attempted to swim, but it was impossible as my feet kept getting thrown out of the water… so I resolved myself to sit upright as though on a chair and people watch as other discovered the surreal feeling, squeals and laughs abound.

You are suggested to spend no more than 40 mins in the water due to the salt concentration and, when I got out, I could see why; I was glad for the showers as my entire body felt hard as rock and was completely covered in fine white salt.

After washing all the salt off we head to Ojos del Salar (eyes of the salt pan) which are two freshwater lagoons (connected under the ground). They supposedly look like eyes when there is no wind as the water surface reflects the sky… no such luck for me on this day but they still looked crazy cool. We knock back a few pisco sours and some local wine and then scoot to Salar de Atacama (the largest salt flat in Chile). It’s got nothing on Salar de Uyuni but the sunset there was out of this world…. purples and pinks; heck yes!

This region is just out of this world; so many incredible sights that it’s actually hard to choose what to see. There is quite a distance between them so you really do have to choose to visit some at the sacrifice of missing others. On a locals recommendation I was told not to miss Termas de Puritama (the hot springs), so for my last day I head there for opening time to avoid the crowds.

As I’m walking down the path a view opens up below me and it’s this orange rocky gorge, with tufts of hardy grasses and crystal clear hot springs spilling down the rocks into various pools. Either I am missing home, or this magnificent landscape really does resemble the Northern Territory. Just when I am thinking it can’t get any more like home a couple of Belgians rock up with their esky and offer me a beer. It makes me wonder if it’s the fact that I’m coming home soon that makes me find patterns that remind me of home, or if this place truly does resemble the Great Outback Australia. I’ll never know.