I felt it was really taking me a lot of time to get closer to Bolivia, so I decided to fly from Santiago to Calama in order to avoid running into any other "attractions" that would slow me down even more.
I arrived in San Pedro de Atacama that same night and the city was nothing like I expected (yes, I know this is becoming the standard on my trip :) It was quite dark, with unpaved streets and all houses were made of "adobe". Certainly not something you would expect from one of Chile's most touristry cities. However, under the sun light it turns out to be quite a cute place, the adobe houses are very nice and the fact that they haven't constructed any modern looking building is certainly a plus.
I found San Pedro night life to be quite less happening than everybody had led me to believe, as there are no bars and people just seem to simply have a few drinks at the table where they ate. However, I found the city's restaurants to be very attractive, specially my favorite one: La Estaka. They are rustic but with a modern design, sort of like a mix between Catalan modernism and Castillian austerity (sorry for those of you who don't know these wonderful regions). And they served some of the best food I've had in Chile, being both delicious and creative.
There are lots of things you can do at San Pedro, being the most typical ones visiting the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley), the Tatio Geysers and the Atacama salt lake (third largest in the world after the one in Uyuni, Bolivia, and the one in Salt Lake City, USA). Since I was going to see geysers on my way to Uyuni and the ones at el Tatio were not at their peak (not to mention you had to wake up at 4 am and endure temperatures of several degrees below zero) I decided to skip them. Somebody told me later that it was a mistake, but now I have a good reason to return some day to San Pedro :)
I combined a visit to Valle de la Luna with a initiation to sand-boarding on the Valle de la Muerte (Death Valley). Sand-boarding turned out to be easier than I expected and a lot of fun, but one of the most tiring sports I've ever tried (specially walking up the dune after having surfing it down).
Both the Valle de la Luna and the Valle de la Muerte were spectacular. They are formed by salt covered by clay, creating surreal shapes. Apparently, the name of Valle de la Muerte is due to a communication misunderstanding, when the Belgian priest Father le Paige tried to say that the valley reminded him of Marte (Mars) and the locals understood Muerte (Death). I must say that even the Valle de la Luna also reminds me a lot more of Mars than the Moon. Anyway, seeing the Valle de la Muerte and all the volcanoes and mountains that surround it turn red during sunset was something truly unforgetable.
I visited also the Atacama salt lake, together with some some beautiful "Altiplanic" lagoons and other some other smaller salt lakes at over 4,000 m. Along the way we saw a lot of animals: foxes, ñandús (a big bird like an ostrich) and vicuñas (a sort of wild llama, similar to the guanacos in Argentina). The Atacama salt lake was quite different from most others salt lakes, as its salt has been mixed with mud and clay from the surrounding mountains creating a rough, wrinkled and brown surface. The thickness of the salt layer varies between 20 and 80 cm. and, to my surprise, there is water underneath.
Although part of the salt lake is a national park, most of it remains unprotected. In fact, in some areas salt is being extracted, specially to obtain lithium for the batteries.
At the Chaxa Lagoon, within the Atacama salt lake, we saw quite a few flamingoes (not as many as we would see in Bolivia) belonging to tree of the five species that exist in the world. They eat micro-algaes and other micro-organisms, some of which are responsible for their pink color (when they are young, flamingoes are white).
On the way back to San Pedro, or "San Perro" (Saint Dog), as some locals call it due to the large number of stray dogs that live in the city, we stopped at Toconao, a village whose only interest is that all houses are made of volcanic stones. Actually my highlight there was feeding and playing with some llamas that a local handycrafter had in his yard. They make this funny noises to call your attention and get more food. Very cute animals.
My last day on San Pedro I decided to bicycle back to the Valle de la Luna to see some salt tunnels that we were not able to visit the first time. Unfortunately we had to wipe out the mud from the walls to actually see the salt (we learn that afterwards), so we couldn't find them and went back to the city.
And to complete the day, one of the guys that worked in our hostel had offered himself to take us in a tour to the laguna Céjar, a lagoon that few people know (only a couple agencies talk about it) where you can float, as in the Dead Sea. We told more people to share the costs and at the end it we were six people squeezed into this guy's pick up truck (funny enough, two of the people we recruited were recent graduates of USC, the university I attended in Los Angeles).
Our improvised guide had never been there (or at least didn't remember the way), so we spent 1 and a half hours trying different paths (some of them very rough) and pushing the car when it got stuck in the sand. And just when we beginning to lose all hope, we got there.
It was spectacular, this blue lagoon surrounded by white salt and absolutely no one else. After enjoying the weightless sensation of floating there, we faced the tough part: getting out of it. The walls around the lagoon were quite steep and the top of the salt layer was very strong, sharp and cutting, so our feet (and many parts of our body) looked as if we had been walking on a bed of needles. And I don't need to tell you how pleasant it is to have bleeding wounds all over your body when at the same time you are covered in salt. Ouch!
After the lagoon, we drove (while taking care of our wounds) to the Jere gorge, an amazing oasis created by a river on the bottom of a small canyon. In this oasis locals were growing lots of differen fruits, and it was an impressive contrast to see all those trees on this gorge in the middle of the desert.
And well, that was my last sight of Chile (until I go to Easter Island), because the next morning I entered a very different country: Bolivia.
No comments:
Post a Comment