Our first stop on the JessieAndCarrieTravellingExperience (henceforth referred to as "JACTE"), was San Pedro de Atacama. That is, the village of San Pedro, located in the Atacama Desert. For those of you for whom this name does not ring a bell, for shame! The Atacama Desert is the driest desert in the world, and comprises approximately the upper third of Chile. San Pedro is one of the many Oases of the desert, and I will describe more about San Pedro itself in another entry. For now, all you need know is that it was the home base of our adventures for the first few days. The hostel we stayed at offered a really cheap tour package, that went to all the places we had been planning to visit (read: lusting after in our little American guide books). The Salar de Atacama, Valle de la Luna, Valle de la Muerte, and El Tatio Geysers. It also included trips to the lagunas, various Oases, Las Tres Marias, and Mirador, all in two days total, so of course we were very excited.
DAY ONE - Our first day started with a trip to the Gran Salar (great salt lake) de Atacama. My memory isn't perfect, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that this is the third largest salt lake in the world, after the ones in Salt Lake City, Utah and one in southern Bolivia. The main lure to this salar seems to be that you can see flamingos. Personally, I wasn't too excited about the flamingos, and therefore not particularly upset that they were distant and hard to see. The texture of the ground was amazing though - salt lakes are formed by salt water lakes that dry up and just leave the salt formations, which look...well, like huge salt crystals all over the ground. There were some areas where there was still water - in the form of small and large lakes, as well as rivers. Some of the rivers were amazing colors - reds and oranges and browns and greens... It was beautiful! We could also see the mountains in the distance.
After the Salar, we drove to the Lagunas ("lakes") Miscanti and Miñiques, named after the volcanoes they neighbor. The lakes were deep, clear blue, bordered by the tan sands and the grey-blue volcanoes, with strips of snow... As usual, my abilities with a camera do not fully capture the beauty of the region - the contrast, the textures... Sometimes on our trip I worried about becoming numb to beauty if we stayed there too long, if we were able to become accustomed to our surroundings. We walked along a road for a while and often saw piles of rocks on the side of the road. At one point, Carrie turned to me and asked me which animal I thought had made it... um, backpackers? I'm surprised she's never seen them before, but it was entertaining.
We went to lunch in Socaire, a small oasis between the Salar and the Lagunas. The food was delicious and the people in our tour group were interesting and friendly, for the most part. A french couple was rather incommunicative, but there were some Spanish-speakers and a couple of (Dutch, we think) women who spoke English. The meal was a huge, delicious plate of chicken and salad with a delicious grain (the name of which I have forgotten) unique to the region, soup, and homemade bread with pebre (sort of salsa, for spreading on bread). Way too much food for me, but Carrie, who eats about twice her bodyweight at every meal, was well-fed for the first (and pretty much last) time on our trip.
On our way back to the hostel, we stopped at Toconao, another oasis. Way more vegetated than Socaire or San Pedro, Toconao has a huge plant-reservation that we got to walk through - full of gorgeous and lush plants, in the middle of the desert! There was also a plaza with a cool statue and a bell tower. and there were a couple kids playing on and around the statue that were just so cute! Toconao was the last stop on our first day. We came home and went to sleep early in preparation for an early start the next day.
DAY TWO - And by an early start, I mean ridiculously so. We left at 4 AM, at which point it was (below) freezing cold. As per our friend Kevin's suggestion, we tried to bring our blankets from the hostel beds, but one of the hostel workers caught us and made us put them back. The tour guide, who also works for the hostel, thought that was stupid and that we should have been able to keep the blankets. We were annoyed, tired, and cranky about it, but had no idea what we were in for. The El Tatio Geysers, at high elevation in the driest desert in the world, have a temperature of approximately 14 degrees below zero. Celsius. Personally, I was wearing two pairs of tights, one pair of leggings, jeans, three thermal shirts, a jacket, a vest, my huge wool coat from Chiloe, three pairs of socks, hiking boots, gloves, a scarf, and two hats. I couldn't feel my feet, face or hands. Carrie was less prepared and couldn't stand the temperature. Rather than waiting for the sunrise outside, she retreated to the tour van to hide by the heater in the front seat. The view was worth the discomfort. The Geysers released a steady stream of steam and a small pattern of mini-rivers across the ground, which froze in the air before our eyes. As the sun rose, the colors on the mountains changed, and we could see the sunlight creeping across the ground. After a small breakfast provided by our tour group, we moved to a different part of the geysers, where the springs of hot water had created a natural hot tub. We got to go swimming (well, sitting), which was a wonderful way to warm up. Also, there was a large group of French students (I'd say around 17 or 18 years old) that were extremely loud and obnoxious. It was frustrating, but it was nice that it was a group of French students for a change. We didn't have to be embarrassed by the poorly behaved tourists from America this time! Sometimes, it's the little things...
On our way back to San Pedro, we stopped by a tiny oasis (the name of which I've forgotten) with a permanent population of about thirty people. We wandered a bit, and got tea for Carrie, who wasn't feeling well. Possibly from the cold, possibly altitude sickness, possibly because of not eating enough (this last one was her opinion - I think we were eating more than enough for two five-foot tall women). In the oasis, there were small figures outside some houses, made from rocks, which were interesting. We then went back to San Pedro for a few hours before our evening trip to the valleys.
Our first stop in the evening was Mirador, an elevated location from which we could see down into the valleys of the desert. Once again, I was amazed by the expanse of the desert. It is at once beautiful and terrifying - beautiful for the colors and textures and novelty of desert, terrifying for the reality of its deadliness. Can you imagine being stranded here? It's just sand. Dry, lifeless sand for miles in every direction. Sand that burns in the daytime and has temperatures of well below freezing at night. No water, no vegetation, no life. It's extremely intimidating in this light, and makes the oases seem that much more lively and vital in comparison.
After Mirador, we went to Valle de la Muerte (Valley of Death), so named because a frenchman's pronunciation of Marte (Mars) was so strongly accented that it sounded like Muerte (death). There was no tragic event involved in the naming of the valley. It was meant to be named for the red hues and other-worldly sand- and rock-formations. We walked across a section of this valley before getting picked up by our tour bus again to move on.
Our next destination, Las Tres Marias (the three Marys) is a group of rock formations said to look like three versions of the virgin mary. To each his own, I suppose. I can see one human-like figure in the center, but I think the other two are quite a stretch. To be fair, the people who named these rocks were probably dehydrated and delirious from the altitude at the time, so allowances must be made for such names. Personally, I was more intrigued by the rock formation that looks like the head of a turtle from one angle and a fist from a different angle.
Our final stop was Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon), which was simply breathtaking. Literally. We climbed a large sand dune in order to get to a higher point to see the light change colors on the Andes as the sun set. Combined with the high altitude and dry air, this seemingly-simple hike left us gasping for breath and pausing to gulp down water. In the middle of one of many such pauses, an older woman walking in flip flops and a skirt, lit cigarette in one hand, walked calmly past. That was embarrassing. We did indeed make it to our destination before the sun set, and the view was beautiful. We could see down into all the mini-valleys, and also see the andes. As I mentioned previously, the draw of sunset at Valle de la Luna is not the sunset itself, but rather the color play it creates across the Andes. The sun was pretty much gone by the time we returned to our bus, but the view that evening was absolutely beautiful.
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